Here's one for the tacticians amongst us. Why the hell are we going through the season 4 goals down during the 1st quarter?

Is it:

(a) coaching staff getting our matchups wrong at the start of the game.

(b) a too-passive warmup, meaning we're not ready to go at the first bounce.

(c) a lack of self-belief, which leads us to be reactive and allows other teams to get the jump on us.

(d) an overly-cautious coaching box, starting each game with the intent of neutralising the opposition. Then, when they get the jump on us, we have to throw caution to the wind, start attacking, and then actually take control and start scoring.

(e) the team is betting heavily on itself at quarter-time to win.

(f) other

This week I would say it was a combination of a revved up Sydney coming out of the blocks, the loss of Lappin so early and a overreaction to that loss by our coaching staff where they tried to shut the game down so they could get their bearings again and figure out where the hell they were going to pull another forward from.

Good news is we are one of only two teams to have won all our second halfs. The Bulldogs are the other team

Lappin didn't help

often we get the ball forward early but we never seem to get that first easy goal that fires everyone up.

on saturday I did not like that forward line setup. I wanted a real hard chaser in there with Eddie and Fev.


Think we do lack self-belief still. It'll come but it is not ther eyet. On saturday you got the feeling the side didn't really believe it could win - totally sibjective I know but that's how it felt.

Being young we are a side that plays on passion. Watch that third quarter, a goal or two, the passion rises and suddenly its a whole new ball game. As the lads gets older/experienced, they'll learn to play with that intensity without needed the really big exurberance (if that makes any sense).

Do not think French has had a good start to the game the last two weeks and we've started slow at the clearances because of it.

Sides do not want the indignity of losing to us after they come off a loss or two and really do get fired up.

Perhaps Denis is happy to weather the storm and then hit them and as we gain self-belief I think we'll begin to be seen like the Roos sides he coached - never say die and all that.

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This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

we are to defensive thats why........ to worried about getting back instead of attacking thats why.

We become to deffensive other teams pick that up and that gives them confidence cause we already trying not to lose

I think its as combination of A and C. The Saddington O'loughlan match-up cost us pretty big I thought. That made the coaches go defensive and flood through a lot of the second quarter.

But mostly it hasn't really looked like the self-belief is there in the first halves. Seems to take us half a game to remember that we're actually a pretty competative outfit this season.

In recent years it has been the opposite: we have bolted out of the blocks, got the first 2-3 goals of the match, the opposition coach has made some moves & shutdown our game plan, and we are rooted for the rest of the game.

This is quite the opposite, and at least we are playing 3 quarters instead of one.

That said if we are not switched on from the bounce, it needs to change.

Sluggish starts hurt

Suggesting that the Saddington on O'Loughlin match up cost us, hence our slow start, is too simplified.

Sydney had the ball. That's the first big advantage.

Sydney have goal scoring stars in their forwardline with Hall, O'Loughlin, Nicks, O'Keefe and Goodes along with a crumber. We did really well shutting most out in the match, as well as in the first quarter. I thought it was smart of their players to open a corridor for O'Loughlin to run into an open space and mark. His goals were not anything but a mark and kick from a set position. No defender could have stopped that; and as for their short passing skills, we all saw that. One of their guys is always bound to step up.

They had the ball, and they controlled the first quarter.

They went in harder, and bullocked the lines, until we hardened up.

We lacked poise in the HB line. When we did have it, there wasn't much around the centre to kick it to.

We didn't get into the tempo of the game until midway of 2Q. That's just inexperience.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

I think we started slowly for a number of reasons.
1: They got the ball out of the middle and were winning most of the stoppages and 50/50 contests.
2: The matchups to start the game were favourably the Swans, O'Loughlin was killing Saddington and disappointingly for mine, Ted Richards was all over T-Bird.
3: For whatever reason our intensity was poor and didnt really pick up till 1/2 way through the 3rd quarter which is a real issue for us.
4: Sydney came out knowing a loss would have had the football world breathing down their necks and the pressure reaching boiling point - they had to come out fired out - players positions were on the line for Sydney, no doubts had they lost to us some players (fringe and experienced) would have been dropped.

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I wasn't going to go there, but I'm so glad I did

Got smashed out of the midfield in the first qtr, just like last week. Jolly appeared to be leaping right over the top of French

When Betts and Murphy were moved into the middle we won a lot of ball. Eddie was terrific getting plenty of clearences along with Murph.

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

Starting midfield was Kouta, Stevens & Bentick. Seems like the younger guys are doing better, which is a good sign for the future.

Bentick got better as the game went on, unlike Kouta who we had to push forward

Also moving Stevens to the wing/half back took Kirk away from the centre bounce until Kirk went to Murphy

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"You are being watched. The government has a secret system. A machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it." - Finch

That's a pretty good precis IMO. We just let them control the game and failed to attack the ball. Once we started having a crack we did much much better. Seeing Saddington and Stevens leave the ball for each other allowing the Swans to take it away uncontested almost made me as cranky as the shit umpiring!

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I think our young side struggles with the tempo early. Freo came out very hard and made us look like kids early which we are really.

I think starting Carrazzo on the bench is a mistake as he is one player I think likes the hard stuff. Against Freo he had an immediate impact when he came on.

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"We used to sit around and talk about how bad the game plan was." Anthony Koutoufides

"d"

Bloody flooding!!! Allows good midfields to run free without pressure, especially free running sides like Freo, and Sydney, who are the most precise chippers of the ball into tight, flooded spaces. Pagan has to show more faith in the players as it's been shown when they do attack they're not doing a bad job, scoring goals and closing gaps on the scoreboard. If we weren't so defensive early we'd be 3-0 by now. Too many times Pagan shows no faith.