Post Match. Pies thump Hawks - all comments please

[MJ23]

Shae Mac would be a far better option than Dawes

what size hook do you use ?

[delcorp]

1. Drop Siddebotttom.

2. Bring in the Caff.

3. Dawes needs to play more key position and stay there. Also needs to just try to grab marks. has been trying to palm them and mark on second catch. Not given much room to move and was man handled.

[jack_spain]

As for Sidebottom, he has to go back to the VFL, its beyond a joke now, he cant bloody kick anymore

Thank God Eddiesmith. I thought I was going mad when all the focus was on Dawes. It's time for the blowtorch treatment I feel. Sidey to the VFL and bring BJ back.

[MJ23]

now I know you dont see everything on tv.
just finished watching the game and richo (commentator) highlighted how Dawes would go and stand Birchel whenever there was a centre bounce with his own opponent.
now he does that in part for Trav and also knowing his direct opponent does not use the ball as well as birchel.
just think we sometimes on Nicks guess at what a player is doing while the coaching staff know.

[neil]

Remember Dawes has been injured and has been playing injured for months.
Teams have attacking defenders and Dawes took out the Hawks today.

Ben Reid was fantastic and Taz smashed Buddy

Sidebottom was terrible.

Rounds seemed OK for one quarter of football

Travis is unstoppable

[jack_spain]

Rounds seemed OK for one quarter of football

Yep. Congratulations to the kid. I was calling out in the third quarter for Sidebottom to be subbed off to bring Rounds on.

[tomoleary]

Chris Dawes was horrible. If we had a forward in the VFL, I'd say Dawes needs a stint.

There I said it.

Start flaming.

Yep. And they just leave Cloke alone because they don't consider him a threat. Dawes is out of form. Not droppably so, but out of form. No point making silly excuses.

Take Dawes out of the team and you can be sure Cloke will find the going all the more difficult.

Dawes attracts multiple opponents often, without him they'll be free to concentrate all there energy on Travis.

Dawes has been solid to good the last 3 weeks, giving us a marking target coming off half back and allowing Travis to remain closer to goal for longer periods.

Time for people to look at the big picture of our overall structure and not make rash decisions on the back of one poor performance.

I'm in full support of Dawes. Doesn't get looked after by the umpires at all, opposition players always seem to man handle him and hold his arms.

[Dave O'D 1910]

Chris Dawes was horrible. If we had a forward in the VFL, I'd say Dawes needs a stint.

There I said it.

Start flaming.

Yep. And they just leave Cloke alone because they don't consider him a threat. Dawes is out of form. Not droppably so, but out of form. No point making silly excuses.

Take Dawes out of the team and you can be sure Cloke will find the going all the more difficult.

Dawes attracts multiple opponents often, without him they'll be free to concentrate all there energy on Travis.

Dawes has been solid to good the last 3 weeks, giving us a marking target coming off half back and allowing Travis to remain closer to goal for longer periods.

Time for people to look at the big picture of our overall structure and not make rash decisions on the back of one poor performance.

I'm in full support of Dawes. Doesn't get looked after by the umpires at all, opposition players always seem to man handle him and hold his arms.

+1

[AN_Inkling]

^^Dawes gets more frees than any Collingwood player - around 30 with only 8 against.

I agree that defenders hold onto him, push him and chop his arms. But they do this to any tall forward - and certain things Dawes does makes it easier for them (doesn't protect the ball well enough; doesn't get much elevation; struggles to break away from his defender; doesn't use his body all that well to outposition his opponent). He needs to find a way to succeed despite this attention. Cloke has.

I'm not concerned about him. He's doing a good enough job and will improve with further experience. But there are weaknesses to his game that cannot be explained away by cheating defenders and biased umpiring.

[Doc63]

Chris Dawes was horrible. If we had a forward in the VFL, I'd say Dawes needs a stint.

There I said it.

Start flaming.

Dawes gets man-handled so much each week that he has to fill out a Victims Impact Statement after the game.

Yep. And they just leave Cloke alone because they don't consider him a threat. Dawes is out of form. Not droppably so, but out of form. No point making silly excuses.

Take Dawes out of the team and you can be sure Cloke will find the going all the more difficult.

Dawes attracts multiple opponents often, without him they'll be free to concentrate all there energy on Travis.

Dawes has been solid to good the last 3 weeks, giving us a marking target coming off half back and allowing Travis to remain closer to goal for longer periods.

Time for people to look at the big picture of our overall structure and not make rash decisions on the back of one poor performance.

Spot on Swoop. Takes lots of heat off Cloke, and look at the results. And he's still just a kid learning the game. It's not as if we have a number of hulking forwards knocking the door down in the seconds.

We'd all like to see him kick more goals. They will come in time. He works his butt off, it will turn for him soon.

[tomoleary]

Let's look at the positives. Pretty much everyone put in a decent effort today, although it wasn't a brilliant all round Collingwood performance.

I wouldn't drop Sidebottom. He made a few errors today but he hasn't been consistently horrible this year. He's playing his role well.

I can't fault Simon Buckley but I still don't see him in our absolute best 22. Rounds was ok, has along way to go. Hard to criticise him though.

In my dream side we'd have a fully fit and in form Alan Didak, a fully fit and firing Beams and perhaps a Ben Johnson and a Macaffer.

[sherrife]

Dawes plays for free kicks far too often. Tall forwards are meant to mark the ball come what may, a free kick is a bonus for the occasional time you fail. Dawes seems to do it the other way around. I also think that he doesn't do himself any favours by remaining quite stationary a lot of the time, and by going for chest marks instead of hands out the front.

Anyway, I agree RE his importance in the team structure. It's as simple as 1 less semi-dangerous tall forward = 1 more defender on Cloke. But if we had someone else it would probably be time for a spell.

I think it's fair to say we're carrying a bunch of passengers atm who haven't really hit form since the GF last year, but I'm hoping we can get our shit together.

Finally, this is the first game I've been to in the last 2 years that we've won (and it's my 5th). Given the proportion of games that we lose, I was certain I was a curse. It's good to know I can go to the finals this year in peace.

[AN_Inkling]

Let's look at the positives. Pretty much everyone put in a decent effort today, although it wasn't a brilliant all round Collingwood performance.

I wouldn't drop Sidebottom. He made a few errors today but he hasn't been consistently horrible this year. He's playing his role well.

I can't fault Simon Buckley but I still don't see him in our absolute best 22. Rounds was ok, has along way to go. Hard to criticise him though.

In my dream side we'd have a fully fit and in form Alan Didak, a fully fit and firing Beams and perhaps a Ben Johnson and a Macaffer.

Not sure what your issue with Buckley is. He has been very good, and his prodigious kicking is becoming more than handy. That setup kick to Jolly in the square was brilliant.

It will be interesting to see what we do next week, with BJ likely to return. We now have Leon and Buckley doing well in a half-back role. With BJ back we have Leon, Buckley, BJ and Shaw as small-medium rebounding defenders.

Some might say having so many of a similar type is a concern. Not for me. At the least, Shaw, Leon and Johnson are all able to rotate through the middle, or even forward. Shaw and Leon in particular have the potential for real damage in a more attacking role. I'd definitely have all in my best team. Would make us very tough to shut down across half back (throw in the rebounding of our taller players as well) and gives us greater attacking flexibility. Looking forward to it.

[jack_spain]

Let's look at the positives. Pretty much everyone put in a decent effort today,

Rubbish. Read my critique.

If you thought Sidebottom's effort was good enough you were watching a different game.

Players who need to lift (judged by their own ability):

Sidebottom (obviously)
Dawes (enough said)
Harry O (has struggled all season and is too flaky in defense at the moment)
Blair (has stalled in his development)
Wellingham (still doesn't do enough and missed a sitter today)

and...

Swan (nowhere near his best, seemed to run out of ideas at times)
Pendlebury ( we'll let him have a coast now and again)
Heater ( I thought he was a bit sloppy with his disposal today and played his man far too lose)


Players I criticised last week who improved but are still far from their best:

Maxwell (still needs to back himself to mark sometimes)
Thomas (much better today but still all over the place like a dog's dinner)
Leigh Brown (at least he kicked a couple)

All in all, I am still waiting for the day when we get all 22 players playing as well as they can.

[watt price tully]

In Mick's message to members last week, he said Dawes is carrying an injury & should be getting better in the next few weeks or words to that effect.

My observations at the G today:

I was freezin' my friggin arse off.

Jolly welcome back - what a difference, wait till he gets some touch.
Cloke dominated.
Reid fantastic.
Leon Davis - wow he's been great all year & no less today.
Heath Shaw - great game
Harry well we do end up with our heart in our mouths at times but he done good, the kid!
The backline were really organized for the main & despite some little hiccups were terrific.
The game was over at 1/2 time
The forward line tackling pressure was the best it's been all season.
Sidebottom needs to capitalize on his chances more than he does but I thought he worked hard but made some poor decisions at times.
We're not polished yet but made them look like a shambles.
They have significant players out that make a difference but we'ed still be able to cover them.

I'm not fussed that we didn't bury them - we were no chance of losing after the first qtr the way we dominated. Still, we need to convert more of the offensive forays into our fowardline than we do - we seem wasteful at times & we can still work on this.

Another pleasurable day at the footy albeit a friggin' cold one!