Post match. Pies lose to North. All comments.

[Magpietothemax]

Agree that NM's early physical intimidation got under our skin, and prompted a whole plethora of inexcusable undisciplined actions which gave NM free kicks and undermined the level of our play. Buckley should have guided and instructed our players better at quarter time in my view. I hold him responsible for not addressing this negative mindset which really degraded our play. As others have mentioned, as well, buckley did not seem to make any moves or changes to address the debacle of the first half.
In the second half we appeared to get back into a proper mental space. Our tackling pressure was back and glimpses of the dynamism and fast ball movement that we showed against GWS were visible. We could easily have won this game. The energy and ferocity in the second half were fantastic.
I think our players are excellent. At their best, they are capable of competing with the best teams. It is just that we do not see the best often enough, and in my view this is because we are not being expertly guided/coached.

[Raw Hammer]

Agree that NM's early physical intimidation got under our skin, and prompted a whole plethora of inexcusable undisciplined actions which gave NM free kicks and undermined the level of our play. Buckley should have guided and instructed our players better at quarter time in my view. I hold him responsible for not addressing this negative mindset which really degraded our play. As others have mentioned, as well, buckley did not seem to make any moves or changes to address the debacle of the first half.
In the second half we appeared to get back into a proper mental space. Our tackling pressure was back and glimpses of the dynamism and fast ball movement that we showed against GWS were visible. We could easily have won this game. The energy and ferocity in the second half were fantastic.
I think our players are excellent. At their best, they are capable of competing with the best teams. It is just that we do not see the best often enough, and in my view this is because we are not being expertly guided/coached.

Wha??? You think our players are "excellent"? Here's a quick list: Brown, Blair, Marsh, White, Cloke, Maynard, Williams... These players aren't "excellent", and that's nearly half out on field team. Excludes Goldsack, Toovey, Witts. They are average to good to very good on their day, but excellent? Please!

[Magpietothemax]

Wha??? You think our players are "excellent"? Here's a quick list: Brown, Blair, Marsh, White, Cloke, Maynard, Williams... These players aren't "excellent", and that's nearly half out on field team. Excludes Goldsack, Toovey, Witts. They are average to good to very good on their day, but excellent? Please!

Maynard and Marsh...far too early to condemn them to mediocrity. I think both have great potential
Blair: would look far better in a team with superior delivery skill and ability to win clearances more consistently than us.
Williams: Lost it last night and was one of the main initiators of undisciplined actions. But his drive and energy are excellent off half back far more often than not.
Cloke: is an excellent player and will be again when he gets his head space right. Not sure if he will be with us then though.
White: yes, has improved his performance, but still not enough.
When I said our players are excellent, I was making a generalized comment on the quality of our entire team. This team has the capacity to perform at a far higher standard than we have seen this year overall.

[roar]

Made a game of it but dear god we do some stupid shit

sums it up perfectly.

Yep. Perfectly put.

[RudeBoy]

Wha??? You think our players are "excellent"? Here's a quick list: Brown, Blair, Marsh, White, Cloke, Maynard, Williams... These players aren't "excellent", and that's nearly half out on field team. Excludes Goldsack, Toovey, Witts. They are average to good to very good on their day, but excellent? Please!

Maynard and Marsh...far too early to condemn them to mediocrity. I think both have great potential
Blair: would look far better in a team with superior delivery skill and ability to win clearances more consistently than us.
Williams: Lost it last night and was one of the main initiators of undisciplined actions. But his drive and energy are excellent off half back far more often than not.
Cloke: is an excellent player and will be again when he gets his head space right. Not sure if he will be with us then though.
White: yes, has improved his performance, but still not enough.
When I said our players are excellent, I was making a generalized comment on the quality of our entire team. This team has the capacity to perform at a far higher standard than we have seen this year overall.

I beg to differ.

We are clearly deficient in a number or areas, which is why I don't blame Bucks. We would have the same weaknesses, regardless of who was coach. Our problems are:

Ruck - Grundy is fast improving, but rarely wins the hitouts and does not take enough overhead marks around the ground.

Mids - we are getting smashed in centre clearances, especially early in most games. This is because we lack a big, strong bodied in and under player, with good foot skills.

Forwards - Cloke is totally unreliable and Moore and Cox are a couple of years away from being consistently good targets. We also lack a quality crumber.

Backs - we have a number of good players, but we are lacking a quality full back.

[neil]

Buckley should have guided and instructed our players better at quarter time in my view. I hold him responsible for not addressing this negative mindset which really degraded our play. As others have mentioned, as well, buckley did not seem to make any moves or changes to address the debacle of the first half.


In the second half we appeared to get back into a proper mental space. Our tackling pressure was back

It is just that we do not see the best often enough, and in my view this is because we are not being expertly guided/coached.

Buckley did not seem to make any moves or changes YET In the second half we appeared to get back into a proper mental space BUT we are not being expertly guided/coached.

Can you see the contradictions in your comment? Either Buckley did some things that were not obvious but worked and so did guide the players OR in Buckley estimation he did not need to do anything as he judged the players would be able to work it out and so was being a good coach.

[mattys123]

Five Worst:

5. Bucks
4. Jesse
3. Varcoe
2. and 1. Treloar/Williams/Cloke

If Bucks is staying and Cloke is going, please don't play him, give him a calf injury and spare us.
If Bucks is going - then lets get it DONE please.

Harsh on Varcoe, keeps getting played out of position as a defensive forward.

When he was finally moved to half back last night (almost 3/4 time) he had an impact on the game.

As soon as Sinclair went off with concussion, Varcoe had to go down back, but no, it took almost 3 quarters to happen.

So you were right with the first vote, coaching had a lot to do with that loss last night, not motivated early, not structured right, and so little change early on when the game was on the line.

[Magpietothemax]

Buckley did not seem to make any moves or changes YET In the second half we appeared to get back into a proper mental space BUT we are not being expertly guided/coached.

Can you see the contradictions in your comment? Either Buckley did some things that were not obvious but worked and so did guide the players OR in Buckley estimation he did not need to do anything as he judged the players would be able to work it out and so was being a good coach.

No contradiction. I have a high opinion of our players and they are capable of playing very well as a team. This came through in the second half. But this change should have occurred earlier. that was my point.

[Magpietothemax]

Agree with your points Rudeboy. I did not mean to suggest that our team as it stands is good enough to contend yet. I meant to suggest that we are close to it. As you have pointed out, there are many who are still developing, but are showing elite abilities ( Grundy, Moore).
I do blame Buckley if our mids are getting smashed because his major emphasis has been to recruit and develop a powerful midfield
Yes, i also have identified a quality crumber as an essential ingredient that we must strive to get.

[Tezza23]

I wonder whose idea was it for the team to go so hard at the North players. I would suggest this was a coaching instruction, and gee didn't it work well. but at the presser no journo had the ball or insight to ask Buckley about it.

In his presser Buckley also lamented our poor starts in the last three weeks. As an aside this has been happening for about 4 years but just lets concentrate on the last three weeks. No journo asked Buckley the obvious question like - well what have you/coaching panel tried to do about the slow starts ?

Apart from the obvious skill deficiencies and lack of football nous displayed consistently from this side we have three basic flaws in our game.
a) We lose the centre clearances against all of the good sides - what improvement have we made this year.

b) We cannot clear the ball from our backline after a kick in. This has been a problem since heater left, and there does not seem to be any change of style or game play for the last couple of seasons.

c) Our forwards do not lead. As a result we have to rely on pack/contested marks - usually unlikely - or kick goals from either free kicks or opportunistic play. until we change this aspect we will continue to struggle to kick winning scores.

End of rant !!!

[Magpietothemax]

I wonder whose idea was it for the team to go so hard at the North players. I would suggest this was a coaching instruction, and gee didn't it work well. but at the presser no journo had the ball or insight to ask Buckley about it.

My strong impression was that it was North who started going hard at us, and our players were well and truly sucked in by it.

[Neil Appleby]

Awful skill execution and decision making. Mistakes made all night long. Gave up an early 5 goal lead, average teams cannot win doing this stuff. Dysfunctional forward line applies zero pressure. We saw everything wrong with our team tonight, how we got within a few goals in the last just to throw in the towel is torturous. Williams, Varcoe, Smith, Brown, Cloke, Maynard, Marsh, Crisp, Aish and Fasolo were all horrible, that is 10 players giving basically nothing from a positive play perspective. We need a massive list overhaul. Another worst performance under Buckley contender to throw in the pile. I understand now that we need a game with low pressure in order to play well, what a soft side we are.

You think Smith was horrible? Spare me please. Nick's really is going to the dogs.

[Captain_MyCaptain]

Horrible skills, bounce of the ball, umpires, north zone intercepted everything coming in because of our imprecise disposal. Waste of a game that was there for the taking.

x2.

[qldmagpie67]

Simple facts are this
We played a side who before last night had been beaten and beaten soundly for weeks
A side who's leg speed had been exposed
A side who the past 4 weeks had managed 6 1st quarter goals total before last night
We were equal favourites and many experts were tipping us to win
And what do we dish up ?
We try to be physical against big bodied seasoned opponents really smart
By 15 minutes in we're 6 goals down Wells is doing as he pleases and nothing changed from our side
Sinclair gets hurt so we have nil run off HB but we have Varcoe standing in the forward line catching a cold but he isn't moved back until late in th 3rd term
Grundy was being competitive in the stoppages but our mids were getting murdered at the drop of the ball but we don't make any moves. In fact we have Adams our hardest in and under type sitting on the HB line for ages.
Then we have our disposal OMG you can forgive some turnovers it happens to every team every game you can't be perfect.
I don't know what the stat would be as disposals to advantage but I would guess ours would have been around 25-30% at best last night
The more worrying thing is the most glaring turnovers were made by the more experienced players with Sidey and Treloar and Williams and Brown and White the worst offenders
I will forgive young players every day of the week for making mistakes it's a learning curve but when you've played 80+ games and miss a target by 25m and kick to a north player standing by themselves that's just not AFL standard and Sidey did it on 3 separate occasions, Treloar twice and the others at least once or twice. It simply isn't good enough
The only positive for mine were Aish who showed some poise under pressure and his effort was good, the longer the game went the better Moore looked he kept on competing and couldn't get a free his way most of the night, Reid was very good down back as usual and if not for him we could have been beaten by 12-15 goals, Smith tries his guts out every week and is showing signs he has a bit in him
2016 is over and come trade time we need to really make some tough calls on players including Sidey & White. Neither are going to be any better than they are now and both are at best B grade players who sometimes have a good quarter or half of footy before stinking it up again

[Neil Appleby]

2016 is over and come trade time we need to really make some tough calls on players including Sidey & White. Neither are going to be any better than they are now and both are at best B grade players who sometimes have a good quarter or half of footy before stinking it up again

You're not talking about Steele Sidebottom are you? Surely you meant somebody else who stinks it up most of the time, like Williams? I can't understand this. We have lost a game of footy against a team that was sitting top of the tree a few weeks back. A team that had won nine in a row. This team can play. We played badly for a lot of the game and some of our defenders will be having nightmares this week; comedy capers indeed. But why do people come here after a loss and just say such silly things? Sidey stinks it up most of the time? Come on. Somebody else said Smith was hopeless. Seriously! I understand the frustration but can't we show some restraint after a loss and perhaps wait 24 hours before posting?