The Monday Expert - Round 7 West Coast Eagles vs Carlton
West Coast 2.1 2.7 8.9 10.14 (74)
Carlton 2.4 10.7 12.8 17.9 (111)
To paraphrase Dwayne Russell “It doesn’t get any worse than that“.
At half time of last night’s game we had reached a new low in Eagle’s history. That’s a big call given some of the Todd and Judge coached sides that ran out in years past, but I can’t remember seeing anything quite as bad as that 40 minutes of play. It was dreadful. Just dreadful.
And what made it so bad was that we threw in the towel.
I think if you were going to try and define when a team slips below the line of satisfactory effort - regardless of the players ability - and becomes a rabble, it’s when the team stops playing for one another. For a fan, is there anything worse?
That’s a serious question because there is something worse, I think.
And that’s when the same side that shows nothing comes out after the break and actually shows it CAN win the football, it CAN compete at the contest, it CAN play semi-intelligent footy that gives their team at least a half even chance.
As awful as that second term was, I found myself thinking what-if in the last quarter as the team sniffed the Blues apprehension as they tried that useless tempo football (please tell me, who has even won playing like that??). How did that happen? And the question then becomes which is the real Eagles footy team?
It is easy to shrug our shoulders and say ‘oh well it was one bad quarter’ but when there is such a disparity between our very worse and our acceptable I don’t you can. The fact is we might be undermanned, but we are not as hopeless as we are playing; certainly not as bad as that second term made us out to be. The second-half (most of it) proved that. But the fact we did not compete when the game was on - and in fact imploded - has me worried.
It is easy to type these pages full of easy answers and I know things are never as easily rectified as we want to make out but I don’t know if our coaching staff has any answers right now. Even in the press conference Woosha was talking about “them / they” and not “we / us”. Anyone else find this a bit strange?
We still have 2/3 of the season to play and I’m tempted to say go for Daniel Rich in the draft (good Eagles supporter that he is) but I hope the coaching staff can get the team back and get them back soon. Getting thumped week in and out is bad for everyone. Look at how long Carlton’s taken to arrest their long slump (and still aren’t out of the woods yet).
We’re right in the middle of the swinging pendulum right now - it could go either way - the 2nd term leaderless, directionless rabble or the 3rd term long kicking, hard at it, young and exciting up and comers.
May 4th 2008
Saw very little of the match on Fox. Was there a lack of forward structure because Carlton were able to clear from halfback too easily? Or was this just the lack of endeavor period that you mentioned?
May 4th 2008
Tim, you are spot on. A lot of Carlton’s drive came from their half back line where Carrazzo, Scotland and Stevens won the ball at will. Not sure it was the forward structure in that case - more likely the mids not working back hard enough to deny their man. Generally, it was a shambles as blokes were running free all over the field.
May 6th 2008
Good to see that you’re back Bruce, thanks for the writeups.
There were a few positive things that I took from the game. Masten didn’t rack up huge numbers but chased hard all day, was consistently closing in on the Blue ball carriers and would have made at least half a dozen tackles, and generally did bloody well for a young rookie. If everyone showed his endeavour we wouldn’t be 1-6 right now. Ebert showed some courage and skill at times, and Kennedy had a pretty good game.
We were shite in the first half, but not as shite as the umpires. It was like they got on a roll - so many soft frees in attack, and 50m penalties (or downfield frees) gifting goals to Carlton, that I wouldn’t have been surprised if the players were nervous about touching a Blue by the time the long break arrived. (Seemed to last the whole game for Carrazzo.) To be fair, we got a lot of soft decisions too, but generally not in anywhere near as damaging positions - and the few that we did get in attack, we generally fluffed the shot. Lynchy Lynchy Lynchy.
Anyway I’m still hoping that we’ll turn it around sooner rather than later. I think the long break will do us good, and hopefully we’ll see some of the old team spirit in a fortnight or so.
May 6th 2008
Thanks Fordy
There were plenty of positives, well a few as you say. A few days since the game gives you time to reflect and I’m going to write another post on the year so far. I think we have quite a few things we can build on which will get us back on track soon enough.
I tried not to go there with the umps. I was baffled in that 2nd quarter, from the moment Steve Armstrong was bowled over front on in the mark duel 30m out they lost me on more than one occasion. But like you say i though we got more than our fair share in the second half. It was poor but I didn’t think it was the reason we lost. It didnt help mind you…
Like I said I feel a post coming on with a positive spin for us as we look forwards