After your information Ild reconsider all 3 inclusions and put in Manton only as I think If they aren’t getting on the score sheet locally then itll obviously be harder in the vfl. Ild move higmore to defence to strengthen the backline. I based Allesios proposed inclusion on the 6 goals v Essendon however it’s important to note they played a young side that match and it seems like he hasn’t recaptured that form.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
I am yet to see the weekend debacle against Box Hill (away for a week in Thailand) but it sounds from all reports that we were completely outclassed. Pouring talent to one side, what are your thoughts on the age and maturity of the playing group? Are we missing a few more senior bodies, particularly around the midfield that are essential in controlling the play and tempo of games? In our successful years in the post decade or so,.
Of interest how were centre clearances and risk hit outs? I kind of assumed that more often than not, Box Hill had first use of the ball?
(also thanks for confirming the departure of Ava Seton Spiny).
Yes i agree that we are missing experience but it’s one that i cant see a solution to. Those players come at a cost that im not sure we have the $ to spend and that being the reason of trying to build with a predominantly youthful side.. I feel it will be a challenge to keep the better players who we develop and the likes of Werribee and perhaps Williamstown may swoop on our most improved- Werribee has targeted Port players past couple of seasons and I don’t blame them and although not favourable being on the receiving end I know I didn’t mind when Port transferred the best players from rival clubs. One thing i thought about today was no Preston player came to Port, would of liked to of has Elliot, Valisaris and the big forward they had - but I’m guessing the club tried to get them (they’d be mad not to of tried to get a few over) without success.
As for centre clearances I don’t have the stats but yeah it appeared we weee heavily beaten all day. One problem I saw was our build up’s took so much effort, pass after pass after pass without getting anywhere and finding it hard to transition quickly with any venom.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Sounds good to me, Mega [edit: in response to your post about just bringing Manton in, hadn't seen your newest post when I made this one - agree with your take but although your description of our recruitment/retention problems sounds *accurate* I can't very well say it sounds *good*!]. I did wonder what position Alessio was playing - the only match report I've found doesn't say - as he's listed among his side's best this week without having kicked any goals. I see now that his side had a 91-point loss, so there may not have been a lot of choices for best players. It was actually Manton's team that Alessio's was up against.
NorthPort, I'd say having Harvey Hooper in there to win the ball on the inside and bring some composure would definitely have helped. If we'd managed to keep Lazzaro, his run and carry would also have helped us match Box Hill for speed. Finn Maginness and Henry Hustwaite more or less did as they pleased out there, and Maginness in particular is ridiculously fast at this level and always seems to dominate against us. Maginness would likely be playing AFL if his kicking were cleaner under AFL-level pressure and/or tagging were a bigger part of Mitchell's gameplan, so I think we needed a better plan for him, or perhaps to execute our plan better. Yes, Box Hill were winning the hitouts in the centre, particularly in the first half, and even when we did win, they were better at reading the ruck taps or at applying immediate pressure so we couldn't get a clean clearance. They played a very high-pressure game in the centre, and once ttheir players, Maginness and Hustwaite in particular, got space, no one could stop them. Particularly with Green out injured this week, this game may have exposed a lack of midfield depth that's related an overall lack of experience.
Tom Hird in the first half seemed caught between the more defensive role he played last season and the looser outside role he's played this season, with the result that he played neither role effectively - giving his opponent too much space when Box Hill were winning the ball, while not winning it himself because he was positioned for the receive that he wasn't going to get. Hird was matched up against Maginness at times in the first half but not as tightly as he could have been. I think we should have had Hird glue himself to Maginness at every stoppage, as he did against Tom Mitchell last season - granted, Maginness is quite a bit faster than Mitchell, but the evidence that this could have worked is that it did work for the first 15 minutes of the third quarter, when Hird was able to do a decent job against Maginness at the centre bounces and also get the ball himself once Maginness was less of a danger. Then at about 15:45 in the third we make a bunch of interchanges, which includes Hird and Tovey both going off, and at that point things start to go downhill again. We were dependent on too few mids in this game, with Tovey and Hobbs the only two who played well for the full game and no one able to replace them, or able to replace Hird once he actually started to look like himself in the third quarter. When Hird came back on later he spent some time at halfback as well as in the midfield - he was effective there, but I'm not sure why that move was made once he'd begun to contribute in the midfield. The reason may have been to bring Rankin into the midfield, where Rankin was pretty good as well - overall Rankin was one of our best for the game, having been good at halfback too - but by the time the move was made it essentially amounted to swapping around two players who were both playing reasonably effectively; it might have made more sense in the first half when Hird was barely touching it. When Hird matched up on Maginness in the fourth, Hird wasn't as effective as stopping him as he'd been in the third, but he did better than he had in the first and second quarters.
Something was going disastrously wrong with the defence. In the first half in particular it happened frequently that multiple Box Hill forwards were completely free. The problems that we've seen with the defence in every round so far were taken to a new extreme here. During those 15 minutes in the third when we looked best, it was largely on the back of the midfield stepping up. Part of the problem is that the midfield wasn't able to keep up that level of play, in part perhaps because only a few of the mids were capable of it in the first place, and when they went off for interchanges, they couldn't be effectively replaced. Sparkman and Rankin were among our best. During the fairly brief time that Hird was at halfback, he was pretty good there. Sestan was fairly good. None of our key defenders were, and on the basis of last season, I did not anticipate this level of defensive dysfunction.
After your information Ild reconsider all 3 inclusions and put in Manton only as I think If they aren’t getting on the score sheet locally then itll obviously be harder in the vfl. Ild move higmore to defence to strengthen the backline. I based Allesios proposed inclusion on the 6 goals v Essendon however it’s important to note they played a young side that match and it seems like he hasn’t recaptured that form.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
I am yet to see the weekend debacle against Box Hill (away for a week in Thailand) but it sounds from all reports that we were completely outclassed. Pouring talent to one side, what are your thoughts on the age and maturity of the playing group? Are we missing a few more senior bodies, particularly around the midfield that are essential in controlling the play and tempo of games? In our successful years in the post decade or so,.
Of interest how were centre clearances and risk hit outs? I kind of assumed that more often than not, Box Hill had first use of the ball?
(also thanks for confirming the departure of Ava Seton Spiny).
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Yes i agree that we are missing experience but it’s one that i cant see a solution to. Those players come at a cost that im not sure we have the $ to spend and that being the reason of trying to build with a predominantly youthful side.. I feel it will be a challenge to keep the better players who we develop and the likes of Werribee and perhaps Williamstown may swoop on our most improved- Werribee has targeted Port players past couple of seasons and I don’t blame them and although not favourable being on the receiving end I know I didn’t mind when Port transferred the best players from rival clubs. One thing i thought about today was no Preston player came to Port, would of liked to of has Elliot, Valisaris and the big forward they had - but I’m guessing the club tried to get them (they’d be mad not to of tried to get a few over) without success.
As for centre clearances I don’t have the stats but yeah it appeared we weee heavily beaten all day. One problem I saw was our build up’s took so much effort, pass after pass after pass without getting anywhere and finding it hard to transition quickly with any venom.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Sounds good to me, Mega [edit: in response to your post about just bringing Manton in, hadn't seen your newest post when I made this one - agree with your take but although your description of our recruitment/retention problems sounds *accurate* I can't very well say it sounds *good*!]. I did wonder what position Alessio was playing - the only match report I've found doesn't say - as he's listed among his side's best this week without having kicked any goals. I see now that his side had a 91-point loss, so there may not have been a lot of choices for best players. It was actually Manton's team that Alessio's was up against.
NorthPort, I'd say having Harvey Hooper in there to win the ball on the inside and bring some composure would definitely have helped. If we'd managed to keep Lazzaro, his run and carry would also have helped us match Box Hill for speed. Finn Maginness and Henry Hustwaite more or less did as they pleased out there, and Maginness in particular is ridiculously fast at this level and always seems to dominate against us. Maginness would likely be playing AFL if his kicking were cleaner under AFL-level pressure and/or tagging were a bigger part of Mitchell's gameplan, so I think we needed a better plan for him, or perhaps to execute our plan better. Yes, Box Hill were winning the hitouts in the centre, particularly in the first half, and even when we did win, they were better at reading the ruck taps or at applying immediate pressure so we couldn't get a clean clearance. They played a very high-pressure game in the centre, and once ttheir players, Maginness and Hustwaite in particular, got space, no one could stop them. Particularly with Green out injured this week, this game may have exposed a lack of midfield depth that's related an overall lack of experience.
Tom Hird in the first half seemed caught between the more defensive role he played last season and the looser outside role he's played this season, with the result that he played neither role effectively - giving his opponent too much space when Box Hill were winning the ball, while not winning it himself because he was positioned for the receive that he wasn't going to get. Hird was matched up against Maginness at times in the first half but not as tightly as he could have been. I think we should have had Hird glue himself to Maginness at every stoppage, as he did against Tom Mitchell last season - granted, Maginness is quite a bit faster than Mitchell, but the evidence that this could have worked is that it did work for the first 15 minutes of the third quarter, when Hird was able to do a decent job against Maginness at the centre bounces and also get the ball himself once Maginness was less of a danger. Then at about 15:45 in the third we make a bunch of interchanges, which includes Hird and Tovey both going off, and at that point things start to go downhill again. We were dependent on too few mids in this game, with Tovey and Hobbs the only two who played well for the full game and no one able to replace them, or able to replace Hird once he actually started to look like himself in the third quarter. When Hird came back on later he spent some time at halfback as well as in the midfield - he was effective there, but I'm not sure why that move was made once he'd begun to contribute in the midfield. The reason may have been to bring Rankin into the midfield, where Rankin was pretty good as well - overall Rankin was one of our best for the game, having been good at halfback too - but by the time the move was made it essentially amounted to swapping around two players who were both playing reasonably effectively; it might have made more sense in the first half when Hird was barely touching it. When Hird matched up on Maginness in the fourth, Hird wasn't as effective as stopping him as he'd been in the third, but he did better than he had in the first and second quarters.
Something was going disastrously wrong with the defence. In the first half in particular it happened frequently that multiple Box Hill forwards were completely free. The problems that we've seen with the defence in every round so far were taken to a new extreme here. During those 15 minutes in the third when we looked best, it was largely on the back of the midfield stepping up. Part of the problem is that the midfield wasn't able to keep up that level of play, in part perhaps because only a few of the mids were capable of it in the first place, and when they went off for interchanges, they couldn't be effectively replaced. Sparkman and Rankin were among our best. During the fairly brief time that Hird was at halfback, he was pretty good there. Sestan was fairly good. None of our key defenders were, and on the basis of last season, I did not anticipate this level of defensive dysfunction.
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