Effort & Attitude not personnel

[older saint]

I deliberately stay away from the internet until the day after a loss, remove some of the anger/disappointment, dont say something which i read back and go what the?

Yesterday i watched a team sacrifice , work hard and play for each other and win an NBA championship. Last night was the worst performance of the season, Essendon played well and deserved to win. This loss was all about the attitude and effort presented by the team (players and coaches all together) , and not about personnel. They just played harder, their coaches prepared for our tactics and out thought us both down the line and one switches out of our attack.

Did we lose because Steele didn't play - no!
I haven't looked but I guarantee the Cooper Sharman fan club have been crying about his absence - would we have won with him in - no.
Same for Highmore, or anyone else you want to throw in there.

I was sitting behind the goals (personally a non preferred spot but tickets I had) and one passage of play early in the last qtr when we were 18 points down summed up the night perfectly. Essendon had switched the ball across our backline easily - i had lost count of how many times this had happened. I looked straight ahead and Crouch, Gresham, and a 3rd player ( cant recall who ) were walking across the centre square towards the opposite side of the ground ( ball currently at our half fwd line). Their opponents which they had worked across to cover , leading to the switch, were working across to the other side of the ground and into their forward line. Ball went down the line came out the back, at this point the 3 Stkilda players then decided to run, however they were not out of position and 10 metres away from the closest Ess player all ball side of the goals. Essendon found open target inside 50 - had a couple available - goal and game over. This summed up the attitude and lack of effort shown by the collective last night. A team which turned up expecting it to happen after pushing a top 2 team the week before against an underperforming team who let their club down last week on the big stage dying for a win.

You can't beat any team in the AFL if you roll up and with that attitude and play only 25 min of good footy. This will cost us a top 8 spot now.

Entries into the forward line were appalling ( so dont give me the go tall v go small argument) , Plugger and buckets would have struggled. King leads to the pockets too much and we bomb it in to him too often - it was like watching the richo strategy.
Midfield didn't take first option often enough putting pressure on them and also confusing those ahead of the ball.

The frustrating thing will be this group is just as likely to come out nd either beat or just lose next week in Sydney.

For me apart from Membrey and Ross I really struggle to name good players. Gresh had heaps kicked a couple goals but too many times didn't take first options which put guys under pressure. Beyond that open to suggestions of anyone else.

Watching Marshall he is clearly not right - they have tried to play him through it but now it is hurting the other way.
Billings , Higgins , gresh all kicked goals so while there may be other aspects as small forwards they ticketed one of their KPI's.

Its very hard when performances are bad based on lack of effort but guys under pressure to me:

Paton, Butler , Marshall ( if injured rest him),

McKenzie will come back in, Steele is supposedly ok, Rest will be based on Sandy. It will need to be based on the collective performance not just last night as otherwise we would drop more than we have.