Ugly football

[perfectionist]

It was nice that we won, but it was an ugly game, not unlike most of the other games. Two things contributed to this in our case. The first was the tactics. "Smotheration". But, it enabled us to win. The second was the lack of skills. Every time I watch a Melbourne game and see Christian Petracca use all of his skills, I feel sick. He did a 30 metre handball to a running teammate with cm precision. We have players who struggle to kick 30 metres with any sort of precision. Even our "skilful" players mis-kick horrendously e.g. NWM and Jack Sinclair. It's not good enough to say everyone makes mistakes, The best players don't. I recall Robert Harvey saying that he "made a few blues" in a game towards the end of his career, and he did. But he didn't in the 380 games before that. A turnover in the centre of the ground is a certain goal against a good team. Gifting three or four of these to an opposition is too great a deficit.

And in a totally unrelated subject, the use of technology in aiding decisions should not be limited when a score is involved. I haven't read anything "official" but did read one report that in the C-F game, one umpire called touched and another umpire called mark - and since he was the "controlling" umpire, the mark stood. Perhaps no umpire called touched. Either way, the mark call enabled a player to have a shot for goal. It should have been reviewed. This moronic BS that "it slows down the game" seems to have missed the fact that players have 30 seconds to take the kick which is slowing down the game - not to mention the delay at the subsequent centre bounce waiting for the TV ads to finish. Technology is not as good as the human eye, but sometimes the human has his vision blocked or is in the wrong position. So, where action is in the 50 metre arc, and a stop play decision has been made, a review should be undertaken of touched claims. Should it be extended to frees? I don't see why not, but only to confirm or otherwise a free already given, not one that hasn't been given. In really, there are about 200 contests per game that could give rise to a free but don't, because they are incidental. It's when one of these is given "out of the blue" that upsets fans. In cricket, all decisions should be reviewed.

[nostalgicsaint]

At times our game was horrendous viewing (first half)

At others it was some of the most watchable footy this year (second half)

[samuraisaint]

The first half was terrible by us, but some of the football Richmond played was great - especially some of Bolton and Martin's games.
The second half was very watchable and was punctuated by some brilliant goals and excellent defensive play by Wilkie and Battle and Wilson.

[Otiman]

The lockdown 'smothering' style is important to have in your toolbox. We are very good at it.

It allowed us to slow the game down, get it on our terms, and build a comeback.

It's the transition to an attacking style that we need to get better at.

[meher baba]

And in a totally unrelated subject, the use of technology in aiding decisions should not be limited when a score is involved. I haven't read anything "official" but did read one report that in the C-F game, one umpire called touched and another umpire called mark - and since he was the "controlling" umpire, the mark stood. Perhaps no umpire called touched. Either way, the mark call enabled a player to have a shot for goal. It should have been reviewed. This moronic BS that "it slows down the game" seems to have missed the fact that players have 30 seconds to take the kick which is slowing down the game - not to mention the delay at the subsequent centre bounce waiting for the TV ads to finish. Technology is not as good as the human eye, but sometimes the human has his vision blocked or is in the wrong position. So, where action is in the 50 metre arc, and a stop play decision has been made, a review should be undertaken of touched claims. Should it be extended to frees? I don't see why not, but only to confirm or otherwise a free already given, not one that hasn't been given. In really, there are about 200 contests per game that could give rise to a free but don't, because they are incidental. It's when one of these is given "out of the blue" that upsets fans. In cricket, all decisions should be reviewed.

Yes, as long as the video reviewer has the power to impose a 50 metre penalty for any appeal by players that is clearly frivolous. Otherwise, we’d be giving the coaches a nice way of getting a mini time out to reorganise things.

[Vortex]

The lockdown 'smothering' style is important to have in your toolbox. We are very good at it.

It allowed us to slow the game down, get it on our terms, and build a comeback.

It's the transition to an attacking style that we need to get better at.

1 goal in 60 minutes of footy.

I know we are missing several players but I thought Lyon was the “systems” coach, you’d think our fringe and 2nd choice players are all training the same brand of football. So why is it we are starting to look very much like an overly defensive, stodgy and slow, timid and lacking attacking flare type of side again.

When Ross 3.0 returned I thought we were going to be quick and attacking this time around.

Acknowledging we don’t have our best 22 available but it’s concerning the fringe and 2nd choice players coming in aren’t playing with the freedom to go quickly with attacking flare. A rubbish defence like Richmond picked us off easily with nearly every entry.

[Devilhead]

We were terrible in the 1st half and it took us time to readjust and sort things out .... in the 3rd quarter we had 12 scoring shots which is 2nd most this year out of any match ... Port had 14 shots in the last quarter in their match against Weagles .... we also had 10 shots in the 3rd quarter against Collingwood (around equal 5th highest) ... so we know we can score heavily when we are up and about ... just a matter of putting it together more consistently

At the moment we are just trundling along but it's early days in a very long season and very likely some teams above might drop off whilst we continue to get better when players come back and also not forgetting that we play 8 out of our last 9 matches at Marvel

I am still very bullish that we play Finals

[Scollop]

.. in the 3rd quarter we had 12 scoring shots

so we know we can score heavily when we are up and about ... just a matter of putting it together more consistently

We scored a lot of behinds. Yes...we can score heavily...but we didn't have set shots missing. We didn't lower the eyes.

We didn't look for the best option ..there were rushed behinds and rushed snap shots. Caminiti and King don't lead as well as Membrey or Sharman or Owens or even Higgins.

Last week we played very good footy against Essendon and lost. This week we played ugly and won.

[Vortex]

1 goal in 60 minutes of footy.

[The Fireman]

Richmond did extremely well to keep us to 1goal in 60 minutes ,mind you some of our shots at goal were ordinary.

Great comeback by the boys and well coached, go you good things

[Devilhead]

.. in the 3rd quarter we had 12 scoring shots

so we know we can score heavily when we are up and about ... just a matter of putting it together more consistently

We scored a lot of behinds. Yes...we can score heavily...but we didn't have set shots missing. We didn't lower the eyes.

We didn't look for the best option ..there were rushed behinds and rushed snap shots. Caminiti and King don't lead as well as Membrey or Sharman or Owens or even Higgins.

Last week we played very good footy against Essendon and lost. This week we played ugly and won.

I will take 6.6 in quarter playing badly any day of the week

[The Fireman]

Good to see some posters concentrating on the positives

[Devilhead]

Pretty hard to be positive at half time yesterday

[The Fireman]

Pretty hard to be positive at half time yesterday

lol I hearya …. Wasn’t happy but posted we would come back , I have faith in the team

[B.M]

We ain’t coming back from 1 first half goal vs a decent team

Richmond will finish bottom 4

[The Fireman]

We ain’t coming back from 1 first half goal vs a decent team

Richmond will finish bottom 4

You also said Geelong is an ordinary side

they will make finals

[SaintPav]

Execution and skills level was horrendous.

Steele and Marshall are carrying the midfield.

No lock down small defender is hurting us as well.

[SaintPav]

Geelong have started well but they are no certainties to make the finals IMO. It’s a long season.

They do have a strong home ground advantage though which will help them a lot.

[repta]

Ugly
- 1 goal in a half
- just play 1 quarter for the game.
- game style. Move it as slow as you can down the runway then bomb it in long to the tall kid
- tall kid then hold the ball like it is a hot potato whilst kicking at goal. Give the ball the old ....Swirl twirl and spin.
- kicking the ball to the wrong tall kid - Nankerkis.

[SaintWiki]

Well, you mob are correct that most of the game was very ugly, but we got the four points without our full arsenal.

I wasn't expecting a great amount more from the current players available which includes quite a few inexperienced kids getting first hand experience in their first and second year in the big league.

However, I'm pumped that we got the four points and we are just out of the eight by percentage and I'm hoping we continue to get at least 50% wins in the games we play before the missing return, no matter how ugly the games may be.

These matches are not good for my heart and blood pressure and I'm trusting the coaching and list management staff are far from sitting on their ar*es.

[Yorkeys]

The conditions were ugly. Not up to standard for an AFL game. Windy, no wings, basic facilities and two well matched desperate teams. What else could be expected. AFL does WWE without the choreography. In the end Richmond submitted.

[repta]

Win ugly... is OK. A win is a win and the win - loss ratio is all that matters come the end of August as that dictates playing in September.


True Ugly would have been this forum if we lost.

[meher baba]

I agree that the ground was difficult to play on and evened up the teams. I reckon that we'd have won quite comfortably at either Docklands or the MCG.

BTW, I think we should give great credit to RTB and his team for making some adjustments after quarter time which brought us back into the match. (The scores would have been level at half-time if we hadn't blown so many of our opportunities to score goals.)

[The Fireman]

I agree that the ground was difficult to play on and evened up the teams. I reckon that we'd have won quite comfortably at either Docklands or the MCG.

BTW, I think we should give great credit to RTB and his team for making some adjustments after quarter time which brought us back into the match. (The scores would have been level at half-time if we hadn't blown so many of our opportunities to score goals.)

credit to the coach is like hens teeth around here.

[Otiman]

In hindsight we need to be more dynamic with our gamestyle. Our onfield leaders should be able to call the shots during a quarter to go defensive, attacking, or neutral.

If it's gotta come from the runner and coaches box you are minutes or even a quarter behind.