Round 1 West v North

Well, I guess a lot of our players are going to have to play the game of their lives if we're going to win this one.
But, I'd like to see a relentless, physical approach; no heads dropping at any stage; players like Corbett, Ellem and Bramich (if all selected) impose themselves on the game; and I'd like to see us kick 10 goals.

Agree. The game may well set the tone for the season.

North at Prospect has always been hard and this will be even harder, but we were very competitive for long periods towards the back half of last season.

On ball, Joel Stevens and Glanville might give us more than expected, Bramich should be OK in ruck and the defence is reasonable.

KIcking goals is our problem. Hopefully Gore will be available and Ellem, Beech and Corbett might find more.

I think we'd all be happy, as you say, with a spirited full-on go.

I agree we need to be relentless with our attack on the ball for the whole match, it’s something we need to do to be even remotely competitive.

The other major concern during the trial matches was our game style, nothing seems to have changed since last year.
We move the ball backwards and sideways in defence and therefore we aren’t moving the ball forward. We then have to kick down the line to a contest.
This football is out the door. All sides in the AFL that are on top of the ladder are moving the ball quickly and are taking risks to go through the corridor. Yes we may get beaten with this approach, but surely it would give our forwards better opportunities to compete one on one.

Time for this club to take a risk on the field with the way we play, something we haven’t done since 2015.

Teams are up on the website. Bramich in the Reserves? Is this a discipline thing or something?
Apart from that - God help us.

I cannot believe Bramich isn’t playing, we don’t have a genuine Ruckman in the league team, astonishing.

With our Recruiting this year we were told top end talent was the focus.
Of those 9 recruits 5 of them have been named in the Ressies.

I wish the boys the best of luck and they'll have a real crack.

Realistically, is it the weakest team on paper we've selected in living memory? For obvious reasons I'm reluctant to think that, so others opinions would be interesting.

IS this the first time our first ruck didn't play there at all in the trials and I worry about his (Corbett) engine, so I presume Ellem will share the ruck.

Apart from Josh Ryan, our two other key defenders are playing their fitst games and Sheppard played in the first trial and played Reserves the last two.

I worry, but hopefully youthful enthusiasm will give us something to cheer?

A very good point Lachlan!
We all know the real reason for our recruiting issues even if the club doesn’t want to talk about it!!
Let’s hope we can at least be competitive.
Not having the Captain out there is disappointing.
Unfortunately I share the same thoughts as Aldo…

Lachlan wrote:I cannot believe Bramich isn’t playing, we don’t have a genuine Ruckman in the league team, astonishing.

With our Recruiting this year we were told top end talent was the focus.
Of those 9 recruits 5 of them have been named in the Ressies.

Frost and Nicholls will no doubt be league players, but, as you say, it's not a high strike rate.

Different side named on the SANFL site. Corbett isn't named in League or Reserves, Marslen is named to lead the ruck in the League side and there's about 7 (including Bramich) named on the i/c bench. What is going on?

Lucky Prospect is like Unley fir the bloods, a loss coming up looking at the team. Pretty sad to be so pessimistic before Rd 1 has started, but reality is the team is weak as.

Sheppard on Ramsey is a poor match up. On trial form it's hard to see how Johnson is on the wing at the expense of young Mulady.

The team on the club website has now been changed to show Marslen is leading the first ruck, and Corbett in neither side. It's a well-oiled machine in there.

I went to Prospect today expecting a 10 to 20 goal belting,as Prospect has been one of our bogie grounds for years and the fact our side was so undermanned or weak as others have stated.
What I saw was boys against men in size and age but not in heart.
These kids really put in and played with flair. Attacking football at last whenever the opportunity presented itself.
We should be proud of them. They never gave up, out scoring North in the final quarter. Remember North were last years grand finalist and have reportedly recuited well. The scoreboard showed North kicked 10 19 which can mean they missed a lot of set shots but I can tell you most of the points was due to Wests desperation around goal, rushing points , punching through in a goalsquare pack etc.
I enjoyed there run and preparedness to take on the game.
If they keep on developing as thet surely will, going to the footy might just be enjoyable again.
Well done to all involved!

Agree about the endeavour and run, although we kicked the last 4 goals to help the scoreboard against North's 19 behinds.

I thought Sherlock was very good and Marslen did a fair job in ruck.  Ryan was probably our best, got a lot of it and started a lot of our run.

Didn't mind Chamberlain's run at times.  Our defence stood up fairly well, with Park and Ryan prominent.

Joel Stevens was quieter than usual, Gore got a couple of late goals and Glanville is a very likely type.

Mattingly, Redfern and Ellem were very quiet.

We were outmatched by North in the air and mostly with the ground ball and run, but we battled hard and got some reward late.

As TAAARS said, we expected a hammering and lost by 16 points with a fair bit to be pleased about.

We're 6TH

We tried hard today, but we were undermanned physically and lacked height especially in our forward line. I have said for the past 4 years we are one tall short in our forward line and that was evident again today.

We were smashed in the Clearances and struggled to get the ball into our forward 50 enough.
What was pleasing was our preparedness to take the game on and move the ball quickly. I thought our skill level was better than it was during the trials.

Ryan, Park, Glanville ,Morrish and Sherlock playing his first game were all good players.
Major concern, none of our Key Position Players were effective at all

Ressies won with Ned Stevens kicking 5.

Well done to Ned.
He did a couple of useful things in the trials, he’s young and skinny but he shows something.

The morning after.

General reflections.

We had 60 fewer possessions, 30 fewer tackles, smashed in hitouts and absolutely walloped in clearances (43-19).

Inside 50s were about 55 to 33?

With 15 minutes to go we trained by over 6 goals with North kicking towards 19 behinds.

OTOH, we played a lot of good footy and were competitive all day.  Given our lack of height, we battled pretty well.

Some who deserve more credit were:

Morrish - keeps improving and has developed into a reliable player.

Maguire - still have doubts but played his best game yesterday?

Glanville - looks a class player and goes under the radar.  

Chamberlain - I like his run and willingness to take the game on.

We are clearly undermanned, so it was a good effort with what we had.  We were primed for a defensive style, but played a fairly attacking game which was far better to watch than our trial games.

We have to be prepared for reality over the coming weeks, but a relatively good start, with some good players to hopefully return.

Adelaide next Friday.

I think we dodged a bit of a bullet yesterday but as others have said, it was a spirited effort and we actually played some good, fast footy. We are too small across the ground, and don't have a marking target up forward.
I thought Morrish and Ryan were our best, then Park, Glanville (who is a real find) and Sherlock. Great debut by Sherlock who looked very comfortable at this level, and has natural defensive instincts with his spoiling and intercept marking.
The gulf in talent though between the sides is something that I don't think experience is going to resolve, it's going to be down to personnel.

I would make several changes this week. I would bring Ned Stevens straight up (anyone who is tall, can mark it and kick straight is welcome in our forward line), along with Bramich, Patton, Couroupis and Mulady, at the expense of Ellem, Shepherd, Delahunty, Mattingly and Redfern.

To underscore our height issue, I count 9 players from Saturday's game who I'd classify as small - Laudato, Gore, Redfern, Mattingly, Ryan, Morrish, Chamberlain, Maguire and Kennedy. That's just too many.

And most of our talls have only played a few games.

Thank goodness for Josh Ryan.

aldo russian wrote:To underscore our height issue, I count 9 players from Saturday's game who I'd classify as small - Laudato, Gore, Redfern, Mattingly, Ryan, Morrish, Chamberlain, Maguire and Kennedy. That's just too many.

If the AWFL didn't take all our talls things might be a bit different.

Correct, bundy.

There was an interview after the Showdown of Riley THilthorpe and Izaak Rankine, done by Mark Ricciuto.

An all West Adelaide interview and they could have added Rory Laird.

Drafted talls recently - Steene, Lemmey, Barnett - others?

Unfortunately that's the environment we live in and we have tended to recruit similar size players for years now, hence our lack of talls.

Any opinions on why Bramich played 2s? Form? Maybe thought he couldn't compete against White? Disciplinary (no evidence for that at all). I thought he was pretty good value in the trials.

Adam has posted a Match Report on the website.

Refreshing well written and honest, IMO.

Well done.

Yeah, that was a good report, busy day for Adam's family (!) and done really well.