Glenelg v West

WEST
West Adelaide could take an unchanged line-up into its contest against Glenelg on Saturday.
Premiership defender Errin Wasley-Black and strongly-built utility Aaron Anderson have been added to the Bloods’ 23-man squad.
Both have been added to the five-man interchange bench with Anderson coming off a solid performance in the Reserves which yielded 21 disposals, eight tackles and a goal.
League
F: Kirk, Cleeland, Schmidt
HF: Karpany, Thilthorpe, Willsmore
C: Batley, C. Fairlie, Waite
HB: Hill, Keough, Levicki
B: Agostino, Ryan, Dunkin

R: Parrella, H. Haysman, K. Stevens
INT: Anderson, Laube, Wasley-Black, P. Fairlie, L. Evans
IN: Wasley-Black, Anderson
Reserves
Hupfeld, G.Turner, R. Stevens, Inglis, Gallaway, Lynch, Wooldridge, Johnson, Majok, Caruso, Bentley, Noonan, Morrish, Gutsche, Rana, May, Chamberlain, Sinderberry, Sareen, Moore, G. Haysman.
Under-18
Pridham, Desira, Ebert, Laudato, Brauer, Westley, Bailye, Fielke, Sherlock, Heitmann, Wooldridge, Morelli, Van den Berg, Nunan, Nield, Kennedy, Gilbert, Stakic, Sareen, Henty-Smith, Groom, Pederick, Boughen, Hannagan.

Okay all of us that read and post on the forum.
Lets get positive and find a way to get our boys over the line tomorrow.
We have some real good players across all lines. if we look at line by line we are not that bad.
F: Cleeland and Schmidt can beat most on given days and Kirk can be anything (attacking or defending)
HF: Thilthorpe 17 year old takes a strong mark and has quick hands, Willsmore has been brilliant over the last part of the season and Karpany also can be an attacking or defending forward.
C: and R: Stevens continues to be one of the best midfielders in the comp, Waite's run and carry have become excellent, Haysman has the speed to be damaging along with Bately and Fairlie. Parrella is rarely beaten in ruck work giving us first use of the ball a lot of the time.
HB: Hill, Keough and Levicki, at the moment close to best half back line going around.
B: Agostino continues to put his head where most people don't and rarely gets beaten, Dunkin does what Dunkin does and Ryan at the moment would be the first magnet on the board when picking the side.

Looking at the team this way we should win and win well. Gives us all something to go to tomorrow and cheer the boys home.

GO THE BLOODS

Wonderful summary, Mikeme and I'm heeding your call to be there, inspired by your optimism.

I don't think I'm giving away any secrets to say I am prepared to offer long odds that we'll line up like that

If the team is unchanged from last week, shouldn't we have won that game too, on your reckoning? Minor detail, though.

I do agree with you about the players and am looking forward to the Bloods winning.

Don't forget the Under 18's are playing after the main game, well worth staying on for.

As you know Lee I am NOT a Gambler so won't be taking any odds you offer on the line up.

But yes we should have won last week and the game before and the one before that.

But you can't change the Past. We can only shape the future.

GO THE BLOODS

Hard to work out our results given how good we are Mike.

aldo russian wrote:Hard to work out our results given how good we are Mike.

I'll have to watch the game with you Mikeme or at least borrow your rose coloured glasses. I'm obviously missing something.
Go the Bloods

Mike,

I love your optimism, however we are 9th on the Premiership table for a reason. We simply don’t have enough quality League footballers.

“Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.”
– Voltaire

blackandred wrote:“Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.”
– Voltaire

OR

“Misery destroys judgment.”
― 'The Red and the Black' (Stendhal)

At the 8 minute mark of the 3rd quarter, Keough had a shot at goal to put us within 10 points. We lost by 13 goals. And it all felt very familiar.
Recruiting will not need to target specific types, we need every type there is.

It’s hard to be too critical of our team.
Snelling, Noble,Burgess, Bates, Middleton, Beech, Schiller are big names to replace.
However, if we don’t have a full salary next year what’s the point......

What a difference 12 months makes - Missing from our final minor round game last year vs Crows compared to today’s lineup:

Rankine, Green, Bates, Porplyzia, Beech, Middleton, Noble, Burgess, Schiller, Turner, Webb

And we won with a score of 19.17. 131, including a 7 goal last quarter...

The only players to come back into the side that played today are Beech,Schiller and Turner. We therefore need to recruit at least 10 league players next year to be competitive.

To watch that performance today was embarrassing.

I'll do a match write-up tomorrow, but it was nice to watch the Under 18's have a nice win. Noah Hannigan kicked 6.5. Michael Laudato was superb.

Noah Hannigan is a good size let’s hope he can develop next year.

I watched the game on TV. We did have a real go at them and I can't fault the players effort in all honesty. We just don't have enough key positional players (especially forwards ) to kick a competitive score let alone to win a game. We all agree on here that we need to recruit big time but I fear this is not going to happen any time soon. Firstly there does not seem to be any appetite for that at board level, as debt reduction seems to be the top priority, and in any case we need to entice  so many recruits we could not fit them into our salary cap anyway.
Reckon more of the same next year already.

Fair comment mate ----- the only ones that the board will listen to is the sponsors if they start to withdraw due to not getting value for money ---- the joys of having non westies or football people leading our club who have no legal requirement to heed members desires

TAAARS wrote:I watched the game on TV. We did have a real go at them and I can't fault the players effort in all honesty. We just don't have enough key positional players (especially forwards ) to kick a competitive score let alone to win a game. We all agree on here that we need to recruit big time but I fear this is not going to happen any time soon. Firstly there does not seem to be any appetite for that at board level, as debt reduction seems to be the top priority, and in any case we need to entice  so many recruits we could not fit them into our salary cap anyway.
Reckon more of the same next year already.

Spot on TAAARS. The only comment I disagree with is 'more of the same.' Assuming we don't lose players to the late pre season or the mid season drafts, we have a better run with injuries and we have a full salary cap, we should be more competitive and might even win a few more games, although thoughts of playing finals would be overly optimistic. The general feeling around the club pre season this year was one of optimism.
We should be looking to rebuild over a few years. Tough decisions need to be made. Players who have been at the club for 2-3 years and can't step up to league level need to be cut loose. A development squad is just that. Given our form and injury list, I would say that any player who has been at the club for two years and has not been able to force thair way into the league team will probably never be a league player. This of course does not apply to our junior footballers.
A full salary cap is an absolute non negotiable in this process. Murray mentioned a membership drive. Who will be targeted? I can see that it might recapture a few lapsed members who might be made to feel guilty, but who in the hell is going to sign up as a new member? What will inspire them to do so, this season's performances or the possibility of another season under a reduced salary cap. As a dedicated member/supporter of the club I need to be clinging to at least a glimmer of hope. The appointment of Gavin is crucial to this. If he doesn't sign on for next year why would anyone be optimistic. Simply put, the board needs to tell the SANFL 'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH' (aka - get stuffed) then appoint our coach for however long it will take to rebuild. Debt reduction, turning a profit are crucial, but no more important than improving our on field performance. We are, after all a football club. The majority of our members are in their senior years. Do we want to spend our twilight years watching these excruciating performances. Yesterday's second half was just that. Ball handling errors and poor decision making meant that the opposition simply had to sit back and wait for us to cough it up. I generally feel a sense of loss at the end of aseason, but this year can't wait for Round 18 to come and go.

Okay so I might have been just off the mark with thinking that we could win BUT at least I gave it a crack.
Negative thoughts bring about negative behavior.
How many of us at work only hear about the bad things we do? Never the Good.
Lets focus on the Positives.
All right there is not a lot of them but every week we give it a red hot go.
When we watch AFL over the course of a weekend how much pride (and sorrow) do we get when we see the likes of Boner, Durdin, Francis, Snelling, Nobel, Burgess and more run around and we can turn to the people watching with us and say they came from WESTIES. The last 3 mentioned this year alone.

GO THE BLOODS

The Reserves had a good crack, but just fell short.  I made my way up to the back of the stand to sit near our erstwhile stats team (strange word, erstwhile, I must look up its meaning).  We started OK, but not as well as we had been doing recently and then hung in well until half-time.  Up until then, I thought Nathan Batley and Chris Schmidt were playing well and there were plenty of other contributors, including Murray Waite, Riley Thilthorpe and the defenders.

Kicking into the breeze in the third quarter, we again held up pretty well, until ex-Blood Tom Schott went down with an injury and there was a lengthy delay.  End of section and the game slipped away in the next five minutes.

Although we had a breeze in the last quarter, our lack of fitness again hung over us like an unwanted guest at a wedding and the Bays kicked 10 goals to our one from the third quarter delay to the final siren, along with missing a couple of easy shots.  Three things stood out to me - we were having a crack against a tidal wave of attacks, we weren't as fit as our opposition as we faced one more game to go and hadn't won a last quarter all year and that Connor Fairlie stood out in the last quarter as still having run in his legs and had done a pre-season at South.

What's happened has happened and far from being critical, it is now obviously one important area that the coaches will work on big-time for the coming pre-season.  Even with a depleted side (and no side would recover from losing 3 of its very best players mid-season, let alone a struggling team, we had been in winning positions in many games.  With the under-manned teams we have put on the park, I think it has been amazing that we have been in so many games until our fitness has given out.  Every player has given 100%. I suspect and hope we'll be back to a high level next year.

In the end, our last quarter was embarrassing at times.  Losing Kaine Stevens half-way through the game also hurt us badly.  As for best players, it's difficult, as the two halves were so different.  I thought Josh Ryan, holding McBean to one goal from a free-kick in front of the Snouts' Louts mound, despite an avalanche of attacking ball, stood up as always.  Nathan Batley's first half was excellent and he was generally clean and runs through lines, Connor Fairlie battled it right out and kicked 3, Riley Thilthorpe was a good target and Logan Hill, despite having his ribs tested by the opposition in the first minute, as always played strongly and showed leadership.

The stats told the story, a quality midfield of Snook, Partington and Motlop had a picnic against an inexperienced midfield that battled against the odds.

I stayed on and my spirits were restored watching emerging talent as our Under 18's had a good win.  We have to recruit solidly (more on that shortly), but I saw some outstanding talent coming through.  In 2 or 3 years, we'll have good juniors coming through. Noah Hannigan, with 6 goals and 11 scoring shots was outstanding and Michael Laudato, an under-ager, was simply a top talent and best on ground.

With the players we have lost, there will be room to recruit well.  It's well known that I also believe we have to have a full salary cap, regardless of any other considerations.  I think we lose more by crowds dropping off alarmingly, leading to fewer patrons in the club, etc than we gain by SANFL funding.  I think we can have both.

I'm sure the Board is well aware of this and working hard on it.

I'm with Mikeme in urging supporters to back the club.  It's been a horror season, there are better times ahead, but we have to be brave, IMO.

Thanks to all those supporters who take the time to have a chat at the footy and to all the passionate supporters on here who keep the flag flying.


Edit: Add Pat Levicki to those who played well.

Out of yesterday's game, one of the many areas where we need to improve is size. Glenelg are so much bigger/stronger than us. Hill, Kirk, Conor Fairlie, Haysman, Karpany, Anderson - that's a lot of small guys, almost a third of the side.

[quote="aldo russian"] one of the many areas where we need to improve is size.

And who said size wasn't important!!!!!

mikeme wrote:

aldo russian wrote: one of the many areas where we need to improve is size.

And who said size wasn't important!!!!!

Hopefully, the recruiting team will be able to assess whether potential recruits measure up or not.

https://westadelaidefc.com.au/news/colvilles-corner-west-v-glenelg/

From the website, Gavin's summary.

Gavin makes it clear in his match review that he believes we are not fit. How is it possible that we are the only club in the competition not to get this basic fundamental right? I hope and trust that the club investigates how this came to happen, and then does something about ensuring it doesn't happen again.