Forum topic

It was another wasted opportunity at Port. 

What was once a fortress is no longer! 

We had the majority of the footy and inside 50s but once again squandered forward entries.

Williamstown were accurate though and cleaner with the footy. 14.5 is good kicking in what was blustery conditions.

I'm not sure what the rest of the season will look like for Port. 

Port got a bake at the 3/4 address and looked to start the final term with a bit of fire in the belly but easy goals sealed the win for the Gulls.

There's a lot to digest from the game.

The Port Melbourne women's team look to have regained form in recent weeks and should rate themselves a genuine premiership chance. 

Yes, the VFLW side looked great yesterday, getting off to an early lead and never looking like losing. That was a bit of a surprise given Williamstown's recent VFLW form. Williamstown's Emily Eaves is leading the coaches' votes and averaging 17.4 disposals and 7 clearances in a game, and the Port Melbourne women being able to hold her to 11 disposals and only 2 clearances is impressive.

For the men, another very disappointing result, as you said. They didn't kick as many behinds as they have in recent weeks but instead kicked straight to opposition defenders even more often. Credit to Williamstown's defence, certainly, but our kicking inside forward 50 was poor. After dominating the inside 50s in the first half, we should have built a strong lead but obviously didn't. 

As for the third quarter... well, McCartney did give a good 3/4 time address in which he called out the poor efforts, and to their credit the players responded with real intensity and a much-improved attack on the footy, but they never should have needed to be told to step up the intensity and effort in the first place, and turnovers were again a problem in the fourth. It's hard to say what to expect from this side week to week now as fitness does seem to be dropping off.

Tom Graham's performance was a rare positive note, which is not what one would guess from the stats. McCartney praised him highly in his 3/4 time address, and I'm glad to have heard that because I was thinking that Graham wasn't doing badly at all, but if I didn't know the coach's opinion, I might have questioned my initial judgment upon checking the stats. He had 3 disposals, and as best I can tell from my recollections and the replay, 4 of Brodie McLaughlin's 5 goals were against him (the 4th of those 5 was from a free kick against Matt Gahan), but he also had a number of spoils that don't show up in the VFL stats - I would estimate that he prevented more goals than he gave up - he wasn't getting a lot of help from teammates, and he was one of the few who was giving it everything he had over all four quarters. It was the best 3-disposal-and-had-4-goals-kicked-on-him performance I've seen, which looks like a very odd statement indeed, but he was genuinely one of our best players. A very interesting case of stats not telling the whole story.

Credit also to Sam Grant, who played on Lachie Gollant and was good as well.

I'm not sold on Fraser Rosman as a midfielder and would like to see him back in defence next week. His move to the midfield presumably came because of Heppell being switched to halfback for this game, but I would rather have seen Lachie Rankin moved to the midfield (as he was after Mulady dislocated his shoulder in the third) instead of Rosman. Rosman surely can play midfield/wing better than he did in this game, but he's also one of our best defenders and could have provided some aerial help for Tom Graham.

It will be interesting to see who comes in next week for Mulady. I wouldn't mind seeing Riley Polkinghorne getting another shot; his impact had dropped off by the time he was dropped, but he looked very promising in a number of games early. I'd like to see Drew Lloyd return as well, although it's hard to say who would come out for him; whatever his limitations as a player, he can never be accused of not putting his body on the line or of playing with anything less than 100% intensity. Fitness may be the knock on both Polkinghorne and Lloyd (Lloyd's impact having also noticeably decreased by the time he was dropped, though not for lack of trying on his part), but they have both had a bit of a rest now with several weeks of not playing VFL.

Van Es presumably returns next week, but after this performance changes beyond that seem likely. It will be interesting to see what decisions McCartney makes about dropping players.

I do think that any concerns over McCartney's teams being overly defensively minded have been shown to be unfounded. We're not scoring as much as we should, but that comes from poor goalkicking and poor forward 50 entries, which are presumably not part of the gameplan, rather than from an overly defensive style. McCartney's addresses to the team, as well as the team's responses to them, indicate a plan to take the game on and move the ball quickly.

Good on the girls - and they are nice girls, helped with the bbq last week to raise money for the heritage museum. Look forward to reading your posts once this head ache which I acquired through self medicating after another disappoint day clears.

Good write up Spiny, always enjoy your contributions. I tend to agree with what I'm hearing on the terraces,  we are playing well without winning. I was saying to a long-term supporter and ex club fitness coach good teams find a way to win even when things are against them such as injuries or bad goal kicking etc, we are not there yet. Surprisingly most of our fans seem to be patient with the common comment being that it'll take time. I admire Williamstown their bad run is a season,  they do quick rebuilds our bad run now has been 5 leading to one of our worse eras in club history and I can't help to think that although most are staying patient theirs only a limited time before patience wears out.

Here's a telling stat, in the last 3 rounds we have had 44 more inside 50s than opposition sides (without winning). I would like to see aggressive targeting of quality forwards in the off season.

So disappointing after a pre-season build up with an abundance of  boom recruits !

Mega are you in a position to name some of those recruits that you are disappointed in.

Spiny is prepared to give Riley Polkinghorne another chance & Macca should know that Riley is NOT a wingman but an on baller. Remind him of that !

So disappointing after a pre-season build up with an abundance of  boom recruits !

Mega are you in a position to name some of those recruits that you are disappointed in.

Spiny is prepared to give Riley Polkinghorne another chance & Macca should know that Riley is NOT a wingman but an on baller. Remind him of that !

Thanks, Mega. Definitely agree that we need to recruit quality forwards. Playing well without winning does indeed describe some of our losses, although in this most recent game the players by and large deserved the bake they got at 3/4 time. Despite that 3rd quarter, the effort usually seems to be there, and yet they also don't have the ability to consistently grind out wins yet.

One difficult thing about long rebuilds is how much patience is required when a new coaching group and a number of new players enter mid-rebuild, since in some respects that amounts to starting over, while at the same time the existing playing group has bad habits carried over from previous years that take time to fix. On the one hand, more wins this season could have been realistic, as good games such as the ones against GWS and North Melbourne show. On the other hand, it's not entirely surprising in retrospect that it's taking some time for things to gel.

Polkinghorne was definitely at his best on ball rather than on the wing. Our inside mids all seem to be expected to rotate through the wing, which is interesting, although they don't spend equal amounts of time there. Lazzaro seems to be good both on ball and on the wing, though I prefer him on ball to maximize his impact - he seems like he'd be good anywhere, other than KPP or ruck, of course. Hird on the wing seems like it ought to work, yet I'm not sure that it does; granted, so far the sample size for that is small - a couple of preseason games and one quarter a week or two ago, as I recall - which may be partly because he's only been playing on ball this season since the North game, but it may also be because McCartney also thinks he's better as an inside mid than on the wing. We can hope he's reached the same conclusion with Polkinghorne, although right now it looks like everyone in our midfield group is going to spend at least a bit of time on the wing at some point. I've wondered if he's going to stick with that arrangement given that wing and inside mid are certainly different positions. (Edited to add: not that it's uncommon for wings to attend a centre bounce here and there, but players playing both wing and inside mid seems to be a big part of the current gameplan.)

Digs I believe theirs two big areas of concern - the quality of inside 50 entries leaves a lot of room for improvement. Secondly we don’t seem to have a forward that can score consistently for several games straight - a forward may dominate one week and go quiet the next. The backline holds up ok even without highmore, mids do well but our weakest link it’s fair to say is the forward line.