Rd 15 - Eagles v Adelaide, Sun Aug 3 @ MTH Oval, Woodville

[human_torpedo]

JTC, that is a dangerous forward line with 3 talls and 3 smalls, with Grocke playing the hard running hit up forward role.. However, the slow ball movement up the ground doesnt help them take advantage of that

[wildcat]

Late Sunday night & not even a whimper or excuse from "The Hybrids". Where are all the usual rabble that talks them up? ;-)

[Jim05]

Lost by nearly 70 yet had the same free kick count as their opponents. Men in white couldnt get them over the line today. Im sure the umps will get a please explain this week from SANFL HQ on why the Eagles didnt get more

[Bunton]

Geez big Aing sorted put the men from the boys again. Almost 2 months since he had 5 kicks in a game! Will be interesting to see what happens at years end. Surely the eagles can not prove another guaranteed $40k sign on per year for the mercenary under-performer.

[daysofourlives]

F: Poole, Wundke, Grocke
HF: Goldsworthy, Ainger, McGregor

That is a scary forward line. Or at least it should be and is capable of kicking 15+ goals every week no matter who the opposition is.
Assuming the midfield actually get the ball to them.

Not sure how they are playing but with a forward line up with that much firepower you'd think the game plan would be long, fast and direct.

How does that compare to the greatest foward line the SANFL has ever seen that graced the turf once earlier this season?

[bennymacca]

Couldn't get within 11 goals of that great forward line

[Aerie]

Geez big Aing sorted put the men from the boys again. Almost 2 months since he had 5 kicks in a game! Will be interesting to see what happens at years end. Surely the eagles can not prove another guaranteed $40k sign on per year for the mercenary under-performer.

You would not be able to justify paying him in the top bracket. Parry - good, Wundke - good, Ainger - not so good. 2 out of 3 aint bad.

Thought Lewis played his best game for the year. Jarrad and Raymond did well and Batley at least tried to create some run from defence, but the difference in class was too much with almost a full contingent of AFL players available (18 plus Callinan).

4 massive losses to the AFL Reserves sides this year. 2 wins from the last 7 games. A loss to South next weekend could see the Eagles playing North for a spot in the 5 in a fortnight. 3 wins will probably see a top 3 spot secured (provided Norwood or Sturt drop a game).

I found the Eagles impossible to predict at the beginning of the year and it isn't looking any clearer now. Would not be surprised if we dropped all 3 games and would only be slightly surprised if we won all 3.

[Gozu]

Crowd 3,822

[matt35]

Nobody could've seen that coming at quarter time, Eagles up by 17 and the Crows not looking much better than last week. Then bang!

Think the Eagles will make the finals, but on current form it may be over in a week. Still mathematically possible for the Crows to sneak in, but won't happen.

[Mr Fuller]

As long as all the other sides below keep beating each other we will play finals. Its been a weird season in that regard. We will probably end up fifth though which is a terrible result given our start to the season.

I went to the ground and was staggered by the size of the crowd. I honestly expected we’d be lucky to get 1200 and to get 3800 was a great result. Well done Phil H. Of those 3800 about 60% were going for the eagles, 35% couldn’t give a stuff either way and weren’t paying attention to the game (comprising kids from local footy clubs and disinterested parents). Probably less than 5% of the crowd were clapping when the crows kicked goals which was frequently.

No point covering the match. The eagles were just as sh!t as they always are. We were slow. We went backwards and sideways. We kicked into men on the mark and got our handpasses blocked. Same old tired script. The backline played ok given the circumstances and the amount of forward entries by the crows. It was the midfield and forward line who were dreadful.

The end of the season can’t come fast enough. Definitely some homework for the brains trust over the long break on a variety of topics:

Recruiting

- Do we continue the flawed approach of only recruiting from within SA and only from other SANFL clubs? Or do we be proactive like other clubs and scour country leagues, scour interstate, use contacts within AFL clubs (i.e. McKenzie, former eagles currently on AFL lists) to put in a good word?

Culture

- Do we continue poaching mercenary players from other clubs who play for $$ rather than playing for guernsey and who ignore coaches instructions on match day? Or do we target and develop players willing to contribute to a tight knit club, who play for the jumper and stick to the game plan no matter how ‘boring’ it might seem?

Mental conditioning

- When considering whether a player makes our training squad, do we make the decision purely on physical characteristics? Or in addition to this, do we consider how mentally fragile they are?

List management

- Do we keep burying our head in the sand and pretend that there isn’t a problem with the midfield? Or does Godden swallow his pride and finally admit he has failed to anticipate how badly our midfield depth would drop away after the era of Colville, Treeby, Ciccollela, McKenzie, Powell? More importantly, what is his plan to rejuvenate our midfield with talent?

- Do we keep recycling tried and failed players from the reserves throughout the year or do we take a punt (as Fuller frequently did) on bypassing the reserves to select talent from the U18s?

[RB]

Not that much wrong with the Eagles players, IMO. A forward line with Wundke, Ainger, Goldsworthy, Grocke needs only to have the ball kicked forward once in a while. When the forward line's better than the defence, just play direct football, don't chip or handball it around. That's their problem.

[FlyingHigh]

The end of the season can’t come fast enough. Definitely some homework for the brains trust over the long break on a variety of topics:

Recruiting

- Do we continue the flawed approach of only recruiting from within SA and only from other SANFL clubs? Or do we be proactive like other clubs and scour country leagues, scour interstate, use contacts within AFL clubs (i.e. McKenzie, former eagles currently on AFL lists) to put in a good word?

Culture

- Do we continue poaching mercenary players from other clubs who play for $$ rather than playing for guernsey and who ignore coaches instructions on match day? Or do we target and develop players willing to contribute to a tight knit club, who play for the jumper and stick to the game plan no matter how ‘boring’ it might seem?

List management

- Do we keep burying our head in the sand and pretend that there isn’t a problem with the midfield? Or does Godden swallow his pride and finally admit he has failed to anticipate how badly our midfield depth would drop away after the era of Colville, Treeby, Ciccollela, McKenzie, Powell? More importantly, what is his plan to rejuvenate our midfield with talent?

- Do we keep recycling tried and failed players from the reserves throughout the year or do we take a punt (as Fuller frequently did) on bypassing the reserves to select talent from the U18s?

Unless we are in financial strife, am amazed and disappointed with this SA-only recruitment policy, which IIRC heard Godden say in an interview was due to the cost of relocating players vs the return. But then it is hypocritical that we splash cash around the SANFL on established players, who, if they are attracted by money, are implicitly a "mightn't stay too long" risk.
Simply it's the character of the player. There will always be a Raymond, Grocke, Lewis or Templeton coming from another SANFL club who needs a chance or a change of scenery. That's fine, they're coming for the right reasons. But part of our reasonable run of success, Centrals dynasty, South's improvement has been players from lower interstate comps with good character and for whom the SANFL is a standard to strive for. And surely this repays the initial outlay far more so than recruiting too many big name players locally - Colville, Powell, Treeby, McKenzie, Passador and Inkster although the latter two were perhaps a year shy of the ideal length of service. Schwarz and Eddy came for the wrong reasons or in the wrong mindset, and I hope it's not those examples that have influenced this policy.
Parry was the big local recruit who was worth it (but didn't that started from a disagreement with South rather than us initially targeting him?). The jury may still be out on some of the current players, but if they have been targeted and the club hasn't improved, then it is an indictment on either the players or the recruiters (for targeting the wrong positions), and disappointing to see players like Fitzgerald and Staple think they are being forced out.

[DOC]

Parry was the big local recruit who was worth it (but didn't that started from a disagreement with South rather than us initially targeting him?). The jury may still be out on some of the current players, but if they have been targeted and the club hasn't improved, then it is an indictment on either the players or the recruiters (for targeting the wrong positions), and disappointing to see players like Fitzgerald and Staple think they are being forced out.

Thats true. He wanted 10 days leave for a bucks show in Las Vegas. We would not give it to him, he and James Boyd were both essentially put up for sale.

[Mr Fuller]

It is a lazy and pathetic attitude by the club and must change or we will be fast-tracked into mediocrity.

What if next season we seek to poach players from other clubs yet we either can’t afford it or they don’t want to come? Does that mean we won’t recruit and just look at the amateur leagues? Even if we do look interstate at that point, we’ll be so far behind every other club that we probably will end up with another Kite who will return home because we will be left with the scraps.

I look at clubs like North, West, Norwood etc and they don’t seem to have any problems going after these types which has mostly paid dividends.
Clearly SANFL clubs cannot afford full-time interstate recruiters. So the Eagles have just got to think out the square and use their contacts. Get in touch with Mark McKenzie at Hawthorn. Who at Box Hill is playing well, has potential, has a great attitude, and is open to change? Which young Hawthorn players who are delisted at the end of the season is burning with desire to get back in the AFL and will do what it takes? Get him to talk highly of the eagles and facilitate a meeting.

Speak to Jimmy Toumpas at Melbourne or other ex-players for their opinion on current team-mates.

There are so many things we could be doing but we just seem to take the easy and safe route which is not going to get us ahead.

[wildcat]

This looks like an almighty excuse-fest even before the ship has sunk & the horse has bolted!

[wristwatcher]

Geez big Aing sorted put the men from the boys again. Almost 2 months since he had 5 kicks in a game! Will be interesting to see what happens at years end. Surely the eagles can not prove another guaranteed $40k sign on per year for the mercenary under-performer.

He's no mercenary. Maybe He just didn't want to play for a club that hasn't won a premiership in 50 years. The "under performer" was CHF in team of the year.
Sounds like sour grapes from a South supporter to me. Get over it and worry about your players.

[johntheclaret]

It is a lazy and pathetic attitude by the club and must change or we will be fast-tracked into mediocrity.

What if next season we seek to poach players from other clubs yet we either can’t afford it or they don’t want to come? Does that mean we won’t recruit and just look at the amateur leagues? Even if we do look interstate at that point, we’ll be so far behind every other club that we probably will end up with another Kite who will return home because we will be left with the scraps.

I look at clubs like North, West, Norwood etc and they don’t seem to have any problems going after these types which has mostly paid dividends.
Clearly SANFL clubs cannot afford full-time interstate recruiters. So the Eagles have just got to think out the square and use their contacts. Get in touch with Mark McKenzie at Hawthorn. Who at Box Hill is playing well, has potential, has a great attitude, and is open to change? Which young Hawthorn players who are delisted at the end of the season is burning with desire to get back in the AFL and will do what it takes? Get him to talk highly of the eagles and facilitate a meeting.

Speak to Jimmy Toumpas at Melbourne or other ex-players for their opinion on current team-mates.

There are so many things we could be doing but we just seem to take the easy and safe route which is not going to get us ahead.

I wouldn't be using North or West as shining examples when it comes to recruiting.

For all that's been said about the WWT recruitment policy it's brought them more success in 5 years than North's had in 20 years and West in 30 years.