Dutchy wrote:Spargo wrote:Heard Chris Dittmar (who has a permanent chip on his shoulder) absolutely slam the club yesterday. Bagged the Kane Cornes decision (again) being gifted his last 8 games, called Keith Thomas soft & said the club was confused & players were given the wrong message by management/coaching staffs bad decisions.
Tend to agree with him around the Kane Cornes thing...still confuses me.
Anyway I went to the Port game on the weekend and sat up in the Southern stand, which isn't my preferred spot but it was great to watch the movement of players etc. My view was that Port and WCE had similar work rates with their press and spread, it was simply that WCE made less mistakes under pressure to get thru and/or over the press.
Port had a few players panic too often which created turnovers. There were at least 5 examples where a Port player hand balled under pressure directly to a WCE player. You are actually better off holding the ball in even if it means getting penalised holding the ball as your defence can at least reset instead of a quick rebound turnover.
To summarise I think Port's effort is there, they are just getting exposed in skill execution and to a lesser degree getting out coached.
Dickson has a long way to go to be an A grade forward.
Both of these are killing us for the same reason.
With Ryder and Schulz out ( and Lobbe shit or injured ) the move of Trengove into the ruck means Westhoff is either up the ground working as the avenue to goal, the link man if you will, or he's chopping out in the ruck. This leaves Dixon at home alone in both instances. Our midfield look up and see either nobody there or Dixon with two or more around him.
I saw at stat Friday night, Sydney go to Franklin 36% of their F50 entries. They lead marks I50. Port go to Dixon 32% ( IIRC ) and are last for marks I50. Problem is Dixon has pretty much always had the third man up in his contest as our movement is slow, predictable ( it's through Westhoff or midfield runners only ) and has made his life harder than it would be if our structure is as we intended, with all men available.
He's got 21 goals in 9 games (2.3), is averaging 5 marks and 13 touches. When he has some help and we have some leading / marking options those numbers won't need to increase by much to be more than handy. He's been ok as the key forward in a team under performing, being fairly harshly judged right at the moment. I'm happy with his output up to now.
Edit - AFL leading goal kickers ( Total / avg )
Franklin 37 / 4.1
Kennedy / Lynch 32 / 3.6
Waite 27 / 3
Jenkins 26 / 2.9
Hogan / Gunston 23 / 2.6
Betts / Reiwoldt 22 / 2.4
Fasolo / Dixon / Breust / Stringer / Hawkins / Johnson 21 / 2.3
PAFC. Forever.
LOOK OUT, WE'RE COMING!