Jim05 wrote:Wedgie wrote:Wow, major upsets by the bottom two teams this weekend! I rate Westies win the best though, have North run another side into form. Sturt were struggling before they clobbered us too lol.
Hard to see anything but a Sturt v Eagles GF. Should just play it now.
Yep, Sturt v Eagles GF is almost a cert. Think we have a good enough list on paper to go close but
poor coaching and game style will prevent us finishing top 3 and having a genuine crack at it. Still no certainty to make the 5 either yet
As the injury toll inevitably mounts in the Pahhhhr camp, they could wilt. But I wouldn't write them off at all. And given the Eags' GF record in recent years, anyone who makes the GF against them will go in feeling good even if they're notionally underdogs.
Norwood should have been good things to make the GF with the list it has. But it's an indictment on the rest of the competition that we're 4th. Massacred by a Sturt side that was out of the 5 at the time, barely fell over the line against a South Adelaide side that is chronically out of sorts, and now beaten by the bottom side on our own deck. Yet, apart from Sturt there's no-one stepping up to go ahead of us on the ladder, let alone boot us out of the 5.
The funny thing is that after all of the criticism of 'defensive, slow scoring, gathering possessions and either going backwards or chipping it 15 metres' criticism of Norwood in the Bassett and Warren years, Norwood in 2017 kicks scores. Second-highest in the league for points scored, and it's a long, long time since that's been true of a Norwood side.
Even in the losses (and there has been 1 thumping loss, plus 4 by less than a kick), we've always kept the scoreboard ticking over. Our lowest score for the year was in one of our most impressive wins—9.13 (67) as part of beating the Eagles by 5 goals.
That suggests to me that the problem isn't the coach's game style. Dreadful skill execution, bad decision-making, a lack of understanding among team-mates (in particular balls being kicked to where the player
isn't leading), tackling that doesn't stick, and a belief that a few Hollywood passages of play makes up for a lack of hard work and accountability without the ball: absolutely. But Cotton promised to make Norwood under his watch a higher-scoring team, and he's delivered on that. Of course the coach ultimately wears the rap if the team isn't winning, no matter the reason. But some basic skills training should be higher on the agenda than a complete re-boot of the coach's gameplan.