“We’ve got to work out what we stand for as a football team quickly and, if not, I’ll sort it out,”

We can’t have margins like that at half-time and, for various reasons, end up losing the game; it happens too much at this football club.

Today we played four guys that hadn’t played at the MCG so it could be a little bit of [inexperience], but I don’t want to make too many excuses. The guys have got to work it out and judge themselves on what they do after half-time in games when it gets tough under pressure and why we let sides get momentum.

“Its how your players react to that situation and what they want to do about it that matters most.

“We’ve got to really sort this out and start to show killer instinct when it needs to be shown.”

“We couldn’t get our hands on the ball after half-time; if you have a look at the statistics they were phenomenonally Melbourne’s way and our guys have got to say ‘well how long are going to keep putting up with that?’

“When are we actually going to wake up and say ‘well who else is it going to be?’ because Pavlich is not going to be able to do that all the time.”
--------------------------------------------------------------
he should have hacked into the team abit more, would have done some good!

Yes Harves and where were the coaching moves to stop the rot when they got a run on? The players are to blame but just as much as the coaches. When they put together 2 then 3 goals in a row something should have been done to slow momentum. Where were the 2 or 3 extra players behind the ball to slow things down and regain some ascendency. Everyone must remember Harves is just as effective as our youngsters and is just learning the ropes in his first senior year.

Your right Kev why not put 1 or 2 behind the ball when the other team is getting a run on! why not put a guy behind the centre square. SORT IT OUT HARVES!!

Is it a case of breaking the team to make the team?

That occurred to me too - Mark Harvey is a first-year coach, and is probably finding, as in all jobs, that it is not easy stepping up to be the boss.

He has also inherited a team that undoubtedly has some talent but that is also deeply flawed. It will take a few years for him to build the list that he wants. In addition, much of the team has grown up under the very different regime of a very different coach.

I have a lot of faith in Mark Harvey and I think that he will prove to be a very good thing for Freo. Tough man for a tough job.

Harvey is a cards on the table type guy. That is all I have ever wanted so now let's see if thats going to get us somewhere.I think he will be as hard on himself as he will be on all around him.

for those with fox,i'm pretty sure he is on the couch tonight

At the start of the third quarter, we employed a tactic that is what I think changed the game and the momentum. We had gone man on man as we did against the pussies but after half time we had a man try to run back into the hole (40m out from the Demon goal) straight from a stoppage if we lost it.

The problem was we would play the stoppage too defensively and almost certainly lose it, get another ball up at best. The player getting back never seemed to get to the right spot and our defense was too slow to react and cover their men. The melbourne midfield kept picking out their forwards and we couldn't do anything until Solly and Pav went into the middle and managed to win some of their own ball.

The commentators said that we put an extra man in the midfield rather than put him in defence. Seems to me that the Dees surge was on the back of increased workload and efficiency from their midfield. So, our tactic of an extra man in midfield didn't work, back to the drawing board.

Does anyone know what happened to Taz after half time, he hardly touched the ball?

Fremantle's lack of kicks makes it hard for the last bloke in the chain to get the ball.

By the last quarter Harves had realised the spare man back hadn't worked. He moved the bloke into the middle and the Dees decided to drop a man back. Unfortunately they kept getting their hands on it and our extra man at the ball didn't help.

fella we just werent good enough, its like we thought it was 50 points we can do it easy.... it think to myself, who will be gone from our list next year?

i would like to give a thumbs up to tarrant, three goals well done.

but in the end, melbourne just ran over us. i think we took it a bit lightly, as seeing it was against melbourne.... we have got a fortnight to think about this.

It appears to be something of a recurring theme – Being favoured to win and managing to lose.

Could it be that perhaps there are some players out there getting ‘arrogance’ confused with ‘confidence’ and ‘expecting’ to win rather than having to ‘earn’ a victory?

i can't follow this theory as we don't win any* games.



* west coast is a bye round.

Read Shane's post, folks, and think about it before bagging another individual player.

Sometimes one of our forwards might appear to have gone missing because (gee golly willickers) some of our other players down the field might not be winning the ball for us and getting it into our forward line, thus making it a tad difficult for our forwards to look like they're 'trying'. Sometimes (oh, shock! horror!) this may be because the players down the field are temporary stand-ins for experienced but injured or suspended, and therefore unavailable, regulars. Like, for example ... oh, I don't know ... our backline on Sunday? Anybody notice that we had no run, no run at all, off our half-backline against melbourne? That didn't matter in the first half, because Melbourne were a rabble. But it sure as hell mattered in the second half, when they weren't. Now, goodness me, do you think we might have missed Roger Hayden on Sunday? Oh but, of course, surely not. Because Hayden's position was covered by someone younger, and therefore better, than him.

Remember, youngsters are the way of the future. Proven AFL champions are slow, loser has-beens.

Every successful club in the history of football has understood this, and won thousands of premierships because of it. Some successful AFL clubs have won millions of premierships by playing unfertilised eggs.

Freo's problem on sunday is that it didn't play enough youngsters, let alone enough unfertilised eggs. It's got nothing to do with the delusion that, despite playing only half a team, we still would have won in a canter if only Jeff had kicked straight.

I saw Harves on the couch last night. Talk about defensive. Must admit I wouldn't have been in a good mood after a game like that and theres no way I would have liked to have seen him soul searching on the couch. But I think some of the questions had merit and he gave them nothing.

The major problem as I see it is that the second tier players haven't stepped up like they should have. In 2004 and 2005 we blooded alot of players (read Peake, Mundy, Crowley, Dodd, Johnson etc). Whilst they are playing footy weekend in and week out, they haven't seemed to get the bit between the teeth and become consistent players. I rarely see the intensity from them that would merit us being higher on the ladder.

We have also held onto some of the older players for far too long. McManus, and Bell whilst being champions are not going to be part of the team that wins us a flag, there time has passed. I have been impressed with the youngsters this year (Palmer, Ibbo, and Mayne). We need more of that. We need to hold onto draft picks and build on it. I'd like to see a rule of no more recycled players. It rarely worked for us (only a couple of times). When we get talent, lets not piss it up the wall. Jess Sinclair, Adam McPhee, James Clement etc. These were all good players we should have held onto.

The real criticism I have of Harves this year was picking up yet more recycled players. I can except a new game plan and a first year coach but recycling 30 year-olds is indefensible.

We need to compare the team to their contempories. In 2003 we were slightly better than the Eagles, the Cats were on the rise and the Saints were talented. Of those three teams two have won Premierships since then. Then we have teams which were 1 or 2 years behind us in development. The Doggies and Hawks. They have blown past us and are now league leaders with the Cats. Problem is that we have made a Preliminary Final and now appear to have to rebuild without ever making it to the top.

You can only block out the media criticism for so long but after a while some of it has to ring true. We are old. We do choke. We have underachieved. We do have the highest number of suspensions. We do make bad decisions when picking up players. Its not a conspiracy we have bad mistakes. Good teams win even when decisions go against them. You can't tell me that the Lions, Power, Eagles, Sydney and the Cats weren't the best teams going around in their time.

Now for all of those of you that say I'm not a supporter for making these comments. I couldn't care less. I'm passionate about Freo. Its the only team I could support and I've invested alot of time into supporting them. But things need to be honestly appraised, and we need to move forward. We'll never gain respect any other way. And thats what I want for the Dockers, RESPECT.

Personally I think interviewing the Fremantle coach is a waste of time. They should put him in stocks in the centre of Melbourne and chuck vegetables at him until the idiots get bored. It's not like they are listening to his answers.

You can only block out the media criticism for so long but after a while some of it has to ring true.

Really? If something is repeated often enough, enough people will believe it. It's got nothing to do with whether it's true or not. Pollies have been using the media this way for years. When it suits them the media use it themselves.

Do we deserve the flack we're copping? sure we do. But I'll take with a pinch of salt all the advice and theories that come funnelled through the media from Respectedfootballcommentators.

And please, Sinclair, Clement, McPhee? Serviceable Journeymen. Have they been the difference in getting their teams towards finals?

I agree - having our coach front the media at all is a complete waste of time. We have 40000 members, so it's not as if Mark Harvey has to get in front of the media to pump the club up. While I did watch both shows last night, it wouldn't have bothered me if Mark Harvey had spurned both guest appearance requests. Would it have bothered any other Fremantle fan?

Furthermore, what the hell is the point of after-match press conferences? Fans can't hear or read transcripts of them in their entirety, which tells me that they have no appeal to us. What possible further insight into a game that you just finished watching can you get as a media representative from asking the coach a question, other than deliberately attempting to be provocative?

Mark Harvey is not a star media performer. Who cares? I certainly don't. I can't imagine media performance would be in the true selection criteria for an AFL coaching position. Apart from that, the Western Australian media surely only holds appeal with the terminally stupid, and as such nothing is gained by being media-friendly. Nothing would be lost by ignoring the media entirely. I would like to see a new club media policy which would pay the media in this state and in the game of football its deserved level of respect.

Clement was only a servicable journeyman?

I must have watched different games...