That was a shocking display of coaching even by Freo standards.
It starts at selection: they pick Jones as an emergency when in fact he should be playing. He was great in his only game and totally gave us the competition in the air we needed. He should be playing (until Hodor returns) because we need to practice playing two rucks for the era when Sandi is no longer. Hodor wont be able to ruck by himself all day, so start the process now. Then it happens, Sandi goes down in warm up and they dont pick Jones, they pick Nyhuis. What the......??? So then they have to take Apeness out of the forward line.
Well thats OK, at least we have Kersten that can go forward to help Cox. No.....Cox starts on the bench doesnt appear until the 10 minute mark and Kersten spends the first half in defence. What a joke.
Then Nyhuis takes a mark directly in front, 30m. One and a half step run up, poke, miss. School boy mistake, not the miss but the pissant runnup and approach. Should be coached into them. Not Freo.
Then we spend the next hour and a half watching a) long bombs to Matera and Ballantyne. b) Cox loitering about 40 m in front of the pack, giving himself no space to lead. No instructions from the coach - apparently as nothing changed. Left to Mundy to go over to Cox late in the game and tell the kid to actually move.
Cox Apeness and kersten: I feel sorry for them, they dont know if they should be forwards or backs. Roly had them switching every 3 minutes, they didnt know if they were Arthur or Martha
Poor structure in front of the ball, poorly coached non existant leading patterns, no Tall EVER leading out of the square (Mundy excluded). Same old same old year after year. Then the undisciplined falls in the back, 50m penalties. 4 Freo players sucking in to the ball carrier and then watching helplessly as the ball is released into space.
Is it too much to ask for our coaches to coach the basics first. To have two tall forwards, one in the goal square leading to the 50 m arc and one at about 30 m leading to the 70m line? In two different directions on two different angles with a crumber somehwere in the vicinity. This is driving me crazy.
