Pathetic

[hawk_88]

Really poor effort today.

They were better offensively. They were MUCH better defensively. The fact that we came away with four points is a miracle.

Again, as I have been blabbing on about every week, our set up around stoppages, contested situations and marking contests is poor. Our smalls are rarely crumbing the ball, in fact, it appears that the talls are doing as much of the crumbing from their own contests as the smalls. Too often the Eagles got clean hands to the ball and moved it forward quickly. Too often we won a tap out and didn't get the clearance.

We were also very flat footed again today. This meant our press was often incomplete and therefore totally ineffective. We also didn't spread from contests well which made players dispose with a lot of high loopy hand passes that put the receiver under pressure.

Our decision making was..... don't even get me started.

Very few players played weren't below average so I won't list them all. I will however focus on Bateman. For so long his game has been about hard running. Even if the rest of the Hawks were playing poorly or if he wasn't getting much of the ball, you would always see him running and running and running. He has slowed down over the past year and was as static as I have ever seen him. Slow to react, slow to chase, not going for the ball, trying to be too aerial instead of taking a good solid mark. It was a pitiful effort and I would drop him this week.

Mitchell, Sewell and Lewis player good games. Mitchell is particular was fantastic when others weren't.

[valkorum]

Well said.  At 3 quarter time I thought the E-Girls dominated the days play.  The way the Hawks have played I cant see how everyone is calling them top 4 material --  to be fair, I didnt think the Hawks were top 4 before the season started.

[bunyip]

If you can play that badly and still win (I didn't see the game) that's gotta be good. I don't think Geelong are playing well at the moment but are still winning. Perhaps the Hawks are in the same boat. If they improve as the season progresses then you have to say that the coaches got it right. Would you want your team in peak form this early?

[hawk_88]

I certainly wouldn't want to be peaking around now. I also certainly wouldn't want to play as badly as we did today.

I think there is little doubt that the Eagles were the better side. In some ways it probably is a good sign that we won anyway. The Hawks have always had an amazing ability to bring it against the best sides, and somehow lose to sides that in theory, should be well below them. This year we actually won a match that we probably would have lost in the past.... maybe that is the, however small, positive to come from the game.

[bunyip]

Well, you play us next Tuesday, that should be a good game, it usually is.

[Hawka]

We did play rely poor in that game we only won cause of buddy and mitchell