Wagner Group

07/13/23 • 50 min

It's fraught with danger engaging mercenaries! But as they either had to sign with Russia, move to Belarus or retire, the suit up for Freo option was a no brainer! Time to Restump Podcast Saturday’s ominous task against the Pies.
It is a pretty scary assignment Saturday against the premiership favourites and all conquering Pies. We’ve had to make a host of changes but, result aside, it will be good experience for the young list, if not much else.
Corey Wagner had a mare in his debut earlier this year. Apparently, they were calling him Construction site Corey after that game. Every time he kicked the ball a clang sound was heard! Oh that’s too harsh! He did knock up a bit.. but he’ll make amends Saturday.
It's good to see that the great premiership defender, the forgotten man, Joel Hamling, has gotten an opportunity. He’s had a really rough trot of it but he’ll no doubt give us all a reminder of his capabilities at this level.
Is this last chance saloon for Sturty? He’s been given numerous opportunities this year and, while it must be difficult trying to get some certainty, he hasn’t exactly grabbed them.
And poor old Bailey Banfield probably drew the short straw and was made the scapegoat last time he was dropped. C’mon Bailey give us one of those games that were earning you a regular first twenty two spot.
Speaking of poor efforts, the Chief has been omitted from the Restump Podcast line-up for the same reason... unacceptable performances in recent weeks. He’s been replaced by the former ABC Sport News reader, the great Clint “the Tank Engine” Thomas.
A big step down for Clint and a big professional step up for the Restump. Safe to say given the professionalism and profile, the Chief is in a bit of strife.
But its not about us, it is about the footy.... or whatever it is our Freo boys are trying to play at the moment! So, let’s get straight into this 45 minute Freo V Collingwood preview with Jojo and Clint.

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Previous Episode

Shattered

If finals weren’t already out of reach, they are now. Carlton used the pressure application blueprint for beating Freo and shattered us all. Time to clean up the purple shards of broken glass and Restump Podcast yesterday’s damage.
You want to believe and you want to have hope. But we’re one and a half wins and percentage out of the eight, we’ve got five teams between us and that position and we’ve got three teams in the top four and a further one in the top eight in our remaining seven games.
Again, we don’t want to be glass half empty folk but we were just taken to the cleaners by a team that was three rungs below us on the ladder. Even in our wildest overly-optimistic dreams, we’re not Lazarus.
Where did it all go wrong yesterday? You could spin the wheel of reasons and you’d be on the money whatever it landed on.
The Blues simply applied relentless overwhelming pressure on us from the very first bounce and it has seemingly become the blueprint for teams playing us. Carlton’s midfield was too big, too strong, too experienced and we were unable to deal with their pressure, or go with them, despite our ruck dominance.
Every possession was under pressure or perceive pressure and was rushed and, while our skills aren’t exactly dynamite at the best of times, we struggle further under duress.
We got beaten up by two former teammates in Blake Acres and Adam Cerra. The former was electric in all facets and he’s become the player we all knew we were losing. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we’re feeling the impacts of his departure.
Compare the two main forwards each team was kicking to. Curnow and McKay – average age 25.5, a total of 202 games and just under 400 goals. Jye Amiss and Josh Treacy – average age 19.5, a total of 48 games and 56 goals.
We’ve been suggesting it all year that we’re not the finished product and that we’re two years and 40 to 50 games per player away from seriously challenging. The individual contests yesterday only emboldened those beliefs.
That isn’t to say we didn’t expect a better performance than what we received and it isn’t to say we expected to be below 6th to 10th at this point of the season, but sometimes the reality is stark and isn’t determined by our impatience or expectations.
It’s more of a ‘how did this happen’ and a ‘where do we go from here’ review podcast than the usual therapeutic hour-long post-traumatic loss pod, but we need to talk it out none the less.
So, if you can stomach revisiting or talking about yesterday’s dreadful display then by all means come along and hopefully somewhat rid the frustrations and heal with us.

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Next Episode

One Quarter Pies

Where did that quarter go? You can’t serve up three quarters of Pie and think you won’t go hungry! There are no leftovers! We’re on the Restump Podcasting case of the missing quarter!
At the risk of being accused of accepting mediocrity and borderline honorable losses, we probably got a pretty decent performance on Saturday against an incredibly well experienced, aged, drilled, and trained Collingwood outfit. The Pies are the full package. They have no weaknesses, they cover injury outs and they function as a well-oiled cohesive unit... and in an obviously very happy environment.
Pre-game and at half time it threatened to be a 80 – 100 point hiding. And given there almost three years difference in age on average across the two teams and nearly 60 games per player in experience difference out there, that sort of result probably was expected.
In both a pleasing and disappointing outcome, the result really on paper was one quarter of footy. However, it was one of the most dominant quarters against us we’ve seen for some time and we couldn’t stem the flow.
To put that second quarter on paper.... we went -39 possessions, -15 Inside 50 which meant Collingwood had a monstrous 19 for the quarter. We went -6 in clearances after being +10 in first quarter and -5 centre clearances after being +5 in first quarter. We went -12 in contested possession, -18 in uncontested possession, -16 marks and -7 marks inside 50. They took a whopping 10 marks inside 50 in that single second quarter! That’s a rare level of dominance!
It begs the question did Collingwood go up and down gears when they needed to? Did they simply manage us? Or were we as competitive as the scorecard suggests in the other three quarters.
The negatives are obviously the carnage we suffered in the way of injuries. The severity of Sean Darcy’s ankle is yet to be determined as is Brandon Walker’s knee. With the season over as far as finals are concerned, and while we feel for the individuals, Darcy and Walker’s absence won’t be quite as detrimental to the team as it may well have been.
The positive, Neil Erasmus. With just 12 games under his belt prior to Saturday he was still understandably adapting to the speed of the game. But he took a giant step forward and showed why he’s a big reason the future is bright.
As mentioned, the season is done and dusted in regards to September, but there is still plenty to get out of it. On top of that if we can’t find something purple to bang on about, are we even Freo fans?
Let’s get into Saturday’s chop up, dissect it, mull over it, theorise it and hopefully come to some concrete conclusions. So, if too much purple is never enough, bring those things on the side of your head and get involved.

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