SO WHAT happened?
Where do we start to analyse that game?
In the words of coach Paul Roos, he simply told his players to “forget” about the 105-point loss to Hawthorn at the MCG on Saturday.
Sure, he’ll delve deep into the reasons why it happened, but he was adamant there was no point reviewing the match.
“I don’t think we’ll show the game to the players,” he said.
“I don’t think there is any benefit to that at all.
“The easiest thing is to rip into them and talk about effort … but you’ve got to give yourself some time to analyse the game, and make sure you’re clear on what the reasons were with a performance like that.”
Already, Roos has identified several reasons why his side capitulated to Hawthorn by a three-figure margin.
“It’s a combination [of things],” he said.
“[We played] a great team on the rebound and the turnovers really hurt us and then the confidence gets eroded. The young team is getting a bit tired – that’s a big issue for us and we talked about that after the game.
“[Christian] Salem’s done a hamstring … guys that are [normally] cracking in are starting to look really weary … it’s the end of a tough three-week period.
“It’s the third week in a row where we’ve played the three best teams’ back-to-back-to-back and it’s just got on top of the boys. They responded with a good start and then after that there wasn’t much to like about the game.”
Roos said injuries were genuinely starting to creep up on the Demons, after a good run early in the year. He said this couldn’t be underestimated for a developing group.
“All clubs are going through it, but it has a much bigger impact on the younger teams. We’ve seen Gold Coast go from nearly a finals team last year to winning one game so far – it has an enormous impact,” he said.
“We’ll have a close look at all of our players this week.
“Are we training too much? [I’m not sure], but then you can’t educate if you don’t train and we need to educate as you can see. Once you get in-season, there are significant challenges.”
Key defender Tom McDonald, who is in All-Australian-type form, said “so many things went wrong” against Hawthorn.
“The turnovers were terrible and it cost us a ridiculous amount of goals,” he said.
“It starts with the contest, winning the ball or sticking the tackle. We were soft with our tackling and that leaves us hanging out to dry on defence … when we can’t control the ball or can’t make tackles, it’s just extremely difficult.
“There weren’t a whole lot of things that went right.”
There wasn’t.
But the reasons for why it happened have emerged and the opportunity is there to rectify them.
We wait with interest to see the response against the Bulldogs at the ‘G on Sunday.
