We had 26 chances today to kick the ball out today I reckon I could count on 1 hand how many times we hit a target. We are always so slow.... Something I noticed also is that when we play on out of full back we seem to be playing on the for a left footer and both Tapscott and Grimes are right footers. Hence the reason it got smothered on 3 occasions putting there kicks under pressure. Did anyone else notice?

Dear god I was going to slit my wrists in the third term with our inability to clear the ball out of defense. Being at the game you could see Hawthorn zoning against us and yet each time we kicked to THE SAME SPOT. wtf???

How do we not have a different plan?!

That has definitely been, along with our horrendous midfield, that we haven't been able to improve in 3 years. The coaching staff have a lot to answer for on this issue.

Our kick outs have been deplorable in both games.

It seems we have set up at all, as i sat behind the goals i see half the team flat footed.

We cant just bomb long to Jamar all the time,something has to be done here!!!

Of everything tonight, this was the thing that [censored] me off to no end. The hawks were hitting us the ball back, and while I recognise that it isn't an easy job, we made 100x harder for ourselves! Blind freddy could've seen that the initial plan in place was not working, why keep doing it?!?!?

Of the 26 behinds I reckon 80% of them were just long bombs to noone in particular, and all it did was give them another opportunity to kick a goal (which mercifully they just kick another point with it!). This MUST be looked at this week!

I was at the game tonight and the kick-ins were embarrassing. My wife, who is British and does not understand all the nuances of the game, asked me at the end of the game "why in the 3rd quarter did we keep kicking it to the same spot for the same bad result?" My youngest boy is 10 and even he was yelling out "they did it again".

And, as much as I love Jack Grimes, his kicking needs work. His kicks are either ill directed, or so easy to read that other teams cut them off.

Do we have an option "B", or is it kick it Jamar and hope it ends up no worse than 50/50?

However, to give Grimes, Davey and Tappy a bit of a break, if someone would run and make a lead rather than waving their hands in the air like Kieren Perkins in the milk commercial, it would at least give us a chance. The only real constant lead was from Watts.

I was really frustrated tonight. For me to be silent at the footy is rare but I spent most of the second half grumbling into my beard about our lack of kick-in planning.

.

Edited April 3, 201114 yr by Maldonboy38

The coaches seriously need to go study gridiron... I played both and what they could learn from an offense coach would be amazing, I know when I came back to AFL in changed the way you play...

By using multiple leads/patterns you can move zone which they need to learn and having five different plays which they can change if they are struggling tactically like today and all the players on the team can know there is a change of plan...

Maybe Bailey should have this posted in the coaches box.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

It was worse than that. In the second half noone was leading. The Tap kicked it out on one occasion to Garland, Garland wasn't leading at all. Just standing there really. Hawk in front, Hawk behind. Luckily he managed to get it out of bounds THAT time - but it probably turned around and ended up a score anyway.

It almost seemed like, well, LAZINESS.

A thread of this ilk needed to be 'stickied' years ago. So slow and static, and have been deplorable for years now.

We have been the worst at kick-ins in the AFL for so long it's embarrassing. It didn't seem too bad last year because all we did was kick it to Jamar 60m out 10m from the boundary, unfortunately teams have discovered that this is OUR ONLY F**CKING PLAN. I just don't understand how we are still so awful at it...

Doesn't help either when we kick the ball out on the full when coming out of our defensive 50. Cant count how many [censored] times that happened.

Edited April 3, 201114 yr by rhaz

Melbourne have had the same problem for at least three years, they struggle to find a target when the forward pressure is on. The players do not move enough, it seems that they have been told where to stand, and are sticking to it. Every player growing up would have learned to run to space, and it seems that this has been coached out of them.

Melbourne’s game plan was practices over summer. From the training reports it seems that we only practices our game plan, and did not practice how to combat the opposition’s game plan. It seems like three years ago a game plan was developed, and we are trying to master it. The game has changed, and we haven’t. Poor coaching.

JJC would be proud...

It's embarrassing, and pathetic. After all those attempts the best 'plan' we seemed to have was a long kick to a contest. Every. Single. Time. Ridiculous.

Here are a few suggestions. I would have liked to see something new tried:

1) Man up every man in the zone. A Melbourne player mans up every Hawthorn player. Creates space, and makes each Hawthorn player accountable. Probably wouldn't do that well, but we could have tried.

2) Get a group of players in one area of the zone, about 25-35 metres out. That way we outnumber the Hawthorn players in that area. This has been used with success by clubs in recent years. Helps with the run and carry plan too, as we have more numbers should the ball go to ground. It makes sense too; makes lots of Hawthorn players kind of useless covering space whilst we outnumber them in another area.

3) Run it out. Short kick/play on, work the ball via hand/foot through the 50, then release a forward at the other end of the ground to expose the back-end of the zone. Tough to do with our current skill level, but again, it's not as predictable as bombing it to Jamar/Martin every time.

This is the number two thing I want to see fixed, after our effort levels.

JJC would be proud...

It's embarrassing, and pathetic. After all those attempts the best 'plan' we seemed to have was a long kick to a contest. Every. Single. Time. Ridiculous.

Here are a few suggestions. I would have liked to see something new tried:

1) Man up every man in the zone. A Melbourne player mans up every Hawthorn player. Creates space, and makes each Hawthorn player accountable. Probably wouldn't do that well, but we could have tried.

2) Get a group of players in one area of the zone, about 25-35 metres out. That way we outnumber the Hawthorn players in that area. This has been used with success by clubs in recent years. Helps with the run and carry plan too, as we have more numbers should the ball go to ground. It makes sense too; makes lots of Hawthorn players kind of useless covering space whilst we outnumber them in another area.

3) Run it out. Short kick/play on, work the ball via hand/foot through the 50, then release a forward at the other end of the ground to expose the back-end of the zone. Tough to do with our current skill level, but again, it's not as predictable as bombing it to Jamar/Martin every time.

This is the number two thing I want to see fixed, after our effort levels.

and practice against it at training.

The is a video interview of Rohan Bail on MFC web site where he talks about "their kick-in structure"

FFS. From where I sit, they haven't had one for 3+ years.

However, to give Grimes, Davey and Tappy a bit of a break, if someone would run and make a lead rather than waving their hands in the air like Kieren Perkins in the milk commercial, it would at least give us a chance. The only real constant lead was from Watts.

This is the key issue. Our players move to a position for the kickin and think they are meant to do an impression of a witches hat. No-one leads ot offers up they just stand in the position. Also why when Davey is one of the only players we have who can carry through a zone is he in the goal square kicking out?

We had 26 chances today to kick the ball out today I reckon I could count on 1 hand how many times we hit a target. We are always so slow.... Something I noticed also is that when we play on out of full back we seem to be playing on the for a left footer and both Tapscott and Grimes are right footers. Hence the reason it got smothered on 3 occasions putting there kicks under pressure. Did anyone else notice?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ooooooh yeah!!!!!

But the footy dept seems convinced that our kicking in is not a problem. They apparently do not see a need to alter our tactics.

It was worse than that. In the second half noone was leading. The Tap kicked it out on one occasion to Garland, Garland wasn't leading at all. Just standing there really. Hawk in front, Hawk behind. Luckily he managed to get it out of bounds THAT time - but it probably turned around and ended up a score anyway.

It almost seemed like, well, LAZINESS.

It stopped half way through the 2ND Qtr. No run to present. LAZY FORWARDS NOT WORKING caused our drop in intensity through the 2nd qtr. This spread, to allowing hawthorn to lift. Then, the rest as they say, is in the herald sun tomorrow. No doubt.