Food for Thought

[The Chazz 4,077]

Call me old fashion but I can't understand when a team is smashing you why we just don't man up one on one. If they press we stand next to them make every contest a 50/50 to me this is basic it should slow the game down and if we get a fast break hopefully a Bennell, Jurrah or Watts(the fastest man on our list) can out run their opponent. Last night I saw our zone we had 5-6 players protecting space on the fat side(opposite side of the ground to where the ball is)why their man was at the contest winning easy footy. These players are basically, using an old term, seagulls waiting for a team mate to win the footy and kick it to them. The problem is Hawthorn had so many players around the contest we didn't win the footy and our Seagulls looking for easy kicks may have well been sitting it the stands.

If you zone forget the fat side there should be no space on the side of the ground the footy is, if they switch you work hard to move your zone to the other side.

Old fashioned.

[Rhino Richards 1,467]

Who do you man up on the calibre of game breakers like Rioli? While the man up theory is good and implies accountability I am not sure in a man up situation we would match the Hawks in key man on man areas. Its disappointing we got outgunned at crucial clearances and contests for most of the day. Plenty for the FD to work on.

[H_T 2,941]

I knew at halftime we were shot and said so, I'm surprised Bailey was "blindsided" by the second half.

As was I Snoopster.

Clarkson spoke of the key indicators he had in front of him at half time, post match. There were no real significant differences between the two sets of stats in the first and second halves, expcept for one telling stat that matters - scoreboard pressure. 3.13 to 8.2 at half time. It's ingrained in my brain, unfortunately. I wish I had concussion. I posted something similar to RR (good post btw RR), regarding the experience between the two sides of the mids and even backs late last night in the Vent your Spleen thread, pg 2.

Answer: 5 (Five).....I said 5.

Davey 141

Green 222

Moloney 110

Rivers 110

Sylvia 104

Probably were our better players, too.

Our ability and confidence to spread was very good in the second. First to the ball more often, spread well and kicked confidently. Our work rate and clearance work in the third was almost non existent in comparison, whilst the Hawks led by the extractors in Mitchell, Rioli & Sewell carved us up having lifted some notches. Hale's ruck work was significant after half time too.

Clearly our midfield: -

Bail - 10 games

Bennell - 37 games

Jetta - 23 games

Jamar - 97 games

Jones - 94 games

Moloney - 109 games

Sylvia - 104 games

Trengove - 20 games

Martin - 31 games

Maric - 14 games

were inferior to the Hawks midfield rotations: -

Bateman - 159 games

Burgoyne - 175 games

Hale - 131 games

Hodge - 174 games

Ladson - 117 games

Lewis - 127 games

Mitchell - 176 games

Renouf - 47 games

Rioli - 66 games

Sewell - 124 games

Young - 88 games

Suckling - 8 games

less experienced too.....

Also our backline still needs more games together: -

BACKS: RIVERS (110) FRAWLEY (62) BARTRAM (82)

HALF BACKS: GRIMES (28) GARLAND (42) TAPSCOTT (2)

*Two players who kick out are Grimes & Tapscott, whilst talented they have only had 30 games between them.

Perhaps we could create scrap book thread of similar posts over the course of this early year, starting with posts such as old55's expecting disappointment or a backward/platued step in performance from our current list in 2011 as well as rpfc's fighting crusade posts and those including a younger, inexperienced list. Is it worthwhile ?

On second thought's maybe it will just be overlooked by game day posters looking for a quick kill of our cockroaches.

Keep up the good work.

[The Chazz 4,077]

I mostly agree with you summary but what annoys me is the lack of effort sticking to their structures 100% of the time when things go wrong, and when things are going bad all our forward line ends up inside the centre square no wonder they can't get it out of the backline after all this time at least they should be able to do that. Remember football is about 80% above the shoulders.

It's a confidence and maturity thing for most of our players, and a lack of leadership for others. Over the next fortnight, if can win both games how we would expect, playing our game plan, it will build belief in the team.

geelong had one game plan for years, it nearly saw the coach sacked, but once it clicked, other teams had to change their style to try and stop them. Collingwod are the same now, and hopefully it will be our turn in 3 years. We saw what it can do against the Swans last year, and we saw what it can do against Hawthorn in the 2nd quarter. It's there, and I thknk we can thank the coach for that. It's up to the players to be able to execute it on a consistent basis. At this stage though, I think it's a very demanding plan (ie lots of running), so it we have players slightly underdone, or flat (as was the case yesterday) we get caught out.

[drdrake 3,045]

Who do you man up on the calibre of game breakers like Rioli? While the man up theory is good and implies accountability I am not sure in a man up situation we would match the Hawks in key man on man areas. Its disappointing we got outgunned at crucial clearances and contests for most of the day. Plenty for the FD to work on.

You put Bartram or Bennell on him someone that can match him with his pace. Is it time we moved Bartram back to our defensive midfielder role? It means that we need to find another back pocket but this guy can play this role.

[e25 5]

Bartram is in a back pocket to ensure he gets the ball in his hands as little as possible.

[drdrake 3,045]

Bartram is in a back pocket to ensure he gets the ball in his hands as little as possible.

AS a stopping midfielder he was very good, his job isn't to get the footy its to stop a highly damaging midfielder getting the footy and he still gets a lot of the footy down back, the problem back there is if turns it over it will cost us a goal.

Edited April 4, 2011 by drdrake

[e25 5]

AS a stopping midfielder he was very good, his job isn't to get the footy its to stop a highly damaging midfielder getting the footy and he still gets a lot of the footy down back, the problem back there is if turns it over it will cost us a goal.

The problem is, as a stopping midfielder, whether you like it or not, you still need to get your hands on the footy at times and you need to be able to use it.

Ling and Jones have succeeded in this role because they still gather 25 touches themselves and can still be effective.

There haven't been any purely negating mids for years now, because you needs to numbers in the middle.

That's why Godfrey's time was up - how many years ago was that??

[Rhino Richards 1,467]

You put Bartram or Bennell on him someone that can match him with his pace. Is it time we moved Bartram back to our defensive midfielder role? It means that we need to find another back pocket but this guy can play this role.

And they fall away in skill against that calibre. Bartram's our best option atm in the back pocket. We have better options to develop in the midfield.

[drdrake 3,045]

No we don't we have no one that can run with a high quality midfielder, you watch Simon Black smash us this week,we are lucky he will have no support around him but he will get his 25-30 touches and no one will be able to stop him. Move Bennell or Bail to the back pocket. If he doesn't work out bring in Strauss or Blease. Bartram is the only player with the right strengths to be a run with player, he is quick, tackles strong and has the endurance, he can win the footy, disposal is a concern but in the midfield he will have more handball options than he currently has in the last line of defense.

Edited April 4, 2011 by drdrake

[grazman 6,544]

I know some won't agree (which is fine- I'm more than comfortable with the idea that there won't be agreement - or God forbid I'm wrong) but I see more than a few similarities with our regeneration and that of Geelong's - albeit we're coming from a lot further back than they did.

In 99 Geelong went to the draft to rebuild their list, they had a newly installed coach (the difference being that they retained their recruiting manager for the journey). They had a lot of early picks due to trades. In 99 they got Joel Corey with pick 8 then missed with their next three selections (Spriggs 15, Bray 17, Foster 23) before getting Chapman, Ling and Enright. Steven Wells obviously didn't rate the 00 draft and they only got Josh Hunt with the first of their three selections at 44, before going back to the 01 draft to get Bartel, Kelly, Johnson and Ablett. This was to be the nucleus of their side during their premierships. Interestingly not every early pick worked , but on balance some of the later ones turned out to be solid gold to get the ledger back to black.

While it's true Bomber Thompson didn't need to bottom out quite as badly to rebuild his list, it still took a while. True he had a honeymoon first year where they played finals (though lost in straight sets) on the back of what had been a very successful (but ultimately no premiership) decade in the 90s, but then it was very middle of the road 12th, 9th, 12th while he took stock. They started to make their charge in 04 finishing 4th, then 5th then 10th (a year that provided the catalyst for the premiership the next year) It took no less than 8 years from the start of the process to their first premiership, and you could argue that may have been 12 mths overdue, but the analogy is I think valid. It all takes time and football supporters aren't patient. I still remember in 06 the chorus of Geelong fans calling for Thompson to be sacked, Bartel and crew to be traded as too flakey, too slow, not hard enough etc.

Bailey deserves time, the team deserves time.

Edited April 4, 2011 by grazman

[Go the Biff 3,176]

Good thread (for a change). The OP is probably your best post Rhino, although as someone else pointed out, it's off a helluva long run-up. Grazman's reference to the Geelong experience & the time it took is well worth keeping in mind. We have come off a lower base than they did. It has been a savage cull to the list & I struggle to think of any other club that has cut as hard in as short a time frame. And the aim has been singular from day 1. Build a premiership side. Not one that farts about on the fringes of the eight. Those that expect finals merely because we improved last year are dreaming. Don't forget when the rebuild started. We may have been [censored] for four years but we entered 2007 with most of us expecting to make finals. We had a year of harsh truths shoved down our throats before we gutted the joint & started again.

[Flying Cloud 152]

May have been pointed out elsewhere, but if we remove the 3rd qtr (which of course we can't) the score was Melbourne 11.4 70 to Dorks 8.15 63.

We did have one very bad quarter. Totally unaceptable. But not yet time to throw it all away.

[beelzebub 22,244]

Flying Cloud we were somewhat flattered by their first half inaccuracy... Had that been 12 11 instead of 8 15 then it'd probably paint a more realistic picture of where the game was. The last qtr was semi junk as result was in the bag.

[Nasher 33,133]

Flying Cloud we were somewhat flattered by their first half inaccuracy... Had that been 12 11 instead of 8 15 then it'd probably paint a more realistic picture of where the game was. The last qtr was semi junk as result was in the bag.

As I said in another post, pondering or even bothering to mention these "what ifs" regarding if the points had been goals is just urinating in the zephyr. The ball going back to the middle of the ground clearly has a significantly different impact on the play than being kicked out from a behind, so just one of those behinds being a goal could've changed the direction the game took completely. It's just as plausible that we could've lost by less if they'd kicked more accurately, though I'm sure this point is already lost on most.

As Curry and Beer mentioned (in Snoopy's thread I think?) - the only thing that matters is the number of goals they did kick, not the number of goals they might've kicked.

[Choko 493]

As I said in another post, pondering or even bothering to mention these "what ifs" regarding if the points had been goals is just urinating in the zephyr. The ball going back to the middle of the ground clearly has a significantly different impact on the play than being kicked out from a behind, so just one of those behinds being a goal could've changed the direction the game took completely. It's just as plausible that we could've lost by less if they'd kicked more accurately, though I'm sure this point is already lost on most.

Oh please!

You cannot be serious that if they had kicked straighter, we would somehow have won more centre clearances and perhaps lost by less or won!

75 inside 50s to 35. Smashed in every metric.

By any measure, we got off cheap.

[Roost It 1,434]

Watts to Franklin

Frawley to FF and stay there even when the rest are running up field.

Green in the middle.

Bennell to Rioli

Jurrah to the bench

Sylvia to Hodge

Bail to Sewell

[Nasher 33,133]

Oh please!

You cannot be serious that if they had kicked straighter, we would somehow have won more centre clearances and perhaps lost by less or won!

You're twisting my words there - I didn't use the word "would" in my post anywhere, which puts my post in to quite a different context than what I intended.

[Choko 493]

You're twisting my words there - I didn't use the word "would" in my post anywhere, which puts my post in to quite a different context than what I intended.

Sorry - could. My mistake.

The rest of what I said applies!

[The Chazz 4,077]

Oh please!

You cannot be serious that if they had kicked straighter, we would somehow have won more centre clearances and perhaps lost by less or won!

75 inside 50s to 35. Smashed in every metric.

By any measure, we got off cheap.

The positive sign though was the fact that even in the other 3 quarters, we were still totally outclassed (all bar 20 minutes in the 2nd quarter), but managed to keep scoreboard pressure on. Regardless of how inaccurate they kicked, that's a massive step forward in terms of where we have come from. Like the Sydney game, we showed we have matured as a group, but there is still a long way to go, and justifiably so.

I would love someone to tell us how many of Hawthorn's points were rushed, how many were from set shots on an angle of 45 degrees or tighter, and how many were from stoppages that saw the kicker under pressure. I know they missed a handful of easy shots, but there were a lot that weren't gimmies.

[Nasher 33,133]

Sorry - could. My mistake.

The rest of what I said applies!

I suppose I did myself no favours with the example I chose - the point I was making is that without a crystal ball, if even one event pans out differently then absolutely anything becomes possible. As far as I'm concerned once you start fiddling how things turned out, winning by 10 and losing by 110 become outcomes that are just as probable as each other, because you just don't know what would've happened; therefore there's no point bothering to consider it. The only thing that is real is what actually happened, anything else is just citing fictional outcomes to suit one's agenda.

[Choko 493]

I suppose I did myself no favours with the example I chose - the point I was making is that without a crystal ball, if even one event pans out differently then absolutely anything becomes possible. As far as I'm concerned once you start fiddling how things turned out, winning by 10 and losing by 110 become outcomes that are just as probable as each other, because you just don't know what would've happened; therefore there's no point bothering to consider it. The only thing that is real is what actually happened, anything else is just citing fictional outcomes to suit one's agenda.

Yeh, absolutely.

But what actually happened is always relative to what could have happened and the context of the game. For example, if we had lost Davey, Green and Sylvia to injury in the first quarter, the same result would have to be contextualised quite differently. Similarly, their dominance was not really one quarter, it was the entire game less 20 minutes. The fact that they didn't kick straight most likely wallpapered the cracks a little and makes it look like we went with them for more of the game than we did. The reality? We were smashed.

[Grandson of a gun 276]

Watts to Franklin

Frawley to FF and stay there even when the rest are running up field.

Green in the middle.

Bennell to Rioli

Jurrah to the bench

Sylvia to Hodge

Bail to Sewell

I understand what you are trying to say Roost it but i have to disagree entirely.

There's no point throwing away team structure.

Watts and Jurrah lead hard all day but it was their teammates who could not hit the side of a barn that made their job almost impossible.

Bennell is too lightly framed for Rioli and Cyril would have carved us up more.

Sylvia to Hodge is ok but it would rob us of the only bloke out there who was relatively consistent.

Bail was taking care of Sam Mitchell and doing a reasonable job for most of it.

Bottom line it was a game we lost between the ears.

What it needed was for the senior players to step up and say we are not standing for this and going back to a focus of just laying tackle after tackle after tackle and putting pressure on the opposition again. The amount Hawthorn had the pill we should have won the tackle count.

If we teach these kids now that the best way to stop a momentum swing against us is to generate more pressure by increasing our tackling and ferociousness at the contest then that is how we will stop disasters like Sunday unfolding.

If Sunday can be the low-point of the season and game everyone remembers the game as what they don't want to play like for the rest of the year than i think we will have at least learnt from it and be a much better team for it.

[Sir Why You Little 34,658]

Yeh, absolutely.

But what actually happened is always relative to what could have happened and the context of the game. For example, if we had lost Davey, Green and Sylvia to injury in the first quarter, the same result would have to be contextualised quite differently. Similarly, their dominance was not really one quarter, it was the entire game less 20 minutes. The fact that they didn't kick straight most likely wallpapered the cracks a little and makes it look like we went with them for more of the game than we did. The reality? We were smashed.

Good call Choko, you are spot on.

But at least going forward we do have those 20 minutes to use as a positive. Yes we got Smashed and Humiliated overall, but there was that 20 minutes of play where all those Brown & Gold twats in the crowd went very quiet.

And we must use that as the positive going forward rather than pounding in the negatives.

Our team can play-we just need to be stronger and wiser so the team can do it longer.

[Mono 454]

As much as I hated the second half of the game yesterday, its not clearly as bad as some of the knee jerk reactions on this site. Clearly the MFC footy dept have much to do at a team and individual .........................

Much of what you say is hard to argue against. The disappointing thing is the element of deja vu about it.

The most disappointing thing about the game for me was not the lack of clearances by the midfield, but the lack of any defensive pressure by the midfield. In the 3rd qtr, Hawthorn repeatedly ran the ball from their back half to the forward half with hardly a Melbourne player being seen, let alone applying pressure or tackling. Who takes responsibilty for this? It's not new.

And clearly, we lack naturally hard players with talent - by my reckoning we have only 5: Sylvia, Scully, McKenzie, Bail and Tapscott. (Moloney and Jones are "tough" but are not "bone hard" and lack talent.) Until we get more (and on the park), we will not improve against the better sides. ED: we desperately need a "bone hard" forward with talent, of any height.

And the suggestion by some that we had run out of gas by half-timer. FFS

And don't get me started on Davey's call for tempo footy near the end of the 2nd qtr, a turning point if ever there was one (disgracefully self important - Davey is absolutely no leader by a long shot; what he needs to be is the consistently very good player he could be) and Bailey and Green talking up Hawthorn after the game (winners can grin and losers can please themselves; who gives a rats arse what lowly Melbourne thinks of a top side - talk about subservient). Come to think of it, who gives a rats arse what Melbourne thinks of any other side.

Edited April 5, 2011 by Mono