G'day Demonlanders,

I have been a long time reader of this site, but have never felt the urge to post before, but thought that with all the (understandable) emotion on this site tonight, it was time to start a thread for (I hope) logical discussion of the problems that are present with how on-field performance and recommandations that people wish to put forward in order to rectify said apparent problems.

I would ask that people provide well thought out responses in this thread, not simple quips like "Bailey should be sacked" or "X player is a hack" there is plenty of other threads about atm to do that in.

So I will will start with what I see to be two problems that our team (and coach) face with their on field/gameday performance.

1) Intensity- or lack thereof, during the course of tonight's game it was completely lacking for the entire four quarters, players appear unwilling to literally will themselves to the contest and to work for each other.

Remedy- People will suggest a change of coach, which is one potential answer, another would be to put certain players on notice, potentially fast-track younger players with leadership courses/training/ give more responsibility on gameday, since the intensity comes from this area, an area which we are lacking in atm.

2)Structure- or lack thereof, during the game, we continually left West Coast players loose and when we did gain possession of the ball we looked up to see no-one present and then proceeded to kick the ball around until we kicked it to a contest which one of their talls would then mark, also the lack of forward players in our 50 for a majority of the game.

Remedy- Set a base structure and stick to it, mandate that we are to have at least 3 players in the forward 50/ vincinity of for the course of the game, make their backs more accountable not the other way around. Set up at clearences- if they start to win the ball out of the middle then place a extra player to cut off their 'rovers'. Our players need to be proactive, not reactive like so many times as we have seen this year. We try to defend too much because we allow them to gain first possession, the entire centre/ midfield need to be reworked, so the easy answer is to stop them from doing this. Bailey needs to be more proactive during the game, make our players be the ones that are the frontrunners, running into space, not the other way around( e.g: every game this season).

I could go on, but these are the two most pressing issues that I can see.

Thankyou, for reading this and I look forward to reading the following (rational) discussion.

Cheers!

G'day Demonlanders,

I have been a long time reader of this site, but have never felt the urge to post before, but thought that with all the (understandable) emotion on this site tonight, it was time to start a thread for (I hope) logical discussion of the problems that are present with how on-field performance and recommandations that people wish to put forward in order to rectify said apparent problems.

I would ask that people provide well thought out responses in this thread, not simple quips like "Bailey should be sacked" or "X player is a hack" there is plenty of other threads about atm to do that in.

So I will will start with what I see to be two problems that our team (and coach) face with their on field/gameday performance.

1) Intensity- or lack thereof, during the course of tonight's game it was completely lacking for the entire four quarters, players appear unwilling to literally will themselves to the contest and to work for each other.

Remedy- People will suggest a change of coach, which is one potential answer, another would be to put certain players on notice, potentially fast-track younger players with leadership courses/training/ give more responsibility on gameday, since the intensity comes from this area, an area which we are lacking in atm.

2)Structure- or lack thereof, during the game, we continually left West Coast players loose and when we did gain possession of the ball we looked up to see no-one present and then proceeded to kick the ball around until we kicked it to a contest which one of their talls would then mark, also the lack of forward players in our 50 for a majority of the game.

Remedy- Set a base structure and stick to it, mandate that we are to have at least 3 players in the forward 50/ vincinity of for the course of the game, make their backs more accountable not the other way around. Set up at clearences- if they start to win the ball out of the middle then place a extra player to cut off their 'rovers'. Our players need to be proactive, not reactive like so many times as we have seen this year. We try to defend too much because we allow them to gain first possession, the entire centre/ midfield need to be reworked, so the easy answer is to stop them from doing this. Bailey needs to be more proactive during the game, make our players be the ones that are the frontrunners, running into space, not the other way around( e.g: every game this season).

I could go on, but these are the two most pressing issues that I can see.

Thankyou, for reading this and I look forward to reading the following (rational) discussion.

Cheers!

Reasonably put, but your first point is suggesting there is a player 'malaise' at the club. The players were selected from a pool which provides players for the whole competition. The problem therefore lies not with the personnel, (which frankly is very evenly spread through the AFL but at different stages of development) but the way as a team they are dynamically assembled. That is, what the personnel are COACHED and MOTIVATED to do, as individuals for the collective goal. There is blame here, and not just this game but the season so far, and it sadly lies with the coaching.

Your second point is in fact a suggestion as to how the team should be coached. Need I say it? Coaching.

It's not as if we haven't played like this before. In last year's game against the same club at the MCG, we played with the same mindset and adopted the same game plan and came up with the same sort of result. Next game we beat Port Adelaide in Darwin. A couple of games later we drew with the eventual premiers. Not long after that we were flogged by Adelaide at AAMI. Then we beat Essendon a few weeks after that and then we smashed the Swans. We're young and we're inconsistent.

Now, I've maintained and accepted the line that we are a young and a developing team and I really believe this but at the same time we need also be aware that we can't allow that to become the crutch with which we excuse every poor performance by the players and by the coach. All of those people have to get better and I'm sure that from the top down everyone is aware of this. The next few weeks will test everyone's character starting with the coach and going all the way through to the players who will inevitably get dropped to play at Casey.

It's not as if we haven't played like this before. In last year's game against the same club at the MCG, we played with the same mindset and adopted the same game plan and came up with the same sort of result. Next game we beat Port Adelaide in Darwin. A couple of games later we drew with the eventual premiers. Not long after that we were flogged by Adelaide at AAMI. Then we beat Essendon a few weeks after that and then we smashed the Swans. We're young and we're inconsistent.

Now, I've maintained and accepted the line that we are a young and a developing team and I really believe this but at the same time we need also be aware that we can't allow that to become the crutch with which we excuse every poor performance by the players and by the coach. All of those people have to get better and I'm sure that from the top down everyone is aware of this. The next few weeks will test everyone's character starting with the coach and going all the way through to the players who will inevitably get dropped to play at Casey.

Jack, we've become consistent - consistently poor this season. From the NAB Cup 2nd Rd onwards, we have been shown up by teams when we were at least in the contest.

- Swans we fought our way back after a poor first half.

- Hawthorn we played a superb 2nd Qtr and turned around to get whalloped.

- Brisbane we had a terrible first quarter, had to resurrect ourselves.

- Tonight, terrible 1st and 4th Qtr and barely kept up the rest of the game.

I honestly believe we're at the point where blood has to be spilt in order to take the club forward, and it should start ASAP with DB.

It's not as if we haven't played like this before. In last year's game against the same club at the MCG, we played with the same mindset and adopted the same game plan and came up with the same sort of result. Next game we beat Port Adelaide in Darwin. A couple of games later we drew with the eventual premiers. Not long after that we were flogged by Adelaide at AAMI. Then we beat Essendon a few weeks after that and then we smashed the Swans. We're young and we're inconsistent.

Now, I've maintained and accepted the line that we are a young and a developing team and I really believe this but at the same time we need also be aware that we can't allow that to become the crutch with which we excuse every poor performance by the players and by the coach. All of those people have to get better and I'm sure that from the top down everyone is aware of this. The next few weeks will test everyone's character starting with the coach and going all the way through to the players who will inevitably get dropped to play at Casey.

Love your Work Jack...but you are making excuses, and they cannot be tolerated anymore. This is why i think this game is the turning point.

After an 11 day break, it is just unacceptable to play last years spooners in that way.

Something that I haven't heard anyone mention....is that we're currently missing 3 of our top 4 tacklers from 2010. This could go some way to explaining how soft we've been at stoppages. Top Dees tacklers from 2010:

McKenzie 128

McDonald 119

Moloney 86

Scully 81

Davey 75

Trengove 75

Bruce 73

In hindsight, it could be concluded that we should have held on to Junior and Bruce. It also highlights how much we are missing the intensity of McKenzie and the ball movement through the midfield from Scully.

No excuses for last night's terrible performance, but thought these stats highlight an issue.

Structure and Gameplan come back to the coaches. If after 4 years your team still cannot follow them OR more as i suspect, your structure and gameplan has been found to be inadequate to win games, then something is drastically wrong and a change is needed.

That change must be either in the structure and game plan or in the coaching department.