This Adrian fellow might want to worry about his own backyard first, before making naive comments about ours. Lets not forget that, despite playing absolutely shithouse against the Lions in the NAB cup, we still walked away beating them. The question i'd pose to him is, how will they beat us when they couldn't beat us at our worst?

Neeld is on record as saying he wants to instill 3 or 4 game plans as and when situations call for it. It takes time to teach them. The more 'structured' the plans are the harder they are to teach and instill. Already it has been said that the Dee players have been so keen to stick to the structures they have forgotten how to take the game on and run and carry when appropriate. It will simply take time for the players to get confident in the plan, each other and themselves.

It's a process we are going through but with Neeld and Craig we have two very strong guys at teaching our players so I remain quietly confident we will gradually piece together our own style of play. personally I like the fact we will be able to play different styles for different situations. Just hope it doesn't take too long!

No one has mentioned the Collingwood game. There was plenty to get excited about in the way the team played in that game. That is probably as good as we could hope to get this year and if we play like that I for one will be very excited. It was a perfect blend of kicking out from defence along the boundary but then switching and attacking quickly once we were clear and then direct passes into leads in the forward line. I expect having seen that once that we will see it again. I was worried about the combination of Neeld and Craig coming from such defensive dower gameplans and everything I heard about the preseason sounded like they were training to kick it around the boundaries, contest stoppages and kick it long into the forward line but that Collingwood game gives me hope.

Sshhhhh about the Collingwood game, I would hate for things to turn positive around here. Even though we won that game and played well its hard to take a lot out of it considering so many players were out of their respective best 22. It is always nice beating Collingwood though!!

I was worried about Craig coming across too with the defensive mind he has but you know what got me excited, was a few years ago the Crows were kicking about 9 goals a game and all of a sudden he flicked the switch so to speak and then they finished the season with quite a few games with high scores 25-30 goals a game, I think it was 2006. Also felt sorry for him the way he was handled at Adelaide considering they had lost over 1300 games experience in McLeod, Goodwin, Burton, Riccuito, Edwards. Having to rebuild after that would of taken time but at least we are starting to see the value of having those senior players in the side to what it has done for the crows now. Or are they improving because of Dean Bailey??

We will be ok, Neeld is a smart man, Im sure he's got many tricks up his sleeve, it just about whether our players have the heart and skill to execute it.

As Con the fruitier would say is give Neeld " A COUPLE OF YEARS BEAUTIFUL !!! "

i once heard Todd Viney talk about game plans....he said that teams like geelong play the way they want...regardless of who they play. He said there tactics are well known but they are just so good that they don't care how the opposition play.

Listening on SEN tonight with Viney they where interviewing Brisbane lions assistance coach Adrian Fletcher. They where saying that because quite a few teams have new coaches that there would be new game plans to go with it . They asked Adrian what he thought of Melbournes new gameplan his reply was . Its become obvious that the Melbourne players have been instructed to kick it long into their forward line at all costs . This is where Mitch Clark is a crucial part of that game plan , but he said that it was a predictable game plan and that the other teams will employ a flood in front of their forwards to counteract it . Then it would be up to the Melbourne players to keep it in their forward and hopefully kick goals but he said it would be interesting to see how Melbourne go with this tactic from the opposition .

I think you mean Finey - as in Mark Fine. Unless Todd Viney was actually inteviewing Adrian Fletcher.....which I doubt.

My appologise Harcourt it was Mark Fine but i think i got the Adrian Fletcher bit right

I don't think that this is the entirety of the gameplan, only the bit that we've been working on during the pre-season. Neeld is on record as saying that we already know how to attack and that he is going to teach us to defend. What we've been seeing is a lot of very defensive play all over the ground. We've been playing presses and contested ball scenarios. However, if you look at the Brisbane game again, you will see that in the second half he gave the players permission to use some attacking plays as well, and it was enough to win the night. I didn't bother watching the Hawthorn and PA games, so I don't know if the theme continued, although from the sounds of the coverage it did.

Personally, I look at that second half against Brisbane and see that there are more tricks in his bag than he's been letting on. We made some blistering attacks off the fast switch that resulted in goals. What we haven't seen is precise passing to a leading forward, but I hold out hope that we will see this appearing somewhere in the next month or so as we really don't have the crumbing options to sustain the high bomb into the forward line as a primary attack.

Not wanting to deflate your post, but seriously, we kicked 2 goals in 20 minutes, after kicking nothing in the first half, all while in the middle of a category 4.

Nothing out of that first weekend in relevant to me except for Magner's meeting with J Brown, and the 7 hours I spent at Jupiters after the footy.

Hope we see Vineys Vacuum again this year.

No one has mentioned the Collingwood game. There was plenty to get excited about in the way the team played in that game. That is probably as good as we could hope to get this year and if we play like that I for one will be very excited. It was a perfect blend of kicking out from defence along the boundary but then switching and attacking quickly once we were clear and then direct passes into leads in the forward line. I expect having seen that once that we will see it again.

I was worried about the combination of Neeld and Craig coming from such defensive dower gameplans and everything I heard about the preseason sounded like they were training to kick it around the boundaries, contest stoppages and kick it long into the forward line but that Collingwood game gives me hope.

Neeld and Craig wouldn't be so naive to show the opposition key aspects of what we've been seriously trialing in the off season in any NAB game IMO. But yeh, the Pies game would be a decent "indicator" of parts thereof, given that Neeld has a pretty 'personal' interest in the outcome (psychologically) being first time up against his old comrade (competition) at his former stomping ground.

At least there's a plan.......baby steps

Neeld and Craig wouldn't be so naive to show the opposition key aspects of what we've been seriously trialing in the off season in any NAB game IMO. But yeh, the Pies game would be a decent "indicator" of parts thereof, given that Neeld has a pretty 'personal' interest in the outcome (psychologically) being first time up against his old comrade (competition) at his former stomping ground.

The Pies game would be the worst indicator. Both sides had most of their best 22 out.

The Pies game would be the worst indicator. Both sides had most of their best 22 out.

Not at all. An ideal time to trial non-key aspects of specific strategies. Everyone (even 2nd tier players who might not be considered in the starting 22 but who might force their way into the seniors sometime into the season either through super form or as a replacement for suspension/injury) needs "game time" to practice their role in whatever strategies are being tested. And the NAB cup is an ideal testing ground. Nothing to lose as long as you aren't showing your full hand to the opposition. Even if you were showing a good part of your strategic hand, the opponent's never going to really know if you only had half your expected 22 on the park eh. And why not ask them to go hard and try put a win on the board for the team while they're at it.

But you're taking what i said out of context a little HG. I only said it was a ...."decent "indicator" of parts thereof"... of Neelds bag of tricks versus the other NAB matches.

I agree in the sense that it certainly wasn't a true or great indicator by any means of his full quota.

Neeld is on record as saying he wants to instill 3 or 4 game plans as and when situations call for it. It takes time to teach them. The more 'structured' the plans are the harder they are to teach and instill. Already it has been said that the Dee players have been so keen to stick to the structures they have forgotten how to take the game on and run and carry when appropriate. It will simply take time for the players to get confident in the plan, each other and themselves.

It's a process we are going through but with Neeld and Craig we have two very strong guys at teaching our players so I remain quietly confident we will gradually piece together our own style of play. personally I like the fact we will be able to play different styles for different situations. Just hope it doesn't take too long!

Good post. Don't hold your breath though Jnr. Might take a while

He hasn't even sent the team out onto the field for a real AFL game yet, so it's probably a little early to be speculating about Nield's gameplan... let's give it a few rounds before we start to question its effectiveness.

Yep. Maybe a good end of season topic me thinks