The Game Plan - It seems to be working

[Its Time for Another 4,225]

Get the feeling today's game is going to be a battle of the Game Plans more than a battle of the personnel. It seems to me the Toigs Game Plan hasn't moved on from last season and is still about getting and controlling possession, slowing down play and slowly working forward to score. Our Game Plan has clearly moved on this year to fast ball movement from the  backline, breaking the lines in numbers and delivering it inside 50 to the forwards advantage before the defenders get back in numbers.

I figure if we execute our Game Plan and they execute their's we win.  

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

On 22/04/2016 at 11:27 AM, Baghdad Bob said:

And now this:

Why on earth would you say that.  What about "if we play our best we believe we can win".  It's such a negative message.

Reminds me of the negative comments a former coach used to make.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

6 minutes ago, It's Time said:

Our Game Plan has clearly moved on this year to fast ball movement from the  backline, breaking the lines in numbers and delivering it inside 50 to the forwards advantage before the defenders get back in numbers.

That's not a game plan, that's just common sense.

[Its Time for Another 4,225]

On 20 April 2016 at 5:02 PM, Mach5 said:

It took 3 years to build a list capable of implementing it.

Don't make the past look worse than it already does. 

Hmm just noticed that ticks over my 1000th post. Too much time on my hands or too many good discussions to be had. Both I guess. This is a guilty pleasure the better half doesn't know about. Better she doesn't find out. I guess it's better than other guilty pleasures one could get up to. 

Edited April 24, 2016 by It's Time

[Gator 17,378]

On 4/21/2016 at 0:57 PM, Baghdad Bob said:

What is frustrating, and I didn't think you were part of it, is the concept that we can't question Roos and the assumption that if Roos does anything it must be right.  I've not got a bee in my bonnet about Roos but I think it's arguable that Roos is an old style coach focusing on defence because that is what worked for him at Sydney.  I would present the same issue (a three year introduction of game plan) regardless of who our coach was. Daniher took a basket case, changed the game plan in one year and made a preliminary final. 

We've taken three years to progress this club from no workable game plan to a modern game plan.  Bolton is doing it in one.  Beverage did it in one.  Hinkley did it in one.  Leppa went the attacking route.  Richardson developed the whole and did not take an incremental approach.  Worsfold is not just concentrating on defence.  Roos is the odd man out. The time taken has cause a lot of pain to the MFC but has also provided benefits through low draft picks and that is impacting now.

I finished my other post by saying we'd never know, obviously this issue is moot.  But the argument that "we were worse than any other team"  is  a cop out to the issue.  Even if we were worst it doesn't mean the other approach wouldn't have been better. It's not been until we've introduced an attacking game plan this year that we've played AFL quality footy.   We won a few games last year but we were just terrible for long periods of the season.

After the Essendon game everyone here wanted Roos to step away and let Goodwin take over.  After a win against the Pies few want to question if Roos  took the right path.  It's inconsistent emotive thinking. I've raised this issue for months now, it's nothing more than an interesting discussion predicated on having taken a different path to all other clubs and has nothing to do with a "bee in my bonnet" about Roos.

It's being dressed up as a "collaboration", but I suspect the new game-plan is nearly all Goodwin and Gavin Jennings.  I applaud Roos for giving Goodwin his head, as I reckon we'd still be playing stodgy football if Roos was more than our matchday coach.  Goodwin took all of the preseason training sessions and even now he controls the football side of things midweek, while Roos takes the reins on gameday.

Our young RS nominee basically confirms many of our suspicions.

"Harmes attributed the Demons’ new-found attacking flair — they have kicked 100 points four times this season after doing so just eight times in the previous four years — to incoming coach Simon Goodwin.

“He’s a really good coach,” Harmes, 20, said.

“He’s come in and he’s the mastermind behind a lot of our offensive style and the way we play, so I think he’ll slide right in and it’ll be a pretty smooth transition (from Roos next year).”

Edited May 10, 2016 by ProDee

[Wiseblood 24,637]

2 minutes ago, ProDee said:

It's being dressed up as a "collaboration", but I suspect the new game-plan is nearly all Goodwin and Gavin Jennings.  I applaud Roos for giving Goodwin his head, as I reckon we'd still be playing stodgy football if Roos was more than our matchday coach.  Goodwin took all of the preseason training sessions and even now he controls the football side of things midweek, while Roos takes the reins on gameday.

Our young RS nominee basically confirms many of our suspicions.

"Harmes attributed the Demons’ new-found attacking flair — they have kicked 100 points four times this season after doing so just eight times in the previous four years — to incoming coach Simon Goodwin.

“He’s a really good coach,” Harmes, 20, said.

“He’s come in and he’s the mastermind behind a lot of our offensive style and the way we play, so I think he’ll slide right in and it’ll be a pretty smooth transition (from Roos next year).”

Full credit to Roos for doing so as well.  He's stuck to the plan regardless of results or what has happened off field, and we can see the benefits of that beginning to come to fruition.

I'm excited that the players consistently speak so highly of Goodwin as well.  It seems that when he takes the reins at the end of the year it will be done in such a smooth and easy manner that there won't be any teething problems.

[Adam The God 30,266]

15 minutes ago, ProDee said:

It's being dressed up as a "collaboration", but I suspect the new game-plan is nearly all Goodwin and Gavin Jennings.  I applaud Roos for giving Goodwin his head, as I reckon we'd still be playing stodgy football if Roos was more than our matchday coach.  Goodwin took all of the preseason training sessions and even now he controls the football side of things midweek, while Roos takes the reins on gameday.

Our young RS nominee basically confirms many of our suspicions.

"Harmes attributed the Demons’ new-found attacking flair — they have kicked 100 points four times this season after doing so just eight times in the previous four years — to incoming coach Simon Goodwin.

“He’s a really good coach,” Harmes, 20, said.

“He’s come in and he’s the mastermind behind a lot of our offensive style and the way we play, so I think he’ll slide right in and it’ll be a pretty smooth transition (from Roos next year).”

It's kind of interesting that what we hear coming out of the club is that we've built from a defensive base and have now layered that with an offensive game. However, most of the guys that learnt that defensive style under Roos aren't playing anymore, so that time was essentially used determining who would make it of the current list and turning it over. 

So we know that Goodwin values the contest and how we 'crack in', but a lot of the steady foundations sound like PR (not Paul Roos) to me, because as you mentioned, PD, the 2016 team is essentially a different team to 2014's.

[Pates 9,660]

I love that we are playing with attacking flair now, we are kicking winning scores but we just need to make sure we're able to defend it as well. Bulldogs will be a great test of this, they absolutely murdered us in two-way running in the second game last year and that was exactly where St Kilda got us the other week. 

I reckon there are some commentators who should be munching on some humble pie right now with Paul Roos claiming that he's a defensive minded coach and he can't coach an attacking game plan. Idiots. Of course they won't though because they are able to make bigs statements with zero accountability.

[Slartibartfast 17,309]

I've held the view for a while now that Roos was too cautious when he first came in and he is one of a long line of coaches that have had time off and found/are finding it hard to adjust to the way the game has played.  Malthouse was a failure, Eade is really struggling although he's walked on a Chinaman's grave with the injuries the Suns have copped, Lyon is now being tested like never before and Roos made little on field headway in the first two years. In contrast Bolton, Richardson, Hinkley and Beverage have come in and made an immediate impact by implementing the whole game plan from day one.  I was speaking to someone in the industry the other day who pointed out that while Roos was at Sydney he had Longmire and Lyon as assistants.  Not a bad coaching team and he felt Sydney's success in the Roos era should be credited to that group rather than just Roos!

But what seems to be undeniable is under Roos and Jackson we have put together a FD which is both effective and harmonious.  I wonder what Jonesy, Garland and a few others think of that!  As one of the youngest if not the youngest team in the competition we will be inconsistent winning games we probably wouldn't expect to win and losing some we shouldn't. But Jackson and Roos have given us 4 to 5 years minimum where the coach of MFC is a non issue.  Collingwood, Suns, Freo and Richmond would kill for that at the moment.

Well done MFC.