I am going to wake up in a cold sweat to Brad Johnson's voice in my head saying "they're out here".

How many times when they got the ball did they just waltz it down uncontested to other end. We look far too easy to score against. Players free left, right and centre and it seems to take a miskick or a miraculous defensive effort to stop the goal.

I understand we are trying to learn, but I want to play finals this year and something has to change defensively.

And this isn't a dig at the defenders exclusively, more a team wide defensive structure that isn't working against any half decent side.

Have been saying this for DECADES!! Stinks to high heaven! Paly man on man and you force a 50/50 ball contest!!

I don't want to act like an expert and say lets do this of that. But whatever we have done from the St Kilda game onwards...let's not do that.

Any ok side have had there way with it.

Over reaction. Let the kids learn what is an exciting and attacking game plan. Playing man on man will get us nowhere in the long term.

I'm fine with the zone. But when it stops working in game we need to be able to switch to man on man or different versions of it.

Otherwise it's just insanity.

3 minutes ago, Gorgoroth said:

I'm fine with the zone. But when it stops working in game we need to be able to switch to man on man or different versions of it.

Otherwise it's just insanity.

Exactly. I am not trying to say lets go back to man on man, but we have to be able to change it up from week to week, or within games, if we want to play finals. If they think we need to learn it for long term gain, then maybe fair enough. But this ain't working at the moment, clearly.

As I said, as soon as it meets any resistance, we just get scored against far too easily.

29 minutes ago, picket fence said:

Have been saying this for DECADES!! Stinks to high heaven! Paly manon manand you force a 50/50 ball contest!!

I agree. Paly manon manand you fricken force!

Without Oliver it limits our clearance power. The beauty about having someone like Oliver is that it frees up our mids to be third in line (Gawn down to Oliver - dish off to?), providing them more time to spot a target forward. When we do this it takes the pressure off of our defensive structure. But when this doesn't happen - and Viney, Jones or Tyson just hack it forward out of the middle - the opposition catch us on the run and spread. It makes our players look like witches hats. I get that people want one on one accountable football, but even if we were one on one, the opposition would still find space.

58 minutes ago, Forest Demon said:

I am going to wake up in a cold sweat to Brad Johnson's voice in my head saying "they're out here".

How many times when they got the ball did they just waltz it down uncontested to other end. We look far too easy to score against. Players free left, right and centre and it seems to take a miskick or a miraculous defensive effort to stop the goal.

I understand we are trying to learn, but I want to play finals this year and something has to change defensively.

And this isn't a dig at the defenders exclusively, more a team wide defensive structure that isn't working against any half decent side.

But we are guarding space!!!

So frustrating to see it against the saints dogs and again today . embarrasing really makes us look worse than I believe we are. 

I want to see defenders defend not run in between guys with the ball who are about to kick goals . Balance it up . Rawlings out citydee in . 

"They're out the back here." .... FFS over it.

There are two big ways Port (and St Kilda) got "out the back": turnovers and clearances.

We didn't put in enough effort at the clearances and they beat us on the spread, and we turned it over with low-level skills too often, mainly around half-forward, giving them easy counter-attack material.

Get those things right and people won't be so worried about the zone.

We've been lazy with poor skills for over 10 years Titan.

 

People need to stop blaming the game plan. It's the players who are failing to implement it. This will take some time to get right, but when it does, we'll strangle teams and score heavily against them.

You could argue however that our zone was far too high today.

Just now, titan_uranus said:

There are two big ways Port (and St Kilda) got "out the back": turnovers and clearances.

We didn't put in enough effort at the clearances and they beat us on the spread, and we turned it over with low-level skills too often, mainly around half-forward, giving them easy counter-attack material.

Get those things right and people won't be so worried about the zone.

Exactly.  It would be folly to do away with it after 10 rounds because there have been instances where it hasn't worked.  It has worked on many other occasions this year and we can all see the benefit in it.

We were never going to nail something like this straight away.  It will take time and, more importantly, patience.

Also, to half time, Kennedy, Kent and Garlett had a whopping total of 0 tackles between them. If these guys don't lay tackles, there is no press! It's up to the half forwards, just as much as the pure midfielders to lay these tackles.

Not to mention, Newton in particular is too slow to play across half forward. I hope his cards are marked now, because he is a truly horrible defensive player.

1 hour ago, Forest Demon said:

I am going to wake up in a cold sweat to Brad Johnson's voice in my head saying "they're out here".

How many times when they got the ball did they just waltz it down uncontested to other end. We look far too easy to score against. Players free left, right and centre and it seems to take a miskick or a miraculous defensive effort to stop the goal.

I understand we are trying to learn, but I want to play finals this year and something has to change defensively.

And this isn't a dig at the defenders exclusively, more a team wide defensive structure that isn't working against any half decent side.

I want us to have sustained success, not flashes in the pan by taking short cuts. Stay the course. We're 10 weeks in to a new game plan.

We don't have a lot of smart footballers in the back half (McDonald's, garland, etc) and our ability to implement complex game plan is pretty poor - worse thing for me is when it is not working we obviously don't have a plan B - poor coaching!

Just now, AdamFarr said:

People need to stop blaming the game plan. It's the players who are failing to implement it. This will take some time to get right, but when it does, we'll strangle teams and score heavily against them.

You could argue however that our zone was far too high today.

I agree, as long as we direct the blame in the right place.  Our half forwards and midfield didn't do nearly enough to help our defenders today.  That's what needs to be looked at.

18 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

There are two big ways Port (and St Kilda) got "out the back": turnovers and clearances.

We didn't put in enough effort at the clearances and they beat us on the spread, and we turned it over with low-level skills too often, mainly around half-forward, giving them easy counter-attack material.

Get those things right and people won't be so worried about the zone.

We wont always win contested possesion and are vulnerable on the spread - negative out weighs the positive. 

We aren't setting ourselves up for success if we are relying on dominating the clearances. It might work against Brisbane and a few other poor contested ball teams.

As soon as a side matches us in the middle they just score far too easily. It isn't working and we seem to have no plan B, but at the same time, I am somewhat happy to play the long game if that is the way it needs to be.

Port conceded the hitouts and then just sat on our midfielders forcing them into a turnover or locking it up for a second bounce to get the 3rd man up. We really had no idea how to combat that - on one occasion Jones tapped the ball on instead of taking possession and earned a free for holding the man but we should've been do this all day or until Port was forced to relax their tags a little bit. Otherwise Gawn should've just hit the ball into space instead of down Viney/Jones' throat and allowed our guys to run onto it 

5 hours ago, KingDingAling said:

Without Oliver it limits our clearance power. The beauty about having someone like Oliver is that it frees up our mids to be third in line (Gawn down to Oliver - dish off to?), providing them more time to spot a target forward. When we do this it takes the pressure off of our defensive structure. But when this doesn't happen - and Viney, Jones or Tyson just hack it forward out of the middle - the opposition catch us on the run and spread. It makes our players look like witches hats. I get that people want one on one accountable football, but even if we were one on one, the opposition would still find space.

Completely agree. How some posters can say we have more pressing needs than fixing our midfield, shows their lack of understanding of the modern game. The game is won or lost in the midfield.

4 hours ago, AdamFarr said:

Also, to half time, Kennedy, Kent and Garlett had a whopping total of 0 tackles between them. If these guys don't lay tackles, there is no press! It's up to the half forwards, just as much as the pure midfielders to lay these tackles.

Not to mention, Newton in particular is too slow to play across half forward. I hope his cards are marked now, because he is a truly horrible defensive player.

Agree. The half forwards were abysmal today. 

Frost was a rubbish forward but you can see why they picked him so much earlier in the year. The bloke has speed and a red hot dip at laying a tackle, even if his agility was good for a big man more than overall good.

Newton's speed is going to limit him, but surely fitness is a factor as well and given fitness is mostly a mental game that's my issue with him. He's got some speed when he's running forward, turns to run backwards and it's one paced.

 

The Zone defense isn't the issue, it's the poor execution of basic skills that come from our inexperience and adjusting to a new way of moving the ball that lead to us being exposed. When you play 18 man offense and 18 man defense when you make a mistake and there is a turnover we're totally exposed and that's why we're allowing so many easy marks inside 50, we will get better at this over time when the players learn how to set up the zone much quicker and it becomes instinct.  

Priority 1 is fixing our midfield, when guys like Brayshaw, Petracca, Oliver and co reach A grade level we will be fine, our game plan is built around the idea we're going to be able to win more of the ball out of the middle than our opposition, which we aren't always able to do yet, but next year and into the future we'll really get on top of this area and we'll be fine. 

When you implement a new game plan to such a young team you have to expect there will be some teething issues, we're playing a totally new plan, so effectively it's like having a brand new senior coach already, we are also playing the youngest and most inexperienced side in the comp and have returned a result of 5-5 with 2-3 games we should have/could have won on top of that, i'd say all things considered we're going along quite well, we should definitely win 8-10 games which i think would be a pass for this year all things considered and could potentially win more. 

I think it's really important that we stick to the Zone, it's not working brilliantly just yet and when we make mistakes our defense looks horrible, but the biggest issue is those mistakes and not the Zone, our setup is also a huge part of why we're now averaging plus 30 odd points for every game.