It continues to be said time and time again. Melbourne overuses the footy by handball. Sometimes MFC finds a way to still win (v. Blues) but in other games (v  Freo and Hawks) it leads to losses.

Against the Hawks on the weekend

Quarter time. 40 kicks, 72 handballs. 

Half time. 95 kicks. 137 handballs.

Full time. 193 kicks. 237 handballs.  430 posessions v. Hawks 355 (218 kicks 137 handballs) 

Oliver 4 kicks 24 handballs

Viney 12 kicks 20 handballs 

Lewis 11 kicks 19 handballs

Tyson 10 kicks 18 handballs

Sure they are inside mids but their overuse of handballs even when free of congestion.  The circular non effective handballs are frustrating. Even bandballs back into the congestion.

Even Jayden Hunt tried to handball rather than kick to position.  Gameplan?

Is it a lack of foot skills? if yes then it must be addressed.  I think not.  It is the gameplan. But it is only successful by good decision making. Our players still lack this in the main.

Our CONTESTED footy is up with the best in the league. It is our heart and effort each week. It is NOT questionable. 

The Kangas beat the Crows by quick ball movement, and putting their defence under pressure. Defenders hate 1 on 1s & the Crows defence was exposed. We cannot allow slow handballs to allow them to rotate their mids back. Kangas kicks were about 2:1 ratio to handballs.

Sure handball out of a contest but NOT to another contest or someone else under pressure.

Memo Simon Goodwin. You have the players. We have the effort. Get the strategy and decision making right and we will be a power.  

May the discussion begin.

Go the mighty Demons.

Nailed it. I think the effort was there, they just wanted to set up the "perfect" entry into 50, rather than just getting it in there quickly. Played right into their hands.

Need to see more smart-intensity and less stupid-intensity.

The FD must spend this week focussing on their poxy possession game.  It stinks, it's awful to watch and it costs us games.

Over use of the handball. We play dumb football and teams know if they pressure around the contest we will turn it over 3/4 of the time.

If you think the effort was there then have another look at the first Q yesterday in particular.

We let them break from contests way too easily and throughout the match we couldn't stick tackles.

I get the frustration with over possessing the ball but don't let this one issue blind you to other problems.

Yes Norm, we clearly over-used the ball by hand and Goodwin even agreed in his post-match interview however, he seemed to isolate it to the first quarter. This would lead you to believe that it is game plan related rather than the players dishing out rushed handballs. The way they set up behind the stoppage and other contests is to allow an extra dimension to our ability to clear the ball - I think we can all get that.

The bit that I don't get is that yesterday, we seemed to be trying to do it when in attack, when our players were goal-side and options were available to move the ball further up the ground bu foot. Instead, we passed it by hand to a bloke either flat-footed or under pressure from the opposition.

We need to find a balance and I'm sure the coaches are fully aware of this. Questions of whether we have the skill level to execute this game-plan are valid although when you hear Nathan Jones state that "we're hell bent on playing a certain way" then I think we need to get ready for more of this. The other question is when will it pay off? Were the Hawks crappy with their ball movement before it clicked into place and they became elite ball users? I can't remember that far back but you would assume so.

Yesterday was a combination of very good pressure from the Hawks and poor execution from us.

There's only one thing we can control so we need to back the team in and hope that it will fall in to place soon. This year is going to remain a bumpy, frustrating ride.

Time and time again we do this. Been happening for years. So many frustrated supporters at the game yesterday. You could hear audible groans all day. Garlett was open a few times yesterday and instead of moving the ball quickly by foot, we [censored] fart around and overuse to a team mate under pressure.

 

Goodwin HAS to get this out of our game. How i dont know, but its directly effecting us, whether its by turnovers of easily missed opportunities.

This is nothing new.  As highlighted in many posts now over the last few weeks, when we over use the footy by hand we lose when we don't we win. The Geelong match the only exception with our horrid kicking at goal costing us this match and an aboration.

But there is also a mindset issue with this club. Aside from going hand ball crazy yesterday and doing a complete reversal on the previous week vs the Bombers, whenever we are a strong favourite to win we generally don't turn up to play at the start of the match.  By the time we get our act together we are often 25 - 40 points down by half time then we make our predictable come back in the 3rd and seemingly run out of puff in the last losing a close/seemingly winnable match. Probably expending too much energy with the the nonsense over use of handball with all the extra tackles and stoppage work that comes with it doesn't help our young blokes later in the match. The match being well and truly lost in the first half.  It's been happening at this club too often for a decade now.

The FD needs to address the hand ball issue for sure, but it also needs to address big time, the mental fragility of this group and what the hell happens to them when under any expectation that they should win!

No coach, no matter how clever, can skill/drill train this out of the playing group. We could have 5 coaches in the next 10 years and some super ones but none will ever solve it nor will they at the selection / draft table.  It's a cultural thing that the club as a whole needs to fix and pronto!!! Get some hypnotists in or psychologists. Whatever is needed to address this horrible mind set.

Edited May 8, 20178 yr by Rusty Nails

A word comes to mind, POISE

We had none.... frantically playing pass the parcel til we cough up.

They took ball much cleaner, handballed less but to a player moving the right way. 

They moved purposefully and better setups.

We handballed into corners.

Theys seemed to better 'balanced' we were calamatous.

Is that just experience ? Or gameplan ?

I don't think the overuse of the handball is necessarily the problem.  I think it's a by-product of our effort (or lack thereof) at times during games.

Our game plan is to run the ball, get the ball to the outside runners and break the lines.  This is what worked so well in the third quarter (think Frost with the run out of the defensive 50). 

The problem in the first quarter, and when we're not playing well, is the lack of outside runners.  The midfielders keep handballing to try and find the outside runners but when they're not there the ball goes around in circles. 

The lack of spread and run both ways in the first quarter made them look good, and us look like we were over possessing. 

I didn't see much of the game yesterday but last week against Essendon when we stopped stuffing around with the ball we were ten times better.

We all love Oliver and I jumped on his bandwagon well before many here, but he needs change his initial reaction of just handballing (especially backwards) to actually driving the ball forward through either running or kicking.

Edited May 8, 20178 yr by Clint Bizkit

There were a few really great passages of play where we managed to handball our way out of trouble in the defensive 50, then a free player finally ran through (Frost was really good at this yesterday) and created some space. 

The issue's yesterday came, not when the above happened, but when we did this after the next kick or after winning the ball in the middle, which gives the opposition has more time to get back and out man or set up their zone (or defensive structure) so when we kicked into the fwd 50 Hogan and co had no clear space to lead into, so even if they bring the ball to ground the smalls had no space to move. 

We've got to get the balance right between using it as an offensive weapon to get out of defense and getting the ball as quickly as possible into the forwards to let them go 1 out or to bring the ball down to Garlett. 

Effort's fine. Our smarts are appalling.

Saw Oliver receive a Hb in the back pocket as he was streaming forward. Instead of kicking it his instinct was to HB backwards to a stationary player. WTF?

It's a reason why Vince in the mid field is a good thing for us.  His first instinct is to kick, unlike any of our other midfielders.

Oliver 4 kicks 24 handballs

Viney 12 kicks 20 handballs 

Lewis 11 kicks 19 handballs

Tyson 10 kicks 18 handballs

You can add to that Jones 13 kicks  15 handballs.  Vince had 19 kicks and 10 handballs and had a disposal efficiency the same as Viney and only marginally worse than Lewis.  I like that Bernie prefers to kick and I think it's going to be really important in the next phase of the season, where the grounds get heavier, the ball gets wetter and over possessing results in lost possession and costly turnovers.

5 minutes ago, Red and Blue realist said:

There were a few really great passages of play where we managed to handball our way out of trouble in the defensive 50, then a free player finally ran through (Frost was really good at this yesterday) and created some space. 

The issue's yesterday came, not when the above happened, but when we did this after the next kick or after winning the ball in the middle, which gives the opposition has more time to get back and out man or set up their zone (or defensive structure) so when we kicked into the fwd 50 Hogan and co had no clear space to lead into, so even if they bring the ball to ground the smalls had no space to move. 

We've got to get the balance right between using it as an offensive weapon to get out of defense and getting the ball as quickly as possible into the forwards to let them go 1 out or to bring the ball down to Garlett. 

spot on

You hear the term a lot - 'run and carry'.

note I haven't seen any of the game, but from what I'm gleaning we were missing this.

2 hours ago, Akum said:

Nailed it. I think the effort was there, they just wanted to set up the "perfect" entry into 50, rather than just getting it in there quickly. Played right into their hands.

Need to see more smart-intensity and less stupid-intensity.

Yes. In the games i have been to there is far too much showboating and "i'm a top ten draft pick, watch me" attitude. ATM we seem destined for the same drop off as happened under Bailey. Then (again) there was all the meaningless talk about our new draft picks and how we were going to destroy the competition. 

There were a lot of occasions when we would handball our way into just enough space from a clearance to get the kick off, but the kick would just be a dumb 'get it out of here' slash resulting in a turnover.

I have a feeling that the heavy training emphasis on the close-handballing movement, while getting some obvious results improving that area of our game, is currently suffering the side-effect that we aren't naturally making the mental switch to spotting and thinking through targets 30 or 40 meters away.

We'll see how it progresses. After all, Roos came in and trained one aspect at a time for three years, trying to get the proverbial ducks in a row.

I agree with the topic but another thing I have been seeing is the lack of conversion of our inside 50's

being overseas it is hard from the telly to see how we are set up, but I really think that last kick in is costing us. I do acknowledge the argument we get a fair bit of repeat inside 50 from scrambled play with the forward line already flooded. But with good users of the footy like salam, watts, lewis and CP5 it woudl be good to have that conversion of inside 50 to goals. I just looked up the stats and it was not as clear cut as I hoped, but I think the conversion to inside 50 to the scoreboard is a problem with the present set up. Another big pack crushing, pack marking forward would help (like a resting ruckman)

	Us	Them
Saints	55	45
Blues	54	56
Cats	57	46
Freo	50	58
Tiges	61	57
Bombers	55	54
Hawks	54	48

I wrote this is the post match thread.. Just my thoughts

Have had a bit more of a think about it & for whatever reason our game style & play changed in that third quarter & was like the play we saw against the saints..

The dinky stupid 1m handball to flat footed players was replaced by clever link up chain handballs to moving players & we looked awesome moving the footy. 3 qrt time ruined our momentum & Hawthorn (like other sides this year) were clever enough in the 4th to keep possession of the ball & deny it from us, which is our problem... We can't get the footy off sides & try to wrestle back the momentum just like the Freo game & it's vise versa when sides have a run on us, we can't get the footy & posses it to stop the rot... 

I have this feeling at some point this year it will all click & we will explode and kick 25 goals & dominate a side from start to finish & play like we did in the 3rd term yesterday for 4 quarters... Queens birthday would be fine with me 

Edited May 8, 20178 yr by JV7

43 minutes ago, Deemented Are Go! said:

You hear the term a lot - 'run and carry'.

note I haven't seen any of the game, but from what I'm gleaning we were missing this.

Frost was brilliant at this, Hunt as usual and Hibberd to a lesser extent, but they were the only ones. Often it seemed a lot of the mids, Jones, Tyson, Viney, Lewis etc would look for a free player (short handball) in the clear rather than take a few quick steps and try and break the game open.

This made us slow going forward, which was our biggest issue. These guys weren't turning it over, but sometimes I think it's better to risk the turnover to at least give ourselves the chance to score rather than play it safe but give the opposition the ability to kill our scoring.

1 hour ago, Gawn's Beard said:

I don't think the overuse of the handball is necessarily the problem.  I think it's a by-product of our effort (or lack thereof) at times during games.

Our game plan is to run the ball, get the ball to the outside runners and break the lines.  This is what worked so well in the third quarter (think Frost with the run out of the defensive 50). 

The problem in the first quarter, and when we're not playing well, is the lack of outside runners.  The midfielders keep handballing to try and find the outside runners but when they're not there the ball goes around in circles. 

The lack of spread and run both ways in the first quarter made them look good, and us look like we were over possessing. 

I'm not convinced I can actually discern a gameplan.

I can see some fundamental problems, though. For example, why do three or sometimes even four of our players contest a mark or attempt a spoil, both in defence and attack? 

17 minutes ago, JV7 said:

I wrote this is the post match thread.. Just my thoughts

Have had a bit more of a think about it & for whatever reason our game style & play changed in that third quarter & was like the play we saw against the saints..

The dinky stupid 1m handball to flat footed players was replaced by clever link up chain handballs to moving players & we looked awesome moving the footy. 3 qrt time ruined our momentum & Hawthorn (like other sides this year) were clever enough in the 4th to keep possession of the ball & deny it from us, which is our problem... We can't get the footy off sides & try to wrestle back the momentum just like the Freo game & it's vise versa when sides have a run on us, we can't get the footy & posses it to stop the rot... 

I have this feeling at some point this year it will all click & we will explode and kick 25 goals & dominate a side from start to finish & play like we did in the 3rd term yesterday for 4 quarters... Queens birthday would be fine with me 

We saw players like Hunt and Frost grab the ball and their first instinct was to run 3-5 paces at full speed to 'break the lines' That movement opens up the whole play. Guys like Dangerfield do it all the time. Their first instinct is to run to space and then dish off or continue running.

Its the opposite of what we did in the first half.

3 minutes ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I'm not convinced I can actually discern a gameplan.

I can see some fundamental problems, though. For example, why do three or sometimes even four of our players contest a mark or attempt a spoil, both in defence and attack? 

yes we were bees to a honey pot yesterday, sometime with 4 up spoiling and mot one ground level player to contest.

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

Effort's fine. Our smarts are appalling.

Saw Oliver receive a Hb in the back pocket as he was streaming forward. Instead of kicking it his instinct was to HB backwards to a stationary player. WTF?

Happens all the time. His first instinct is to handball backwards. He needs to start on the defensive side of contests and handball 5-10 meters forward to a running player.  He is a smart player. Needs to play smarter.