11 hours ago, Luther said:

I don't think this is a valid reason. We've struggled to break out of our back fifty in most of our games there, particularly yesterday against North. If it's the width of the ground, hypothetically that should also make it easier for us to break out of other teams zones. 

I think it's mental and it has snowballed since our first loss there this year.

We don't have anyone good enough to play as a modern day CHF. Hogan has barely played & Watts/Pedersen have had to ruck because Gawn has been missing. Weiderman doesn't know when to lead and not do our smaller fwd.. No one leads at the ball carrier.. they all want the cheap out over the top..

Just bumping my topic from a few months ago. Our inability to play at our home ground has killed our season.

Our record at the MCG compared to everywhere else is abysmal. Until we learn to play our home ground, and the ground finals are played on, we will never be a threat. 

It's embarrassing to watch our defensive zone push up so high at the G compared to other grounds. Somehow the coaches and players have made zero change to a structure that is not working. The amount of space we give teams in their forward half is comical. Is it the players or the coaches to blame?

Edited July 1, 20186 yr by Lord Travis

It's a real concern.

It has been happening for two years so it's not exactly a one-off occurrence.

We cannot defend the opposition running the ball out of our forward line. How many times today did St Kilda just run it out with uncontested possession chains and get it into an open forward line and score? Just happened time and time again. It was the same versus Hawthorn, the same versus Collingwood and the same versus Geelong.

There is a fundamental flaw - either in the system or the personnel trying to implement the system. It can no longer be put down as "a bad game" or "players not executing it properly". I've seen it too many times and for a team like St Kilda, who have only beaten GC and Brisbane this year, to kick 18 goals and score on 58% of their entries inside 50 shows there is a fundamental flaw.

I'm not saying change the whole style of play, but rather it is clear that adjustments need to be made in either the system or the personnel, especially at the G.

Chris Scott said a few weeks ago you need to play a little differently at the G given the width of the ground. If we can let St Kilda score as easily they did today then a good team will kick 25+ goals unless we address it and make some adjustments.

Goodwin's game plan is definitely not suited to the G, and I am yet to see any evidence that he has any ideas on how to fix it either, which is the most concerning part.

We are too slow for the MCG. Everytime we lose there is due to the opposition spreading so much quicker and we cannot cover all the real estate.

It's incredible we still haven't sorted this out yet. Our only change up in all that time has been to sit the press back slightly further.

How was Joel Smith at one stage today? This wasn't even on the full team press and he pressed up to our half forward, didn't impact the contest at all, St Kilda got the crumb and his man joined in on the spread. Is Smith given licence to individually press up this high or is he breaking team rules? It's bizarre. Mind you, his same press lead to a Melbourne goal later on. So maybe it is by instruction. If so, I don't think he reads the game well enough to play it as a back man. It throws out our entire backline.

19 minutes ago, Scoop Junior said:

It's a real concern.

It has been happening for two years so it's not exactly a one-off occurrence.

We cannot defend the opposition running the ball out of our forward line. How many times today did St Kilda just run it out with uncontested possession chains and get it into an open forward line and score? Just happened time and time again. It was the same versus Hawthorn, the same versus Collingwood and the same versus Geelong.

There is a fundamental flaw - either in the system or the personnel trying to implement the system. It can no longer be put down as "a bad game" or "players not executing it properly". I've seen it too many times and for a team like St Kilda, who have only beaten GC and Brisbane this year, to kick 18 goals and score on 58% of their entries inside 50 shows there is a fundamental flaw.

I'm not saying change the whole style of play, but rather it is clear that adjustments need to be made in either the system or the personnel, especially at the G.

Chris Scott said a few weeks ago you need to play a little differently at the G given the width of the ground. If we can let St Kilda score as easily they did today then a good team will kick 25+ goals unless we address it and make some adjustments.

I think it's both. Game plan and personnel. There's no room for error in this game plan and even then, it relies on our midfield smashing the opposition every week. That's never going to happen every week.

Meanwhile, the decision making of ANB, Harmes, Tyson, Jones and Joel Smith  more often than not is highly questionable, particularly under pressure. 

Goodwin kept saying the loss was due to our inability to defend off the ball. To me that means we were lazy - and that is why this loss was totally unacceptable. 

5 minutes ago, chook fowler said:

Goodwin kept saying the loss was due to our inability to defend off the ball. To me that means we were lazy - and that is why this loss was totally unacceptable. 

Lazy or slow. Maybe both.

Until today it was hard to know for sure whether our struggles at the G were because of the G itself or the teams we were playing there (Geelong, Hawthorn, Richmond, Collingwood).

Given the exact same problems showed up against a bottom 4 side, the evidence now swings massively in favour of it being the G.

It looks to me like it's a width problem. We press a long way up but on a wider ground that just exposes us on the flanks, and we're so slow in those areas that we can't defend the entire ground. 

I don't know if we can fix this in time to save the season.

A couple of things on this:

- there is no home ground advantage at the MCG for any side because it is a communal ground. All clubs play there enough for it to be a known quantity and none train there (so can’t know every detail like say Geelong can with kardinia)  It’s super reliable, has a predictable and some would say perfect playing surface and is largely unaffected by wind.

- we train on a ground that is significantly narrower than the MCG unlike many other teams particularly Collingwood which trains on a ground the exact dimensions of the MCG

- we experience limited crowd advantage at the G when compared to interstate and Geelong based teams due to low supporter base and the fact that there are more interstate teams supporters in Melbourne than there are Melbourne supporters in Perth/Sydney/Adelaide

- our game plan looks like a steaming pile of [censored] at the MCG and it seems we aren’t interested in correcting it

All in all, I wish my dad followed Fitzroy (rather than the demons) like his dad before him because al least I would have seen 3 premierships by now!

1 hour ago, Lord Travis said:

Just bumping my topic from a few months ago. Our inability to play at our home ground has killed our season.

Our record at the MCG compared to everywhere else is abysmal. Until we learn to play our home ground, and the ground finals are played on, we will never be a threat. 

It's embarrassing to watch our defensive zone push up so high at the G compared to other grounds. Somehow the coaches and players have made zero change to a structure that is not working. The amount of space we give teams in their forward half is comical. Is it the players or the coaches to blame?

Good call on this subject...you actually started the thread more than a year ago (May 2017) and sadly little has changed in more than a season of experience and learning!

Edited July 1, 20186 yr by Lucifer's Hero

1 hour ago, chook fowler said:

Goodwin kept saying the loss was due to our inability to defend off the ball. To me that means we were lazy - and that is why this loss was totally unacceptable. 

There is some truth in that but if he really thinks that - he is in denial on how ineffective his game plan of  'playing in the forward half the ground' with flexible hybrid forward/mids is.

He needs to do some serious soul searching especially when it comes to his game plan and tactics on the G.  

Edited July 1, 20186 yr by Lucifer's Hero

We as a club should be at our best on the MCG in front of our home crowd.  We are playing our worst games here!!  Goodwin must fix it for Bulldogs game, however I have lost all confidence that will happen.  MCG what does that mean to us anymore as a club?

There is enough of a data sample now to suggest that this is a huge problem. We just can’t cover the territory, especially on the rebound. Is it fixable? I don’t know, I’m really not sure if it can be fixed this season. Just too slow 

19 minutes ago, —coach— said:

A couple of things on this:

- there is no home ground advantage at the MCG for any side because it is a communal ground. All clubs play there enough for it to be a known quantity and none train there (so can’t know every detail like say Geelong can with kardinia)  It’s super reliable, has a predictable and some would say perfect playing surface and is largely unaffected by wind.

- we train on a ground that is significantly narrower than the MCG unlike many other teams particularly Collingwood which trains on a ground the exact dimensions of the MCG

- we experience limited crowd advantage at the G when compared to interstate and Geelong based teams due to low supporter base and the fact that there are more interstate teams supporters in Melbourne than there are Melbourne supporters in Perth/Sydney/Adelaide

- our game plan looks like a steaming pile of [censored] at the MCG and it seems we aren’t interested in correcting it

All in all, I wish my dad followed Fitzroy (rather than the demons) like his dad before him because al least I would have seen 3 premierships by now!

Rubbish.

The interstate sides play here no more than twice per year. We played at the Gabba twice per year but that doesn't give us familiarity or negate the fact that it's an away ground. 

Richmond are showing that the G can provide a side with a proper home ground advantage. The crowd today was 70-30 in our favour.

We can, and should, have an advantage in playing 10+ games at the G per year, with only Richmond, Collingwood and maybe Hawthorn playing that many. Geelong, Carlton, Essendon play 5-7, the rest play 2.