Result, form, future games aside and apologies if already mentioned....I literally only just noticed the players didn’t wear black arm bands last week..

Didnt the club make a statement they would wear black arm bands for Jarrod Lyle’s passing?

 

4 hours ago, Earl Hood said:

Saw this at the time and wondered why there wasn’t a response from our guys. But maybe that is because they are gun shy. Any retaliation would end in a free goal kick to the opposition. 

It's hard to know. But the fact they didn't even get in his ear about it makes me think they were intimidated. We have a passive group of players in my opinion. Which is honorable perhaps, but coming against sides like Sydney and Hawthorn who have aggressive players who are coached to play in a crude way we'll get bullied and beaten over and over.

Also in my opinion i'd rather see a free given away, then our teammates not sticking up for our teammates.

9 hours ago, binman said:

Melbourne has one stand out weakness. And it is not our game plan. Though it certainly negatively impacts on the effectiveness of our game plan.

We have had the weakness for 25 years. And it is not mental fragility. Though it certainly creates mental demons and our ability to execute in big moments.

Our recruiting philosophy in the last 5 years has exacerbated the weakness. 

The weakness is that, with a very small handful of exceptions, we are a terrible kicking side and almost all of our players have woeful kicking techniques. 

Of our top 30 players i would only rate the following players as being above average kicks (and unsurprisingly all have strong techniques): Fritsch, Salem, Melksham, Lewis, Vince, Weiderman, Omac, Oliver, JKH, Hibberd (just), Spargo (but only up to 30 metres) and Tmac (but only when shooting for goal).

That is simply not enough players who can be relied on to: hit a basic target, kick clutch goals under pressure, kick a ball to a designated spot, kick to a forwards advantage (put it in front of them, put it on their side of the contest!!!) and critically be trusted not to break scoring chains through basic turnovers.

And of the 12 players noted above only 3 are anywhere near elite kicks. Again not nearly enough

Our recruiting in recent years has empahsised players who are strong at the contest at the expense of skilled kicks. The best coach of the last 50 years, Alistair Clarkson has recruited all sorts of different players - talls, silky skilled, outside and inside. But there is one skill he has has empahsised throughout his career as coach - kicking. And won 4 flags.

We have more talent than the current Hawks side and are certainly stronger at the contest. They are equally inexperienced, albeit with some senior players with much finals experience. And they are also down key players. Yet they are above us on the ladder. In large part because they have more players who are above average kicks.

The stat about our goal kicking accuracy against top 8 sides mentioned on Footy Classified was fascinating. It is too easy to say the cause is mental weakness or choking - but not surprising so many so called experts go there given the shallowness of most analysis. 

Yes mental strength, inexperience and not playing in enough big games are factors.

But the real cause is poor technique.

Kicking technique is tested by 3 key external variables: environmental (wind, rain, dew, humidity etc), fatigue and most critical of all pressure (big moments, big games etc) 

The golf swing of professionals (and amateurs for that matter) is a good analogy for kicking technique. The best golfer's swings stand up under those same 3 variables and in particular pressure. Poor techniques don't. Not often enough anyway. Which is why so many brilliant players, like Adam Scott (whose putting technique has always been poor)do not win more often.  

Perhaps the best example is Greg Norman who was so often unfairly accused of choking. He had technical flaws in his game that were exposed under pressure - namely blocking drives.

Tiger Woods is perhaps the most mentally strong player in the modern era but when he had to retool his technique because of his back injury he could not execute under pressure because his swing could not stand up under the variables noted above.

Love him or hate but Jack Watts would have nailed his shots if he played in Sunday. And we win that game. Which is why i wanted to keep him. Yes i understand and respect the decision to trade him but i would have kept him simply because he was the best, most reliable kick in our side with a technique that holds up under pressure. And as i said above we simply do not have enough of that sort of player.

And please don't throw Fritisch up. We could have traded one of our rubbish kicks - hunt for example - and had both of them in our forward line. 

It's a interesting viewpoint you have. I agree that our field kicking has been below average in our recent history. I'd say it's about average at the moment; we struggle to hit close targets against strong opposition, apart from in our defensive fifty. But that could mean our movement and positioning isn't intelligent, or a bit of both.

I don't agree that we have more talent than Hawthorn though, or that we're harder at the contest. Wish we were and I wish we could beat that repulsive club!

7 hours ago, Beetle said:

Result, form, future games aside and apologies if already mentioned....I literally only just noticed the players didn’t wear black arm bands last week..

Didnt the club make a statement they would wear black arm bands for Jarrod Lyle’s passing?

 

I contacted the club before game about a yellow arm band. Said they would wear black one. 

I'll just go ask them...pizz poor really.

11 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

I haven't had the chance to go into the rest of the post but this stood out to me so I went back and checked.

• Geelong the first time tackles were 72-45 in our favour.
• Hawthorn was 74-113 against
• Richmond 79-78 our favour
• Collingwood 68-71 their favour
• Port 88-99 their favour
• Geelong the second time 79-65 our favour
• Sydney 69-77 their favour

There's only one terrible performance there, we otherwise win the tackle count or we lose by a small margin (and in the case of Port we laid 88 anyway, it was an incredibly high-pressure game).

There is no doubt we have a weakness that good sides exploit - drop a man or two back, wait for us to turn it over in our forward line, and score against our open defensive half. We need to improve. But that is not inconsistent with arguing that the gameplan itself works. We've been in every game this year bar three (and of those, we dominated parts of the Hawthorn and Richmond games).

I didn't say our game plan doesn't work. To the contrary it works very well against lesser sides and those not smart enough to exploit our weaknesses. Our very good statistics have been achieved against those sides.

My post was intended to show how when we are convincingly beaten (Hawks, Tigers, Pies, Swans) there is a very consistent pattern which our game plan has not been able to counter (and which raw statistics don't really show).  The Swans did what the Hawks did so I'm not sure what we learnt/changed in those 3 months.  

I feel we need more than a few 'fixes' and 'tweaks' (in the post I first responded to).  We need a plan for when teams don't let us play on our terms, ie Hawks, Tigers, Pies, Swans.  So I think our game plan works very well when we are allowed to use it...

BTW, I didn't include Port and Geelong in my analysis because they did let us play on our own terms, so our game plan wasn't really challenged.  And they were excluded because I don't seem them as a 'top side'.

TBH, I don't think it is fair to take one measure in isolation and argue a case on one stat.  I would prefer my first post was read as a whole 'story' or overall strategy the better sides use consistently against us. 

 

Anyway, we will find out what we have learnt on Sunday.  WCE convincingly beat Richmond by kicking/marking instead of hand balling and had a huge uncontested possession differential.  They controlled the game by denying Richmond the ball and denied them contests which is what they thrive on.  ie What Hawks and Sydney did to us.  We also thrive on the contest so will see how WCE play us.   I'm happy to speculate that they will not let us play our game plan on our terms.  Will watch with interest what we change from last week to counter WCE.

Edited August 15, 20186 yr by Lucifer's Hero

13 hours ago, MSFebey said:

I would argue that Richmond’s doesn’t, theirs is revolves around desperation and getting it forward, they scrap their way through.

That's true. But they have some excellent field kicks who hit targets and forwards with good technique that take their chances.

They also have a ruckman who has good technique ans can be relied on to kick goals when he has the chance

1 minute ago, binman said:

That's true. But they have some excellent field kicks who hit targets and forwards with good technique that take their chances.

They also have a ruckman who has good technique ans can be relied on to kick goals when he has the chance

All good mate. Another thing that concerns me as well as our minimal elite kicks (which I've banged on about for ages) is how many of our players have decent footy IQ. A stat that is seriously underrated. We know Oliver is a great decision maker, Spargo has the makings of one, maybe a couple of others but I wonder how this stacks up against other teams in the 8. If I had time I'd go through it all and do some analysis. But I don't think we have too many smart players who are elite decision makers either.

1 hour ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Anyway, we will find out what we have learnt on Sunday.  ...  Will watch with interest what we change from last week to counter WCE.

Obviously we weren't frantic ENOUGH.  On Sunday, we will be even more frantic, attack the contest harder, and bomb inside 50 more frequently, to ever outnumbered forwards. And leave more loose oppo to counterattack.

31 minutes ago, MSFebey said:

All good mate. Another thing that concerns me as well as our minimal elite kicks (which I've banged on about for ages) is how many of our players have decent footy IQ. A stat that is seriously underrated. We know Oliver is a great decision maker, Spargo has the makings of one, maybe a couple of others but I wonder how this stacks up against other teams in the 8. If I had time I'd go through it all and do some analysis. But I don't think we have too many smart players who are elite decision makers either.

Salem is great with ball in hand but I worry about him when we don't. His defensive play on Papley was appalling as showed by 'On the Couch' or one of the other footy shows I can't recall.

Our zoning I think has a lot to do with it. Lack of accountability for one on one play....

37 minutes ago, MSFebey said:

 Another thing that concerns me as well as our minimal elite kicks (which I've banged on about for ages) is how many of our players have decent footy IQ. A stat that is seriously underrated. We know Oliver is a great decision maker, Spargo has the makings of one, maybe a couple of others but I wonder how this stacks up against other teams in the 8. If I had time I'd go through it all and do some analysis. But I don't think we have too many smart players who are elite decision makers either.

Agree on all points. Not wanting to single out jonesy but his decision to go for goals late the in the last quarter rather than center the ball (which surely is the team rule) was perfect example of our poor decsion making as was the stupid dump kicks to the extra defender.

It seems to me that a lot of the comments using the term mental toughness could be replaced with leadership.

28 minutes ago, loges said:

It seems to me that a lot of the comments using the term mental toughness could be replaced with leadership.

..indeed as the latter might inspire the former