Post Game: Rd 5 v St. Kilda

[Adam The God 30,259]

2 hours ago, jnrmac said:

Yeah but Goody didn't deem the PF worthy of watching. Its clear other teams watched it though. Pretty obvious how to beat Melbourne.

He never said that.

He said they didn't review it, which means the coaches didn't review it with the players, but of course, the coaches reviewed it.

That said, we're stubbornly continuing to play a game style that doesn't work and has been shown doesn't work on the second biggest stage (a prelim).

 

Edited April 22, 2019 by A F

[Dr. Gonzo 24,219]

17 hours ago, jnrmac said:

He had a good 6 week period.

Oh please

The way many of you on here carry on remind me of a bunch of old women. Give the woe is me [censored] a rest, it's tiring and unbecoming.

[titan_uranus 25,020]

29 minutes ago, A F said:

He never said that.

He said they didn't review it, which means the coaches didn't review it with the players, but of course, the coaches reviewed it.

That said, we're stubbornly continuing to play a game style that doesn't work and has been shown doesn't work on the second biggest stage (a prelim).

 

I don't think the truth matters anymore.

I think the concept that Goodwin never reviewed the prelim is just going to become Demonland folklore, no matter what happens from here.

[Lucifers Hero 39,811]

58 minutes ago, A F said:

He never said that.

He said they didn't review it, which means the coaches didn't review it with the players, but of course, the coaches reviewed it.

That said, we're stubbornly continuing to play a game style that doesn't work and has been shown doesn't work on the second biggest stage (a prelim).

Sure, they reviewed it.  To me the issue is how thoroughly and how seriously?

This comment: "... didn’t dwell too much on the way we played because it was nothing like the way the Melbourne team plays..." reads like coaches dismissed it as an aberration( ie just a poor game) rather than respecting that WCE did a systemic dismantling of nearly every aspect of his game plan and that he had no answers.  

Maybe it is a rookie coach error to not see the significance of how WCE won, particularly with the euphoria of finals still in the air.  But the fact is WCE's systemic dismantling has been successfully copied by other teams and we still have no answers.  Perhaps if the coaches had reviewed it more deeply they would have seen the danger signs. 

Edited April 22, 2019 by Lucifer's Hero

[Adam The God 30,259]

35 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Sure, they reviewed it.  To me the issue is how thoroughly and how seriously?

This comment: "... didn’t dwell too much on the way we played because it was nothing like the way the Melbourne team plays..." reads like coaches dismissed it as an aberration( ie just a poor game) rather than respecting that WCE did a systemic dismantling of nearly every aspect of his game plan and that he had no answers.  

Maybe it is a rookie coach error to not see how the significance of how WCE won, particularly with the euphoria of finals still in the air.  But the fact is WCE's systemic dismantling has been successfully copied by other teams and we still have no answers.  Perhaps if the coaches had reviewed it more deeply they would have seen the danger signs. 

But I agree with him in that we didn't turn up that day. Yes, we were thoroughly outplayed, but if we had brought the same intensity to that prelim as we had the previous weeks, it would have been a much closer contest.

I think psychologically it was important not to review the game with the players and risk scarring them. I have no problem with this, still to this day.

The problem I have is our system leaves so little margin for error that it's unsustainable and if it hasn't happened already, the players will lose faith in this system. 

We have no idea how thoroughly the coaches reviewed the game, but it's hard to know how much would be dismissed due to the fact we didn't bring the required work rate or concentration to the game, versus how we were beaten. I'm certainly not going to be arrogant enough to assume I know how league coaches review a game. 

The biggest hurdle for us is Goodwin getting past the chaos game and coming up with a more sustainable system to take us forward.

[Wiseblood 24,637]

5 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Sure, they reviewed it.  To me the issue is how thoroughly and how seriously?

This comment: "... didn’t dwell too much on the way we played because it was nothing like the way the Melbourne team plays..." reads like coaches dismissed it as an aberration( ie just a poor game) rather than respecting that WCE did a systemic dismantling of nearly every aspect of his game plan and that he had no answers.  

Maybe it is a rookie coach error to not see how the significance of how WCE won, particularly with the euphoria of finals still in the air.  But the fact is WCE's systemic dismantling has been successfully copied by other teams and we still have no answers.  Perhaps if the coaches had reviewed it more deeply they would have seen the danger signs. 

In that same article, Goodwin makes a point of saying that they also took plenty away from the Grand Final and reviewed how West Coast went about it.  They knew what they had to get better at and they used the Eagles as an example of what they needed to do to improve.

Sure, they didn't do their normal review, but I think Goodwin and the coaches felt at the time they understood where it went wrong.  A horror pre-season and players out of form has meant that we haven't had a real crack at it yet, but I acknowledge the fact that other teams have adapted to our game style and we haven't figured out a way to counteract that as yet.  Fitter players, less injuries and a little less 'drinking of the bathwater' would go along way to helping fix those issues.

And a few tweaks to the gameplan itself wouldn't go astray either.

[Adam The God 30,259]

44 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

In that same article, Goodwin makes a point of saying that they also took plenty away from the Grand Final and reviewed how West Coast went about it.  They knew what they had to get better at and they used the Eagles as an example of what they needed to do to improve.

Sure, they didn't do their normal review, but I think Goodwin and the coaches felt at the time they understood where it went wrong.  A horror pre-season and players out of form has meant that we haven't had a real crack at it yet, but I acknowledge the fact that other teams have adapted to our game style and we haven't figured out a way to counteract that as yet.  Fitter players, less injuries and a little less 'drinking of the bathwater' would go along way to helping fix those issues.

And a few tweaks to the gameplan itself wouldn't go astray either.

I hope they really honed in on what Collingwood were doing last year. Really, they choked in that Grand Final and I have them winning the whole thing this year. Their game style mixed with their list, remarkably given where they were in 2017, is the best in the comp. 

I can see why they like the West Coast comparisons though. Barrass and McGovern could be emulated by a fit Lever and May, but our forwardline is nowhere near as dangerous and our midfield lacks the flexibility of either Grand Finalist.

[Lucifers Hero 39,811]

10 minutes ago, A F said:

But I agree with him in that we didn't turn up that day. Yes, we were thoroughly outplayed, but if we had brought the same intensity to that prelim as we had the previous weeks, it would have been a much closer contest.

I think psychologically it was important not to review the game with the players and risk scarring them. I have no problem with this, still to this day.

The problem I have is our system leaves so little margin for error that it's unsustainable and if it hasn't happened already, the players will lose faith in this system. 

We have no idea how thoroughly the coaches reviewed the game, but it's hard to know how much would be dismissed due to the fact we didn't bring the required work rate or concentration to the game, versus how we were beaten. I'm certainly not going to be arrogant enough to assume I know how league coaches review a game. 

The biggest hurdle for us is Goodwin getting past the chaos game and coming up with a more sustainable system to take us forward.

Agree with most of this especially not reviewing with the players. 

If Goodwin and coaches did review how we were beaten not much seems to have changed this year as we have been beaten the same way in most games.  And the coaches still have no answers.

My fear is Goodwin is not prepared to modify the chaos gamestyle  preferring to make the players follow it whether they are capable or not.  As you say they will lose faith in it - maybe they have; how many times have we heard the phrase 'lack of player buy-in' this year?

Most coaches develop a game plan to fit their list.  Goodwin seems steadfast to make the players fit the game plan and play his way. 

Time will tell what he learnt from the prelim 'review' and from how WCE won the GF.  I hope we see what he learnt sooner rather than later.

[Skuit 10,031]

1 hour ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Sure, they reviewed it.  To me the issue is how thoroughly and how seriously?

rather than respecting that WCE did a systemic dismantling of nearly every aspect of his game plan and that he had no answers.  

Maybe it is a rookie coach error to not see the significance of how WCE won

But the fact is WCE's systemic dismantling has been successfully copied by other teams 

LH: Can you walk me through what it was that West Coast did to systematically dismantle nearly every aspect of our game-plan?

[Lucifers Hero 39,811]

9 minutes ago, Skuit said:

LH: Can you walk me through what it was that West Coast did to systematically dismantle nearly every aspect of our game-plan?

Have a look at post #2 and others in this thread Skuit

 

Some WCE big ticket items:

• Tagged Max and took him out of the game.  Lost our 'one wood' right there.
• Possessed and chipped the ball around which minimised contests - the life blood of our chaos/win contested ball style. 
• Controlled the ball inside our 50 which stopped us keeping the ball there.  
• Short kicks across and down the line which cut thru our zone defence.

They are the biggies I can recall off the top of my head.  Not sure what the stats say but if we won any of them we weren't able to capitalise on them.

Edited April 22, 2019 by Lucifer's Hero

[deebug 1,754]

7 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Its stupid but the fact is our players retaliated and so were being told do it again and I'll reverse the kick. Razor is an a-grade [censored] wanting the spotlight on him but that's the answer we'll receive.

Have to agree, he is a right royal tool.

[Dr. Gonzo 24,219]

1 hour ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Agree with most of this especially not reviewing with the players. 

If Goodwin and coaches did review how we were beaten not much seems to have changed this year as we have been beaten the same way in most games.  And the coaches still have no answers.

My fear is Goodwin is not prepared to modify the chaos gamestyle  preferring to make the players follow it whether they are capable or not.  As you say they will lose faith in it - maybe they have; how many times have we heard the phrase 'lack of player buy-in' this year?

Most coaches develop a game plan to fit their list.  Goodwin seems steadfast to make the players fit the game plan and play his way. 

Time will tell what he learnt from the prelim 'review' and from how WCE won the GF.  I hope we see what he learnt sooner rather than later.

Maybe the coaches have tried to make some changes but the players keep reverting back to "chaos ball" when under pressure and getting little from our marking forwards. Maybe this is the reason there have been references to "buy-in".

Not saying this is right but from the outside it's hard to know.

[jnrmac 20,065]

4 hours ago, Wiseblood said:

They didn't do a regular 'play by play' of that game, but Goody has said they still reviewed it, and packaged it up with the first two games as well.  Here is what he said on it: 

“I tried to parcel our finals up into three. We had two really great experiences and one poor one. I certainly didn’t dwell too much on the way we played because it was nothing like the way the Melbourne team plays. But you do reflect on the things in our program we keep addressing and learning from,” he said.

So, to me, this idea he didn't review the game is totally false, and a myth being run by a variety of people here.  Clearly they didn't do their normal review, but did they ignore that game and the outcome entirely?  No.

Regardless they haven't learned anything it would seem...

 

[scarlett 247]

5 hours ago, DV8 said:

totally agree with this Scarlett.

And the long bomb deep is IMO far too easily defended against us at this stage,  because we lack class and speed inside 40.

 

I prefer a bomb, IF we must... to the 45Mtr area,  so we have players 360 *  around the contest...  Fore, Aft, and laterals... all in space,  thinning the defenders out...  and allowing space for us to move to.

 

.

Our forwards need to be on the move at centre  bounces and contests (which trac, melksham and weid normally are, pruess also jogs from square). Our midfield structures are set up for  full attack win contested ball, but forced quick kick forward(chaos), defenders dont respect or forwards and peel off early. Originally all our forwards would run to that 35-45 quick hack spot, after the second round the players i mentioned started offering leads and dummy leads, when in general play we try to hit them. When on top like 2 qtr against saints, these forwards were used, but out of stop play and pressured movement we are sorely lacking.

Long reply to the 45m drop spot, we already do that with the hack out of the middle. Our problem is it rebounds so easily, its such a dangerous spot. If long bombing it in, which we should stop immediately, it should be to a pocket where we can corner them in easier, hold it, get it out or defend half the ground. If the bomb diesnt happen every time, they wont have players peeling off early to help out.

[Superunknown 4,217]

4 hours ago, A F said:

But I agree with him in that we didn't turn up that day. Yes, we were thoroughly outplayed, but if we had brought the same intensity to that prelim as we had the previous weeks, it would have been a much closer contest.

I think psychologically it was important not to review the game with the players and risk scarring them. I have no problem with this, still to this day.

The problem I have is our system leaves so little margin for error that it's unsustainable and if it hasn't happened already, the players will lose faith in this system. 

We have no idea how thoroughly the coaches reviewed the game, but it's hard to know how much would be dismissed due to the fact we didn't bring the required work rate or concentration to the game, versus how we were beaten. I'm certainly not going to be arrogant enough to assume I know how league coaches review a game. 

The biggest hurdle for us is Goodwin getting past the chaos game and coming up with a more sustainable system to take us forward.

Respectfully disagree

not reviewing let the players off the hook

 

[Adam The God 30,259]

2 minutes ago, Superunknown said:

Respectfully disagree

not reviewing let the players off the hook

 

Fair enough. Each to their own.

I think had this been a regular season game, we'd have done a thorough player review. Or maybe not.

We all have different opinions and strategies on how best to motivate people. When I'm coaching I focus on the positives but review the negatives in a game simulation setting and speak in generalities about how we can get better. If the players want to improve and get better as a team and feel that the review doesn't sufficiently answer their own concerns, it is up to them to take the initiative and seek further advice. That's where it falls on the players IMO.

As a film producer, it is also my job to motivate people into delivering on time and to a high standard. In my experience, every team has a different dynamic because every person is different. I know the team that work for me because I handpick them due to their certain qualities. I know what makes them tick and I demand open communication both ways.

Goodwin and co would know the players better than we would. They are on the inside and deal with the players day to day, week to week and effectively, have handpicked these players for their qualities. Sure, sometimes they could make the wrong call in terms of how best to motivate our players, but it's never as simple as one game. It's about a larger sample size. 

Given the importance of modern sports psychology and the evolution of society and what makes people tick effectively in a modern world, with the pressures that are thrust upon these players, there really is a lot more at play than merely the old toughen up, face your problems head on review.

This particular loss was an embarrassing loss on one of the biggest stages of all. I'd argue very little could be achieved by making the players sit through the review after the season was over. I'd rather "come back better and more focused than ever, boys, to implement our system, the Melbourne way". 

However, what I would have expected to see is the coaches pour over the themes of our 2018 losses and pin point an effective way of ridding this from our game. The fact that the same errors are still occurring a year after the fact (and arguably getting worse), speaks to the notion that the coaches have failed to implement a system that holds up on the bigger grounds. Our only win has come on the tiny SCG, which enables us to revert to 2018 Melbourne. I'd say that lets the coaches off.

Sure, it comes down to work rate too, but as I keep banging on about, our system is broken. So throw it out, Goodwin.

I'd also debate the inference that our problems all stem back to the Eagles loss. To me that's rubbish. What we are seeing week to week in 2019 are the same glaring issues we were experiencing in early 2018. We are being beaten in a very similar way. Only this year, the wider competition has worked out how best to counter our game style and it's exactly the same way Hawthorn did to us in early 2018.

Teams have always tried to nullify Gawn, Oliver and Viney. But what we showed ALL of last year is that we waste inside 50s and are incredibly inefficient going forward. Teams simply understand that if you take away our advantage by setting up to slingshot against our clearance dominance, our inefficiency going forward will play right into their hands.

These signs were there all 2018 and it was up to the coaches to address them. They haven't. The majority of our woes come from poor coaching.

[DV8 2,271]

2 hours ago, scarlett said:

Our forwards need to be on the move at centre  bounces and contests (which trac, melksham and weid normally are, pruess also jogs from square). Our midfield structures are set up for  full attack win contested ball, but forced quick kick forward(chaos), defenders dont respect or forwards and peel off early. Originally all our forwards would run to that 35-45 quick hack spot, after the second round the players i mentioned started offering leads and dummy leads, when in general play we try to hit them. When on top like 2 qtr against saints, these forwards were used, but out of stop play and pressured movement we are sorely lacking.

Long reply to the 45m drop spot, we already do that with the hack out of the middle. Our problem is it rebounds so easily, its such a dangerous spot. If long bombing it in, which we should stop immediately, it should be to a pocket where we can corner them in easier, hold it, get it out or defend half the ground. If the bomb diesnt happen every time, they wont have players peeling off early to help out.

Yeah,  we do it far too regularly,  because our midfielders and Maxy IMO haven't been playing well... and we come out of the centre bounce contest under the pump from the get go.

Early games this year, we were on top of one-another, winning the contested ball after the centre bounces,  and we were simply corralled, and we just overused the footy, until we coughed it up.

IMO, its our Midfield that is the Primary breakdown from the start of this season...  Including Maxy in the early games, trying to grab the ball out of the air and slamming it on his boot.

Which he missed many times, air swing, or cocked it off the side... wasted possessions. right there.

 

Just pluck the ball IF given the chance Maxy...  & give off a clean handpass.

[DV8 2,271]

2 hours ago, scarlett said:

Long reply to the 45m drop spot, we already do that with the hack out of the middle. Our problem is it rebounds so easily, its such a dangerous spot.

We were kicking over Weide's head early games,  or we were bombing it without direction, and Weide did not seem to know where the ball was likely to go.

I was thinking he was too close to the drop of the ball, before he had read its trajectory.  IMO he was starting too high and TMc starting deeper.

WHY they did it this way ???        F()@ k   ?

 

I wanted Weide to start Deep alongside Hunt in our early games, with or without Preuss...  So both could move at the ball...  crashing the pack and marking in Weide's case... Or in Hunts case, to lead out from the pocket area at the ball carrier,  leading wide toward the flank and wings, and double back the other way, when the ball has passed him, using his speed.

 

I think Weide needs a good sight of the ball and play... especially early season, and to clunk some marks.   This is primarily why I wanted him to start deep... and the same with Hunt.

See ball, move toward ball.

[jnrmac 20,065]

22 hours ago, A F said:

He never said that.

He said they didn't review it, which means the coaches didn't review it with the players, but of course, the coaches reviewed it.

That said, we're stubbornly continuing to play a game style that doesn't work and has been shown doesn't work on the second biggest stage (a prelim).

 

And of course you know that. Mind reading part of your schtick?

Of course he said it.

[Sir Why You Little 37,039]

Yes i can just see all the coaches doing a quick 20 minute review of the Preliminary Final before they all went on holidays

”hurry up i need to get to the airport...”

To not do a thorough review with all players present was a vey naive thing to do which is now biting us hard

[binman 42,972]

Was away over Easter. Just watched the game not knowing the score. Ha4d work avoiding all media and comments. Should not have bothered.

We were woeful.

Haven't looked at this thread or any other. But I can imagine the vitriol. All of it deserved.

I could make any number of crtisisms. I'll keep it to two.

Our foot skills are appalling. And were all game.

They were way better than us and easily could have won by more. But iwe totally gave up the momentum with our turovers and failure to hit a target inside 50 in the first 10 minutes of the second.

We are slow.