32 minutes ago, roy11 said:

 

Last year we just bombed it into the F50 and had success. There isn't really a change to the game plan but we're sitting at 3-9.

How has it become so inefficient so quickly? 

 

There possibly is an impact in the game plan, but not a change IMO. We did have the 2 players running off the back of the square last year, which meant we had more immediate forward pressure along with a line of players running through. That potentially helped with the "chaos ball" game plan through weight of numbers. I wonder if now with the 666 rule, we aren't able to get those numbers forward as quickly and by the time we've launched that quick bomb forward the players behind the ball aren't far enough forward to have any impact?

I don't have the stats in front of me, but would have thought Hogan, Kent, Watts and Melksham have been among our best users going inside 50. I understand the differing reasons we don't have those players currently, but when their inside 50s are replaced by poor decision makers it has to have an impact eventually.

29 minutes ago, Matsuo Basho said:

It’s not just the delivery. It’s the quality of the forwards and the lack of a quality gorilla FF to provide structure and opportunity for others. 

Good forwards gobble up their share of half chances and are able to water into wine. Exhibit A - DeGoey and Stephenson yesterday. 

We desperately need to recruit another KPF, a big bodied KPF proven at the level, to straighten up the side. TMac was a one season wonder and Weid will remain a project for a while yet. 

I think we've had some players in the past who might have watered into wine. Not sure they're the type of players we need, though.

The worst thing about that dismal percentage is that it was predictable. In the last two years we have broken down offensively against the better defences, so it was only a matter of time until the lesser defences caught on. Chuck in our injury and operation ravaged offseason and we had no chance to work on some variations. Presuming we wanted to work on some variations.

I'd throw Oliver forward for the rest of the season and probably Jones and/or Viney as well. 

Petracca to play out of the middle along with Brayshaw,  Gawn & one of  Harmes,  Jones or Viney. 

As for our current tall forwards, who knows?  Both T-Mac & Weideman are more suited as part-time 3rd forwards behind a decent 1 & 2.

But we haven't got a 1 or a 2. 

Tommy looked like he could be a 2 but he has lost form completely.  Neither he nor Weideman relish the front position and that in itself is a real issue. 

At 3 & 9 we've got nothing to lose with some well thought out experimentation.

8 hours ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

In another record figure, our opposition are tracking at a combined 61% accuracy which is two percent above the highest recorded amount of 59% (Brisbane in 2017) since 2000.

I checked this further. It is the conversion rate against a team since at least the 50s. And the 59% against Brisbane is quite high too, with 55-57% being more like standard over the last 5 years.

Mind boggling really because unlike our own conversion rate (which is the accuracy of just our players) conversion against is an average of all the clubs we play against and their should average out, unless we are doing something to influence it.

Both of these statistics are damning of the forward line, the forwards coaching and Goodwin.

We get plenty of it forward but we haven’t set up well enough, or don’t have smart enough players to make the most of it, and our forward line, which has been dominated by ‘defensive’ players with no idea how to play forward, allow the opposition to leave the forward line with ease and we get murdered in transition.

If McDonald is injured don’t play him, but if not, he has 10 weeks to work out with Weideman how to ‘compliment’ each other and for the smalls - let’s forget about picking defensive players - play the kids that can play forward and have high standards for defensive pressure. 

Other than that - get rid of the forwards coach. It’s 6v6 FCS, create a structure that leverages a midfield that is prolific bombers of the footy. 

14 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

Can't just blame the forwards.

Kick inside 50 retention rate is a useful stat for us I think. Basically sums up the quality of our kicks inside 50. We are the third worst team in the league, but what is really telling is with the AFL average for players being 46%, we currently have Brayshaw (33%), Oliver (30%) and Viney (a league-worst 24%) as our main ball winners kicking it to our forwards.

If Goodwin wants to find some solutions to our "connection" I would think he needs to start with our co-captain. Either he is not following instructions or is a horrible decision maker. Given how much Goodwin has talked about this problem, we can rule out that he's doing as told.

Dont touch Viney!!

2 minutes ago, Kent said:

Dont touch Viney!!

Love him. He has so many qualities we need, namely consistent effort and the investment in the club that sees him desperately want it to succeed, but you can't ignore that his delivery forward has hurt us this year, even more than previous years, after we've traded out so many of our effective forward users. I'm not sure if it's just a weakness in his game or is related to his foot problems, but either way we now have half a season of footy where results don't matter as much as improving problem areas so something needs to be done about it.

 

Fox Sports using a 3 word analysis in a mid-season review.

An absolute disaster.

3 sentences is all we got about what’s gone right, Hore and Lockhart have been good value pick-ups, we didn’t lose to Gold Coast and that’s about it.

The following on the bad is pretty much what most are saying.

The team has never looked right strategically, switching between slow play that can be picked apart and unnecessarily fast play-on footy that just results in mistakes and turnovers. They continue to create good inside 50 numbers, but can’t kick straight to save themselves.

The interrupted pre season has played a huge part in our decline also imo, I wonder how many of those with post season surgeries or injuries post Christmas weren’t actually ready for Round 1 but played anyway.

15 hours ago, roy11 said:

 

Last year we just bombed it into the F50 and had success. There isn't really a change to the game plan but we're sitting at 3-9.

How has it become so inefficient so quickly? 

 

Everyone else having six months to review how we did it.

43 minutes ago, Supermercado said:

Everyone else having six months to review how we did it.

I think that is a factor, especially given the premiers of the previous season are usually benchmarked on game style. West Coast play a low risk kick-mark game style in their defensive exits and teams have taken bits of this approach in dealing with high forward pressure teams. The best example was how Collingwood chip-kicked its way to huge uncontested marks against Richmond in Round 2, negating Richmond's pressure game.

But I also think that we have adjusted our defensive set up since Round 5, playing a less aggressive press and having more defensive coverage. This was a result of Geelong, Essendon and St Kilda just kicking repeat easy goals through uncontested possession chains which tore apart our defensive structure.

Now whether the failure in our defensive structure was a result of players not executing correctly or not being fit enough to execute (due to the poor pre-season) or opposition working us out - who knows - but what it means is we now appear to not be sending as many players in to aggressively defend our forward 50. The price to pay of defending deeper and being more sound behind the ball appears to be a reduction in forward pressure, meaning we are scoring less of those chaos goals from pressure and repeat entries compared to last year.

It will be interesting to see if further adjustments will be made now that our players are fitter and we have more of our better one-on-one defenders back in the team.

17 hours ago, DeezNuts said:

“spaceman” who still couldn’t kick, but at least he ran into space time and time again! The only time we looked dangerous up forward was when our forwards moved laterally into space for a largely uncontested mark.

That is what we have been emphasising all year, and last year (in itself, a fluke of a season), there is no usage of space on all grounds that we have played on from our forwards.

It is almost as if a 'clearance' was a backline 'trick' for their exclusive use - Hibberd and Frosty do well in this regard, as had Salem and of course, Jetta, when fit.

It can be reversed in operation for the forwards and it is easier, as well, because it would be movement to space without possession of the ball.

Rather, it is movement to space to receive - and usually without a defending opponent over the top to spoil such a 'receive'.

If this is not developed, it will continue to look as though our forwards will only attack the ball (when nearly always in congestion) when it is directly in front of goal and preferably, terribly close to those goals. Hence, we limit our scoring ability by rejecting 60 per cent of our forward entries. 

Time for some laterality, indeed. That is where the space is - and always will be - to get rid of an opponent, to take an unhindered receive, to provide the initial target for the midfielders and to kick goals, continuously.

It will take practice (what is wrong with training?), it will take some non-90 degree set shots at goal (that our current forwards do not like nor do they execute these well) and it will take the bloody midfielders in all their glory and kick/'distance achieved' glory to think, look, deliver to space just as those on the top of the current AFL ladder seem to do by preference.