2 hours ago, Smokey said:

And I'm looking forward to reading you label legitimate contributing factors to our form slump as excuses regardless of their validity

Smokey...there are indeed  many valid reasons.  That is to say...what has happened had a real cause and a real outcome.  Much of this imho isn't  ror debate. Where many choose different  paths is cause of these reasons.  

For mine nearly every single facet is traceable to what the FD determined  was its way forward. There's  that 'design' conotation...again...in my view.

What's  happened has happened.  

We now need to devise a better plan, a better way of getting that plan to be effective. 

Its arguable  as to whether those in charge atm...are the best to do this.

28 minutes ago, Wiseblood said:

T Mac in horrible form (until the last few weeks), Weideman not taking the strides we anticipated, Vanders doesn't play, Hannan misses most of the season and Melksham has also spent plenty of time on the sidelines.  ANB, Spargo and Garlett have done Sweet FA and, really, only Trac and Hunt have seemed dangerous most weeks.  

Add in a midfield that hasn't functioned as well either, and a game plan that's all about the 'chaos' ball, and you add it together to get a very dysfunctional forward line.  Some is down to poor luck with injuries, some of it down to not adapting and a little bit of stubborness as well that took them half the year to acknowledge with the assistant coaching change.

Have been racking my brain all year pondering the 4th to 16th slide, and agree with most of this assessment.  I think the loss of confidence (in no small way due to the Prelim last year, then the unexpected round 1 defeat this year), has not been adequately acknowledged, nor addressed, by the club as a whole. 

Footy is a game of cohesion and momentum, and team success flows when the many moving pieces are in sync.

Despite all this, there have been unexpected positive signs, Fritsch is exciting and creative, Hore is committed and reliable, Frost is imposing and instinctive, and Lockhart is explosive and a finisher.  It doesn’t make up for the disappointment of the season as a whole, but it gives me faith that next year, with the likely return of Vanders, Melksham, McDonald (Tom), Lever (fit), Jetta (fit), and Hibberd (fit), the combination will be a strong, skilful core, capable of matching any team. 

2 hours ago, Wiseblood said:

took them half the year to acknowledge with the assistant coaching change.

Yes, because they should have known that the forward line was dysfunctional *before* the season even started.

Surely, if you're going to make those changes during the season, given the disruption they cause, mid-season (the bye) is the time to do it.

4 hours ago, tiers said:

I have written in another thread that there should be a team rule that anyone within 40m of goal and running free (or for Tracca and Clarrie 50m) must have a shot. No more dinky passes or stupid hand offs to players in worse positions with their backs to the goals. If a player must hand off (being tackled) then only to a team mate running free and facing to goals.

Better to shoot and miss than not to have a shot at all because of some stupid concern about being called greedy or goal hungry. These should be encouraged attributes.

Just shoot. When it becomes normalised we will win more games than we lose because we will be conditioned to scoring with every opportunity.

Simple change.

exactly. and add to that we simply p00p our pants when close to goal whether it be taking a mark, connecting a standard handball or having a shot. we simply make it harder than it should be like we are handling kryptonite.

5 hours ago, tiers said:

I have written in another thread that there should be a team rule that anyone within 40m of goal and running free (or for Tracca and Clarrie 50m) must have a shot. No more dinky passes or stupid hand offs to players in worse positions with their backs to the goals. If a player must hand off (being tackled) then only to a team mate running free and facing to goals.

Better to shoot and miss than not to have a shot at all because of some stupid concern about being called greedy or goal hungry. These should be encouraged attributes.

Just shoot. When it becomes normalised we will win more games than we lose because we will be conditioned to scoring with every opportunity.

Simple change.

Shoot and miss is far more costly under the new kick in rules  - an opposition behind now at least for well structured teams a springboard opportunity.  

I guess there are stats for coast to coast goals - I suspect that these will be higher this year  

This may account at least in part to the “scared to have a shot” thoughts shared by others   

 

13 hours ago, DSP said:

If I understood Gary on SEN correctly and according to the entire time Champion Data has been recording stats that is. Him and Roo went on to talk about the complete disconnect of our mids delivering and our forwards scoring.

Hannan, Mcdonald, Garlett, Spargo, ANB have apparently been the biggest drop offs. Melksham also mentioned, but he has been out for too long so isnt entirely fair.

If that isnt a wake up call, then I dont know what is. We cant put that on injuries, it has to come down to skill and form.

What the hell has happened?

 

 

 

 

On averages vs last year and vs his peers, Melk hasn't done too badly.  Only off approx 7% vs his 2018 averages.

13 hours ago, Deestar9 said:

Hannan spent half the season out...can’t believe that Garlett played worse than last year...Spargo hopefully second year blues...McDonald well documented & ANB a front runner...good when the team is good. No earth shattering news there. 

Lets face it guys.... with 16 players more than 10% down on their 2018 average output, including Garlett who is off approx 28%, it's no wonder we aren't connecting.    Only a handfull of players have improved on their 2018 averages statistically.

@Rusty Nails why do you think those players arent available  ??? ?

28 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

@Rusty Nails why do you think those players arent available  ??? ?

@ BZB pls clarify sir!??

8 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

@ BZB pls clarify sir!??

We haven't  the worst list

Why do you think many of our ,possibly best players , aren available  ?

To monoccular's comments.

To suggest that players are scared to shoot for goal for fear of opposition kick in strategy is to deny the fundamentals of footy - that is, to score at every opportunity. Letting fear make the decision is contrary to all that we love about our great game.

Is it any worse to squander the chance and concede an easy exit from our forward line and allow a  "slingshot" thrust to score easy goals against us?

Kick for goal because that is the basis of footy. Kick for goal and let the opposition worry about us scoring goals. Once we get our range we will be right. We get enough opportunities so only a small simple adjustment should bring benefits.

2020

Go dees.

 

Just now, beelzebub said:

We haven't  the worst list

Why do you think many of our ,possibly best players , aren available  ?

My best guess is you are referring to the injury conundrum BZ.

1 minute ago, Rusty Nails said:

My best guess is you are referring to the injury conundrum BZ.

Not as cryptic as some might suppose

 

As I said in another thread, have a look at who our forward line was on the weekend: Petty, Lockhart, Dunkley, Fritsch, Hunt, ANB, Petracca. Of those, only two would have been in our first choice forward line over the pre-season, and of those two one (ANB) has always had a problem of struggling when the rest of the side is down. Of the rest, two weren't even on the list for the pre-season, one has been mis-managed in terms of being asked to play too many positions in his first two seasons, and one was groomed as a defender.

In form and available forwards have been non-existent for us this year. That's a combination of injuries, but also shifting responsibility (e.g. TMac and Weideman) and increased expectation (e.g. Spargo and ANB).

But I've said a couple of times now that I don't think we're that far off turning it around, and this statistic (inside 50 retention/scoring) is the one thing that is holding us back more than anything else. We developed our list and gameplan around dominating in the middle and creating significant amount of ball in our forward half. That sort of gameplan just does not work unless we hold marks inside 50, and unleash pressure through our forward half. We've done neither of those this year. TMac and Weideman have struggled to hold marks and we haven't had a proper third tall (J Smith could have played that role, T Smith is just a VFL battler, vandenBerg hasn't played, Petracca is being asked to do too much and isn't always succeeding, Melksham is injured, Fritsch has been in the backline). And with stacks of ball hitting the ground, we haven't been able to lock it in. Spargo and ANB have gone backwards from last year (in Spargo's case significantly), Hunt is just OK but exhausts himself too often,  Hannan's struggled when fit, again no vandenBerg hurts, and our midfielders aren't two-way running and putting in enough defensive effort.

Without marking and forward pressure, the ball rebounds out of our forward half with ease and our backline gets put under inordinate pressure. Then strip that backline of May, Lever and Jetta, take Hibberd and Salem out for periods, put an out-of-form OMac in there and a first year player in Hore, and here we are at 5-11.

My view remains that if we improve our forward pressure and hold some more marks inside 50, our overall performance will lift significantly.

Michael  rowed  the boat ashore...

10 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

As I said in another thread, have a look at who our forward line was on the weekend: Petty, Lockhart, Dunkley, Fritsch, Hunt, ANB, Petracca. Of those, only two would have been in our first choice forward line over the pre-season, and of those two one (ANB) has always had a problem of struggling when the rest of the side is down. Of the rest, two weren't even on the list for the pre-season, one has been mis-managed in terms of being asked to play too many positions in his first two seasons, and one was groomed as a defender.

In form and available forwards have been non-existent for us this year. That's a combination of injuries, but also shifting responsibility (e.g. TMac and Weideman) and increased expectation (e.g. Spargo and ANB).

But I've said a couple of times now that I don't think we're that far off turning it around, and this statistic (inside 50 retention/scoring) is the one thing that is holding us back more than anything else. We developed our list and gameplan around dominating in the middle and creating significant amount of ball in our forward half. That sort of gameplan just does not work unless we hold marks inside 50, and unleash pressure through our forward half. We've done neither of those this year. TMac and Weideman have struggled to hold marks and we haven't had a proper third tall (J Smith could have played that role, T Smith is just a VFL battler, vandenBerg hasn't played, Petracca is being asked to do too much and isn't always succeeding, Melksham is injured, Fritsch has been in the backline). And with stacks of ball hitting the ground, we haven't been able to lock it in. Spargo and ANB have gone backwards from last year (in Spargo's case significantly), Hunt is just OK but exhausts himself too often,  Hannan's struggled when fit, again no vandenBerg hurts, and our midfielders aren't two-way running and putting in enough defensive effort.

Without marking and forward pressure, the ball rebounds out of our forward half with ease and our backline gets put under inordinate pressure. Then strip that backline of May, Lever and Jetta, take Hibberd and Salem out for periods, put an out-of-form OMac in there and a first year player in Hore, and here we are at 5-11.

My view remains that if we improve our forward pressure and hold some more marks inside 50, our overall performance will lift significantly.

Will need a major re-vamp clean out / injection (whatever you wish to call it) of our forward list if that is to improve significantly from here and enough to see us become a serious 'regular' finals contender IMO TU.

10 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Not as cryptic as some might suppose

 

You appear to be on a Misson BZ

17 hours ago, beelzebub said:

Smokey...there are indeed  many valid reasons.  That is to say...what has happened had a real cause and a real outcome.  Much of this imho isn't  ror debate. Where many choose different  paths is cause of these reasons.  

For mine nearly every single facet is traceable to what the FD determined  was its way forward. There's  that 'design' conotation...again...in my view.

What's  happened has happened.  

We now need to devise a better plan, a better way of getting that plan to be effective. 

Its arguable  as to whether those in charge atm...are the best to do this.

Well said BB, agree with all 

It would help if we could keep the ball down there for more than five seconds at a time. When it goes in-out-in-out-in-out within a minute no wonder the I50 count is so high.

My easier said than done masterplan is:

1) More poise in kicking to targets - at least go to a contest instead of doing a Brayshaw and just blindly roosting it towards 50 and hoping for the best

2) Tall forwards to make contests even if not in a position to mark, try to bring the back to ground

3) forward pressure when it does hit the deck.

Which is all pretty standard stuff (I'd have thought), just need the players to implement.

4 minutes ago, Supermercado said:

It would help if we could keep the ball down there for more than five seconds at a time. When it goes in-out-in-out-in-out within a minute no wonder the I50 count is so high.

My easier said than done masterplan is:

1) More poise in kicking to targets - at least go to a contest instead of doing a Brayshaw and just blindly roosting it towards 50 and hoping for the best

2) Tall forwards to make contests even if not in a position to mark, try to bring the back to ground

3) forward pressure when it does hit the deck.

Which is all pretty standard stuff (I'd have thought), just need the players to implement.

I feel like we lose at least 80% of ground ball contests in our forward line.

It's bonkers that we simply do not know how to crumb the ball down there.

Of course as Super Mercado says it's not that we just don't score it is that we let the ball out so easily. Every club knows how to beat the Goodwin game plan. Some are better at executing than others but just stack the backline and then the quick release in a manner that breaks the zone.

Take  a step back and think why we play well against Hawthorn.  They don't play quick release and our mids etc have time to get back. When they did play quick release in the H&A match in 2018 they slaughtered us.

Hell .. how many times have the saints beat us and they just sacked their coach.

It's really starting to become a bit of a joke issue.

1 hour ago, Clint Bizkit said:

I feel like we lose at least 80% of ground ball contests in our forward line.

It's bonkers that we simply do not know how to crumb the ball down there.

At least if we don't win the contest halve it and create a stoppage (while the rules still let you).

So 2 years ago we were 18th for defending one on ones in our defensive 50. We were 17th for allowing shots on goal once teams entered our defensive 50. We recruited lever and May to bolster our defence.

Maybe this horrid stat  means we will be recruiting new forwards?

2 hours ago, Clint Bizkit said:

I feel like we lose at least 80% of ground ball contests in our forward line.

It's bonkers that we simply do not know how to crumb the ball down there.

I didn't watch the WCE v Coll game last week but it was said that the Pies kicked the ball to the pockets and then tried to create a stoppage rather than bomb the ball to their tall fwd at the top of the goal square.

If true I hope Goody was watching.

On 7/17/2019 at 3:55 PM, Smokey said:

And I'm looking forward to reading you label legitimate contributing factors to our form slump as excuses regardless of their validity

Some legitimate contributing excuses for sure.

How about some of the deep-seated issues that seem to fall into the abyss whilst the 'excuses' are so often brought up?

The excuses only further highlight the real problems that exist and that haven't been addressed. Still.

Edited July 18, 20195 yr by stevethemanjordan

17 hours ago, jnrmac said:

I didn't watch the WCE v Coll game last week but it was said that the Pies kicked the ball to the pockets and then tried to create a stoppage rather than bomb the ball to their tall fwd at the top of the goal square.

If true I hope Goody was watching.

That sounds awful.