From Goody's presser last night.

"When we went into the summer we wanted to establish a game style that was recognisable to our supporters. When they come every week they can see a style that they can see consistently and something that will stand up over the duration of the season. I think the teams been able to do that over the summer. We've been able to establish some behaviours in a lot of phases and they should be really excited heading into the season and get a long to see the Dees."  

What do people think the game style is?

As usual Goody makes a statement in riddles and so rarely actually tells you what he's talking about. Why can't he give us the game style in his words instead of making us guess. The Club really need to give him some media training. He should have a coffee with Daners and find out about his transition from never saying anything to realising as Coach he had to be the spokesperson for the Club and transform into the Reverend. He talks about it in his book. 

Goody mentioned early in the presser we're establishing how we want to play. Defensively really hard to play against and starting to get some reward for it. That's one aspect but surely that's not the definition of the game style. 

In 2018 his mantra was contested football. And we saw them playing on at all costs which sometimes was very exciting, sometimes creating very costly turnovers.

In 2020 what I've seen is no longer the play on at all costs but being prepared to hold the play up to find a more certain option down the field which seems to be leading to more uncontested possessions. This seems also to be more switching the ball sideways to get into space rather than playing on straight down the ground. It looks like Tomlinson and Langdon are aiding this by using their running power to create targets in that space. I'm loving this aspect of what they are doing. What I'm not loving at all like others have mentioned is they're still bombing the ball i50 way too  much and it rarely works. I'd much rather see them hold onto it and ping it sideways outside 50 till an option comes up. I saw them practicing this at the one training session I went to but I haven't seen it in games yet. I'm preying I do because as far as I'm concerned it's the missing piece to the game style to take us towards being a contender. 

 

 

 

We have moved toward the Eagles and Hawks 'control' game style.  My post from the Post Game thread:

A clear change in our game style was to switch and chip the ball around our back half (Richardson influence?) - very much the Hawks and Eagles 'control' game plan of recent years.    Will be interesting to see if we have enough skill to carry it off when opps develop counter tactics. 

Hawks seemed awake to it quite early and let us chip the ball around while they flooded our fwd half making it hard to get thru traffic.  We inevitably had to bomb it long over the pack to outnumbered forwards.  Inevitably they marked and the ball came out again.

In the 3rd quarter we started to find ways to get thru the forward half congestion and it was good to see we reacted to what wasn't working in-game.  As a result we kicked 7.3 in the second half vs 5.6 in the first half.  Someone on the field or the coaches box responded well and the players implemented the changes well.

While we played attacking, aggressive football there was less of the manic 'chaos ball' game style which imv was good as it tires players, and draws too many around the ball with no one to receive.  Saw Langdon hovering outside a pack a few times which was great to see.

I like these game plan changes.  Some work to do on moving the ball more efficiently between the 50m arcs so we don't need to bomb it in and some work to do to make sure the opp don't force our 'switch and chip' in defence to become like the kicking in circles of 5 years ago.

As an aside, Hawks have changed their game plan from slow chip and control out of defence to moving the ball out quickly thru the corridor. 

Watching how game plans change across the league and how opps react will be an interesting side show this year.

 

Re your quotes from Goodwin's presser.  He has been the same thing about 'a recongnisable brand that supporters can be excited about' since he took over as senior coach.  He needs a new script.

WS interesting to see us sort of swapping game plans with Hawks. Who’s going to get that right. Goodwin or Clarkson?

Forward pressure up. Midfield presence through out the ground helps And that is desire and fitness. Every team wants to control the ball, so I think that is a bit overblown. We don’t seem to be as manic with the handball like we were a couple of years ago but when there is a space we are off - that’s just maturity to me tho...

As an aside, don’t like Fritsch as FF - he lapses into thinking he is 6’5 bodying out and doesn’t work the space well (from what I have seen). Excellent forward but I would have a deep talk most times to manipulate the space for Fritsch and Melksham.

Other than that - I’m a bit ‘Allen Iverson’ about these games but glad we are winning.

One thing i have noticed is we dont overcrowd the ball anymore and it has opened things up big time, we have guys on the outside now.

1 hour ago, rpfc said:

Forward pressure up. Midfield presence through out the ground helps And that is desire and fitness. Every team wants to control the ball, so I think that is a bit overblown. We don’t seem to be as manic with the handball like we were a couple of years ago but when there is a space we are off - that’s just maturity to me tho...

As an aside, don’t like Fritsch as FF - he lapses into thinking he is 6’5 bodying out and doesn’t work the space well (from what I have seen). Excellent forward but I would have a deep talk most times to manipulate the space for Fritsch and Melksham.

Other than that - I’m a bit ‘Allen Iverson’ about these games but glad we are winning.

Your last line is correct rpfc however winning is way better than losing no matter where or when.

17 minutes ago, old dee said:

Your last line is correct rpfc however winning is way better than losing no matter where or when.

You talking about practice?!

 

I agree old friend. I agree.

We are v-switching thru the likes of May with his 50m low darts.  Compare this to Anzac eve 2017 or 18 (forget which one was virtually nil, but one was) we couldn’t or weren’t capable of switching.

 

We are picking and choosing when to go helter skelter.  Playing precise slower footy is OK if the guy with ball in hand executes well and often.  Let’s see it under pressure.

 

Dumb basics though still obvious.  Travel and Weed leading to same space when Fritsch almost u-turned and goaled.  And as Garry Walls said a few times when kick-it-to-me Melksham and other forwards lead in the same direction toward goal rather than one providing a hit-up.

 

 

 

 

I’d like winning “ to become recognisable to supporters” !

Def not all attacking the ball together then being fo4ced to only give 1 meter handballs. Switching play due to actually having people on the wings and also we are not pressing anywhere near as high up the ground. 
Still bombing the ball long to outnumbered contests in our F50 though.

If I knew how to use the search function properly i’d quote myself over and over from last season saying we never used to switch.

Kick out from full back to a side, then take it up that same wing, then kick to that same forward flank. The only reason we won inside 50’s was because every time the ball was in dispute we had hard competitive mids who just got it forward.

Now we have two proper wingman so we can switch any time knowing we are safe out wide on the other side. Chaos football only works if you are unpredictable. We’re now.

 

31 minutes ago, Wrecker45 said:

Now we have two proper wingman so we can switch any time knowing we are safe out wide on the other side. Chaos football only works if you are unpredictable. We’re now.

 

I didn’t expect Langdon’s and Tomlinson’s recruiting to result in a whole different game plan but it’s looking like that. 
The ratio of uncontested possessions has gone up significantly too which I guess reflects getting the ball out into the open more with the switching. Also a much more sustainable game plan injury wise. 

15 hours ago, It's Time said:

WS interesting to see us sort of swapping game plans with Hawks. Who’s going to get that right. Goodwin or Clarkson?

Goodwin will, simply because Clarkson list is very poor, it's full of old men, who's going to kick the goals, it's only a matter of time until Patton bear gets injured, he is such a one sided forward, once it hits the ground he is like Taylor Harris useless.

I don't see why Goodwin should spell out the style or the team rules for anyone outside the sanctum. Let the other mobs work it out for themselves. That's what they're supposed to do. Clarkson never talked about his 'web' before, during or after its operation that I know of.

17 hours ago, rpfc said:

Forward pressure up. Midfield presence through out the ground helps And that is desire and fitness. Every team wants to control the ball, so I think that is a bit overblown. We don’t seem to be as manic with the handball like we were a couple of years ago but when there is a space we are off - that’s just maturity to me tho...

As an aside, don’t like Fritsch as FF - he lapses into thinking he is 6’5 bodying out and doesn’t work the space well (from what I have seen). Excellent forward but I would have a deep talk most times to manipulate the space for Fritsch and Melksham.

Other than that - I’m a bit ‘Allen Iverson’ about these games but glad we are winning.

I'm a bit confused, are you saying you're "The Answer", "pay em out early" or what?

2 hours ago, pitmaster said:

I don't see why Goodwin should spell out the style or the team rules for anyone outside the sanctum. Let the other mobs work it out for themselves. That's what they're supposed to do. Clarkson never talked about his 'web' before, during or after its operation that I know of.

Mate if he's saying he wants the supporters to be able to recognise it there's no big secret . Why say it then. No harm in letting us know what the benchmark is we should be looking for. 

19 hours ago, It's Time said:

From Goody's presser last night.

"When we went into the summer we wanted to establish a game style that was recognisable to our supporters. 

 

 

 

Personally, I couldn't care less about me, or other Dees fans, recognising our game style. 

I care about wins.

Some wins may come from a different gamestyle, that is needed on that day. For example a wet day, a windy day, a team playing a very tall side or a small side, or whatever.

Who cares if it is recognisable?

19 minutes ago, Redleg said:

Personally, I couldn't care less about me, or other Dees fans, recognising our game style. 

I care about wins.

Some wins may come from a different gamestyle, that is needed on that day. For example a wet day, a windy day, a team playing a very tall side or a small side, or whatever.

Who cares if it is recognisable?

Would help if the players recognised it. 

32 minutes ago, It's Time said:

Would help if the players recognised it. 

It might.

TBH "game style" is one of the most over hyped terms in AFL footy.

I would defy anyone, to accurately describe to me, the particular gamestyle, of each of the 18 AFL clubs.

Edited March 8, 20205 yr by Redleg

Don't agree with the OP.

I don't need the coach to sit in a presser and explain what we're trying to do, down to a tee or at all.

All Goodwin's saying is that we want to have an identifiable brand of football that we, as supporters, will appreciate us applying in all 22 games this year.

From what I've seen so far, we're focusing on slower ball movement and picking the right time to play on and move quickly. We also seem to have a more defined back-half structure (the fact we have our first choice players back there might be as big a difference as anything though) and it looks like we're trying to keep forwards in the forward half to ensure someone is leading up at the ball carrier (but from what I've read from those who have seen more than me, this isn't working well enough). I'm a fan of these changes and, when coupled with the addition of Tomlinson/Langdon on the wings and better fitness across the board, we're able to run harder to push back into defence when we inevitably turn it over from what remain sub-par foot skills.

47 minutes ago, Redleg said:

It might.

TBH "game style" is one of the most over hyped terms in AFL footy.

I would defy anyone, to accurately describe to me, the particular gamestyle, of each of the 18 AFL clubs.

Tend to agree.

Neeld had us playing an easily recognisable game style too.

Winning will do.  As others have said. Let the opposition try and work out what to call it.

2 hours ago, dworship said:

I'm a bit confused, are you saying you're "The Answer", "pay em out early" or what?

We talkin about practice. Practice.

Let’s see if the gp is recognisable under match pressure for 4 points before we get too excited. 
 

Don’t get me wrong I’m glad we won preseason games however we will really know how well or bad this season will be once we are under the pressure of a game played for 4 points. 

3 hours ago, Redleg said:

It might.

TBH "game style" is one of the most over hyped terms in AFL footy.

I would defy anyone, to accurately describe to me, the particular gamestyle, of each of the 18 AFL clubs.

Couldn't disagree more. Game Style is Game Plan. It's the foundation of how a team plays and other teams are all over analysing it every week. It's not rocket science but as Goodwin has made a specific comment about it then I don't understand why he didn't define it. He did in 2018 and called it contested football.  As for not being able to recognise game style.  Off hand Hawthorn were recognised for a game plan/game style which was keeping possession of the ball and accurately kicking to close targets which meant they kept possession as they slowly moved to attack. Tigers started their attack by focusing on forward pressure and creating scores from the forward 50. GWS's was scoring predominantly from rebound using their foot skills to kick long to running players and quickly moving the ball into attack. Ours in 2018 was attacking the contest, winning the ball and kicking long i50 to contests creating chaos balls to score from. etc etc.  

2 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

Don't agree with the OP.

I don't need the coach to sit in a presser and explain what we're trying to do, down to a tee or at all.

All Goodwin's saying is that we want to have an identifiable brand of football that we, as supporters, will appreciate us applying in all 22 games this year.

From what I've seen so far, we're focusing on slower ball movement and picking the right time to play on and move quickly. We also seem to have a more defined back-half structure (the fact we have our first choice players back there might be as big a difference as anything though) and it looks like we're trying to keep forwards in the forward half to ensure someone is leading up at the ball carrier (but from what I've read from those who have seen more than me, this isn't working well enough). I'm a fan of these changes and, when coupled with the addition of Tomlinson/Langdon on the wings and better fitness across the board, we're able to run harder to push back into defence when we inevitably turn it over from what remain sub-par foot skills.

Each to his own. He's put it out there so explain it. Pretty simple to say focus on winning in defence and launching attacks from there into the open. Or more focus on controlled accurate ball movement. Or whatever. Not that hard but it gives a bit of a bench mark without giving anything away. 

Edited March 8, 20205 yr by It's Time

1 hour ago, It's Time said:

Couldn't disagree more. Game Style is Game Plan. It's the foundation of how a team plays and other teams are all over analysing it every week. It's not rocket science but as Goodwin has made a specific comment about it then I don't understand why he didn't define it. He did in 2018 and called it contested football.  As for not being able to recognise game style.  Off hand Hawthorn were recognised for a game plan/game style which was keeping possession of the ball and accurately kicking to close targets which meant they kept possession as they slowly moved to attack. Tigers started their attack by focusing on forward pressure and creating scores from the forward 50. GWS's was scoring predominantly from rebound using their foot skills to kick long to running players and quickly moving the ball into attack. Ours in 2018 was attacking the contest, winning the ball and kicking long i50 to contests creating chaos balls to score from. etc etc.  

Each to his own. He's put it out there so explain it. Pretty simple to say focus on winning in defence and launching attacks to their into the open. Or more focus on controlled accurate ball movement. Or whatever. Not that hard but it gives a bit of a bench mark without giving anything away. 

Let’s just get the ball into the Forward Line with some precision and accurately kick goals. 
And be fit and strong enough to keep doing it late in the game. 
 

Each team we play will need a different style to counter them, many teams will need adjustments during the game. 
That is the area Goodwin needs to improve. 
being Proactive on Match day