Stacking the Defence

[Lefty 328]

Do you agree with Kingy that we were wrong in going spending all that coin and going hard after 2 defenders when we should have been concentrating on forwards?

 

[dazzledavey36 48,595]

Yes

[Demons1858 1,657]

We have given away to much in those trades re picks no doubt. Not so fussed about. the money side of it.  Everyone wants a quality forward but they aren't on the market often. Lynch was always going to richmond. Hogan had to go back after what he had been through. We had a crack at Elliot as did others but he is no silver bullet anyway

[Canplay 569]

Salary cap and first round picks belong for key fwds or gun midfielders -  never backs or undersized rucks!   I consider we’ve wasted another 4 first round picks in lever, may and Jackson -   Those picks should have seen us pushing for flag in a couple of years.

[titan_uranus 22,208]

No

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,381]

I'm of the view that we did the right thing, but that's because I have the same opinion of anything David King says as Mick Malthouse says. That is, I always disagree with them.

Also, we'd be in much worse shape if our defence hadn't done as well as it has in the last few games.

[Scoop Junior 2,963]

Not sure if King has done his full research on world sport.

Liverpool spent 140 million euros on Van Dijk (centre back) and Alisson (keeper) in the last two years and just won their first league title in 30 years.

[Travy14 1,486]

David King is a [censored],  doesnt do research and blurts his mouth without thinking.  2018 & 19 he tipped us for the flag, stating in the finals of 2018 "melb have no weakness".  He then goes on to say no where in the world do other sports target defenders, Soccer have always done it with keepers and defenders.

It hasn't worked thus far,  at the time those trades were fine,  we were going to lose Hogan and got something for him.

There is an effort issue atm,  it's like the players think all that fitness work in the pre-season is enough. They have done the hard work. Cue in the rack.

 

Time to drop the guys not working hard enough, even if it is an Oliver, Gawn (obviously he is fine) or Lever.  This season is a great opportunity now to refocus and build toward next yr. But its the last chance!!

[roy11 2,910]

Sometimes when you're doing a jigsaw you think a piece fits in but in the end it doesn't make the puzzle work.

The club adopted a short term view in the hope of winning a flag. It's looking like a miscalculation but time will ultimately tell. 

Forward 50 entries still need to be addressed  - we have players that are capable of scoring goals, just not a superstar.  The club has put faith in Wieds development but he needs more game-time. 

We've won 6 regular season games since the end of 2018, 4 of which by less than a goal. (We've also lost 3 games by less than a goal).

We need to improve.

Take me back to the glory days of 2018 when we beat Carlton by 109 points. 

[drdrake 3,035]

At the time No, we had Hogan and Tmac plus a developing Weiderman when we got Lever, we come off a successful season with Tmac and Weiderman standing up in finals, our biggest gap was key defenders.

Now we have no Key forwards that can impact a game.

[Lucifers Hero 36,972]

I understand why the club boost defence and not tall fwd stocks at end of 2018 .  They rolled the dice on Weideman and TMac but it did not work.  No crime for trying. 

But knowing it didn't work they had the chance to fix the 'tall forward' problem (Jackson won't be a fix for several years) at end of 2019 and did not. 

To compound that they did not get a fwd coach as part of the coaching restructure so forward line and it and midfield connection is an afterthought and piecemeal attachments to other coaching roles (Plapp, Stafford, Lewis).

Goodwin laments the problem of kicking a winnable score.  He had a golden opportunity at end of 2019 to boost personnel; players and coaches and did not. 

I'd be very surprised if any other club has none of the following coaches:  forward, ball movement, strategy.  Nor do we have any with that experience as players or coaches elsewhere.

imv that sits totally on Goodwin and Mahoney.  No point them lamenting that we can't score effectively.  Not sure why it is a surprise to them.  They set it up that way on and off the field.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Lucifer's Hero

[Lord Nev 13,511]

We were the highest scoring team in the league and absolutely leaking goals via poor one on one defending and back half turnovers at the time.

Usually love Kingy, but this is an absurd article.

 

[Binmans PA 25,866]

29 minutes ago, Scoop Junior said:

Not sure if King has done his full research on world sport.

Liverpool spent 140 million euros on Van Dijk (centre back) and Alisson (keeper) in the last two years and just won their first league title in 30 years.

Clearly doesn't watch other sports. It's a ridiculous comment and so much of his analysis is revisionist.

[whatwhat say what 18,743]

kingy is a good bloke and loves his afl, but his interest in international sports beyond his nfl fantasy side is minimal at best

as @Scoop Junior said, without spending the equivalent of the GDP of a small country on VVD and Alisson, Liverpool might not have just won their first premier league title

[In Harmes Way 7,477]

Absoultely Agree with the above. We could have had Ben King with Pick 6 - we already had Weideman with Pick 9. Even their graphics showed we absolutely needed to focus on defence based on 2018 stats - didn't rank in the Top 8 for defensive stats for a team that made a Prelim.

 

[BW511 2,225]

There was an article just last week about Roughead transforming the Saints forward line.

Fresh out of playing and under Clarko, everyone's messiah. He would not have been expensive and would have been perfect for Weid, Jackson, Brown, Fritsch etc.

As a club, we are reactionary

[roy11 2,910]

5 minutes ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

kingy is a good bloke and loves his afl, but his interest in international sports beyond his nfl fantasy side is minimal at best

as @Scoop Junior said, without spending the equivalent of the GDP of a small country on VVD and Alisson, Liverpool might not have just won their first premier league title

Yes and no to this, Liverpool signed 2 key players in Alisson and VVD to cover areas of concern that had let them down, namely GK and CB. 

These were missing pieces of the puzzle but the club had also invested in other areas on the pitch over the last few years. ie

Fowards: Mane, Salah, Firmino and Shaqiri for approximately £130 million combined.

Midfield:AOC, Wijnaldum, Keita and Fabinho for approximately £150 million combined.

 

We thought May was the missing piece, but now we have a missing piece up forward. 

[Lord Nev 13,511]

Also Kingy:

“For me, they win the flag this year. They’re not wanting for anything. They don’t lack anywhere,” King told SEN’s Whateley.

“If Steven May stands up down back, then they want for nothing.

“They’re clearly the toughest team in the competition, they’ve been rated the best list this year (by Champion Data), it’s been the perfect build the way they’ve put this list together."

"They want for nothing": Why the Dees are David King's flag tip

 

[Scoop Junior 2,963]

Anyone remember this from King in early 2019:

“The backline of Melbourne will be a talking point during the week,” King said on Fox Footy.

“Frost and McDonald — they just can’t get the job done. It’s almost premiership kryptonite with those two.

“You need someone who’s a bit more trustworthy and steady across that halfback line in particular.

“They don’t seem to take intercept marks, nor can they defend as you’d expect.”

[PaulRB 5,897]

We're the story this week... those stats that bundle this and last year are deceptive as we know last year we were damaged and under prepared, this year we are not, but it's still not working well for us.

Our issue is continuity of playing together, especially across the midfield to forward connection (actually across the whole ground). As a result of this disconnect, our skills look poor because we're not yet able to anticipate and kick where the other player will lead/move to... It will come if we persist and work on it. To claim we suddenly have a team that can't kick, etc is bogus and shallow analysis a symptom of our actual issue (the disconnects).

If one of the gurus in the media did their analysis and produced a comparison of games played together across the teams for us vs Tigers, Cats and Eagles I suspect they'd find we are significantly lower in games played together than those teams. But hey! its easier to say we cant kick (eyeroll emoji)...

Expect us to come out on the weekend and pump the Suns

 

Edited July 7, 2020 by PaulRB

[Scoop Junior 2,963]

19 minutes ago, roy11 said:

Yes and no to this, Liverpool signed 2 key players in Alisson and VVD to cover areas of concern that had let them down, namely GK and CB. 

These were missing pieces of the puzzle but the club had also invested in other areas on the pitch over the last few years. ie

Fowards: Mane, Salah, Firmino and Shaqiri for approximately £130 million combined.

Midfield:AOC, Wijnaldum, Keita and Fabinho for approximately £150 million combined.

Of course, but Liverpool spent double as much on VVD than they did on Salah who is their best attacking player.

Without VVD I don't think Liverpool win the league.

Now no one is saying a team should only spend money on its defence. But in relation to King's specific comment that "no other team in any other code does that" (in terms of spending large sums on defenders) is wrong.

Liverpool had a desperate need for a gun centre back and a GK and they spent a huge sum (both club record transfers) to get VVD and Alisson in.

[Accepting Mediocrity 1,418]

1 hour ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

But knowing it didn't work they had the chance to fix the 'tall forward' problem (Jackson won't be a fix for several years) at end of 2019 and did not. 

Which established, gun key forward were we supposed to recruit at the end of 2019? They don't exactly grow on trees. Drafting one was the best we could hope for.

 

1 hour ago, Scoop Junior said:

Not sure if King has done his full research on world sport.

He hasn't even researched AFL. Hawks spent big on Lake and Frawley during their flag run (albeit through free agency). Both played key roles in premiership teams (Lake won a Norm Smith, Frawley very nearly so). 

[La Dee-vina Comedia 16,381]

52 minutes ago, PaulRB said:

We're the story this week... those stats that bundle this and last year are deceptive as we know last year we were damaged and under prepared, this year we are not, but it's still not working well for us.

Our issue is continuity of playing together, especially across the midfield to forward connection (actually across the whole ground). As a result of this disconnect, our skills look poor because we're not yet able to anticipate and kick where the other player will lead/move to... It will come if we persist and work on it. To claim we suddenly have a team that can't kick, etc is bogus and shallow analysis a symptom of our actual issue (the disconnects).

If one of the gurus in the media did their analysis and produced a comparison of games played together across the teams for us vs Tigers, Cats and Eagles I suspect they'd find we are significantly lower in games played together than those teams. But hey! its easier to say we cant kick (eyeroll emoji)...

Expect us to come out on the weekend and pump the Suns

 

Sounds like some form of Japanese cuisine

[Wiseblood 24,636]

2 hours ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

I understand why the club didn't boosted defence and not tall fwd stocks at end of 2018 .  They rolled the dice on Weideman and TMac but it did not work.  No crime for trying. 

But knowing it didn't work they had the chance to fix the 'tall forward' problem (Jackson won't be a fix for several years) at end of 2019 and did not. 

Both of these are valid points, LH.  

At the end of 2018 we needed to bolster our defence, which we did.

At the end of 2019 we needed to bolster our tall forward stocks which... we didn't really do.  I mean, we added Jackson who is of course going to take time, and then we added Mitch Brown for depth.  It didn't really answer the problem, and we spent more time addressing another need in improving our two way run by adding Tomlinson and Langdon.

However, Goodwin has pretty much stuck with one key forward for the last few weeks - Brown had a go in Round 1 and was quiet, while Jackson was the same in Round 2 - but I think we're crying out for that extra tall.  Either Weideman improves, Brown shows that he's still got it or Jackson comes on in leaps and bounds, or we're going back to the drawing board at the end of the season.

[binman 37,716]

2 hours ago, Lord Nev said:

We were the highest scoring team in the league and absolutely leaking goals via poor one on one defending and back half turnovers at the time.

 

 

That's not quite true nev.

In 2018 we absolutely leaked goals up to about half way through the season. But in large part that was due to our ultra aggressive game plan that exposed us on the turnover and the fact that even then we had mids who didn't work hard enough defensively.

Goody addressed both of these issues and IIRC, from about round 12 till the end of the season we were the second hardest team to score against. And in the finals we kept the highest scoring team in the league (the cats) to 50 odd points and the hawks to not much more.