Game plans, tactics and all that jazz

[Adam The God 30,286]

2 hours ago, deanox said:

I'll go back and have a look at that goal and provide my thoughts, but I'm those breaks it's often that the other defenders or mids don't overlap back into their defensive positions fast enough.

The one on one defenders who are competing do have a subtle job though: slow down the play, without giving away the 50. I've noticed Lockhart do this well a couple of times, bringing down his opponent in the contest so that seconds are lost as they regain their feet. 

 

I've always thought Oscar's strength has been his decision making on whether to hold position or pressure the player/contest. He rarely leaves his position or man and doesn't at least impact the contest (ie doesn't get stuck in between). He may not win that contest he gets too, but the goal is to slow it down so that help can arrive.

When assessing his performance, he isn't great one on one or on a lead. But not many are. And we don't want him to be defending one on one or on a lead. If he is, we've already broken down somewhere else,  so we need to pick him on the requirements of his role, not on Steven May's.

I'd agree that he's not meant to be Steven May, but I would like my last defender to be adequate in a 1v1. I'm still yet to be convinced on Oscar in that respect. He's certainly not quick enough on a lead. He seems a bit stronger in the contest this season, but I think that's off a low base.

I like Tomlinson as the third back. I think he's an equally reliable kick, but I'd prefer we played him up the ground, so the rest of the year will be about who can cement that deepest tall defender role. Otherwise, we may look to the trade market.

Anyway, maybe this particular point is a bit of a digression. 

Edited September 2, 2020 by A F

[deanox 9,944]

3 hours ago, A F said:

I'd agree that he's not meant to be Steven May, but I would like my last defender to be adequate in a 1v1. I'm still yet to be convinced on Oscar in that respect. He's certainly not quick enough on a lead. He seems a bit stronger in the contest this season, but I think that's off a low base.

I like Tomlinson as the third back. I think he's an equally reliable kick, but I'd prefer we played him up the ground, so the rest of the year will be about who can cement that deepest tall defender role. Otherwise, we may look to the trade market.

Anyway, maybe this particular point is a bit of a digression. 

I think it's relevant, if just so I can highlight that in this thread (and all threads really), I try to be agnostic on players. I tried to word that deliberately so that I wasn't actually making a judgement on OMac, but in what we expect of someome in his role ie how to judge him. I think we've all done that in this thread, which is good. 

On Tomlinson: his versatility is great. I think when we are back on the G his running and ability to protect space see him back in the wing again, given we struggled with the width in 2018 and 2019.

 

@Engorged Onionregrading enjoying this thread, it would be great if we could have a board dedicated to analysis like this, with threads about specific aspects of the analysis, dissecting individual plays out highlighting similarities between situations. I guess it would need to be heavily moderated ro keep it on track.

Edited September 2, 2020 by deanox

[Adam The God 30,286]

47 minutes ago, deanox said:

I think it's relevant, if just so I can highlight that in this thread (and all threads really), I try to be agnostic on players. I tried to word that deliberately so that I wasn't actually making a judgement on OMac, but in what we expect of someome in his role ie how to judge him. I think we've all done that in this thread, which is good. 

On Tomlinson: his versatility is great. I think when we are back on the G his running and ability to protect space see him back in the wing again, given we struggled with the width in 2018 and 2019.

 

@Engorged Onionregrading enjoying this thread, it would be great if we could have a board dedicated to analysis like this, with threads about specific aspects of the analysis, dissecting individual plays out highlighting similarities between situations. I guess it would need to be heavily moderated ro keep it on track.

I realise I do have biases towards and against certain players, but I've found the more I've engaged in this thread, the more I've been calmer on game day (comparatively) and the more time I have for multiple players that I didn't in the past.

For example, Nathan Jones can play in this system and his experienced body and tank is actually important. His lack of pace does not actually stand against him if we can the play the game on our terms.

I actually think he's worked well in this new system. 

As for Oscar, I feel I've been pretty patient with him over the year, but I felt last year was a bit of a straw breaking the camel's back situation when he was still being outmuscled. That said, this year he's proved he can be stronger in the contest, but he still has some limitations and I'd prefer him to be stronger. 

AVB is another one I've grown on this year simply because I saw the hardness and tempo he brought to the team. (Yes, I know he's been dropped haha).

I agree RE: Tomlinson, he's not the strongest overhead mark or even that strong in the contest, but he's a solid meat and potatoes player that is highly flexible and I think will be the perfect addition going forward to plug holes where needed. Also, looking forward to he and Langdon powering down the MCG wings.

[low flying Robbo 979]

Loving this thread guys. Well done for engaging in this thorough review of the game plan. Having never really played the game passed Under 12s I haven't ever looked into it that deeply.

One thing I just completely don't understand is what happened in the doggies game. We managed to shut down the Saints from their backline so well on the weekend, but against the Dogs they had half the ground free to waltz it down. It was like they had spare players on the field. What was going on? 

[binman 43,138]

6 minutes ago, low flying Robbo said:

Loving this thread guys. Well done for engaging in this thorough review of the game plan. Having never really played the game passed Under 12s I haven't ever looked into it that deeply.

One thing I just completely don't understand is what happened in the doggies game. We managed to shut down the Saints from their backline so well on the weekend, but against the Dogs they had half the ground free to waltz it down. It was like they had spare players on the field. What was going on? 

Simple i reckon. They didn't work hard enough to spread, cover and set their zone. This was particular the case in the third

Goody said as much after the game. And players were dropped as result.

Our game plan will always be exposed if that work rate is not there.

A team like the dogs is super well placed to take advantage of the work rate even being off a few percent (perhaps such a minimal drop off that individual players don't realise they are not working hard enough) because they have the kicking skills and leg speed to take full advantage of any gas or holes in the zone.

It is worth noting they torched the cats the next week in the first quarter, jumping to a 6 goal lead, because the cast were not working hard enough. Like us the Cats fixed that work rate problem. The difference was the Cats had 3 quarters to reel the deficit in. We worked harder in the last quarter than we had in the first three quarters but simply didn't have enough time (or composure) to peg them back.

The tigers have a similar but not identical game plan. The key similarity is that they too rely on all team effort and work rate.

The difference between us though is they have more skill across the team, more experienced players and have been developing their system over a much longer period so no it inside out.

This means if their work rate is little off, like it has been tonight against Freo they are not as vulnerable to us and will win more games where they are not plating at their peak.

As goody has said a number of times our game plan is built for finals, when every player is usually totally switched on and ready to work. Maintaining that work rate week in, week out during the home and away rounds is no doubt a challenge, particularly for a young team    

[3183 Dee 2,853]

2 hours ago, A F said:

but I've found the more I've engaged in this thread, the more I've been calmer on game day (comparatively)

I’m the same - it’s been great to read and discuss game plans and strategy: I think it also helps that we have identified 2 clear patterns of play, so I find it quite exciting to look out for those.
 

Of course, it’s impossible not to get emotionally involved, but I’ve found that my frustrations are not as intense: even against the Doggies, I was tempered somewhat by trying to read the play. Much better than the Port game, where I switched off at 3QT, took the MFC app off my phone and swore that was it, for ever!

[binman 43,138]

Another excellent analysis article on abc by Cody Atkinson and Sean Lawson

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-03/what-makes-afl-fremantle-dockers-captain-nat-fyfe-so-good/12620266?utm_source=abc_news&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=abc_news

Love their data tables (which I'm pretty sure they have developed) and use of giphs to explain things. I'm going to have to learn how to do that as nothing beats a combination of visuals and text to make a point about some aspects of the game.

[Canary M Burns 50]

I'm with you Binman, those graphs have been very informative and the articles really well done. I think they are being generated with R or R studio which are free open source stats programs. The benefit being they are able to pull data from the web, and the process is recorded in code so users are able to copy and build on the work of others. The downside is the steep learning curve involved.

There are a few AFL related links around to get started and a ton of more general intro material on the web. Its actually something that I'm needing to learn elsewhere, so its probably a useful skill to develop. It's big in the scientific community as it allows others to understand and interrogate your process as well as your results. Hopefully in the future I might have time to apply it to a bit of AFL data.  

https://analysisofafl.netlify.app/fitzroy/2018-05-04-make-your-own-afl-graphs/

https://www.crowdatascience.com/2020/07/16/introduction-afl-analytics-data-r/

[DeeZee 7,425]

We had problems with our forward connection which we tweaked and worked on until it’s now at an acceptable level.

Our team defense was in question after the Bulldogs game, but to their credit the coaches worked on a plan for the saints which should hold us in good stead for any future games.

The weird thing is we are losing the clearances over the past three weeks and if we can get our strength back in that area we should have most bases covered.
I suspect the centre clearances are due to Maxy not  being 100% because of injuries, but hopefully he can recover to be somewhere near his best.

Edited September 3, 2020 by DeeZee

[binman 43,138]

20 hours ago, deanox said:

 

On Tomlinson: his versatility is great. I think when we are back on the G his running and ability to protect space see him back in the wing again, given we struggled with the width in 2018 and 2019.

 

Been meaning to say Deanox have been using the player tracker on the AFL site when watching games.

Terrific for seeing the set up and positioning .

Striking to see how many players are in  one relatively small area - or when the ball is one end of the ground there almost never a single player past halfway at the opposite end

Edited September 3, 2020 by binman

[Adam The God 30,286]

I'm not interested in turning this very thoughtful thread into a Goodwin bashing zone, but I couldn't see any system tonight.

I was worried when the wind was up and about today, and then it started pouring early. 

The lack of work rate for most of the match made it difficult to judge, but I legitimately could not work out what we were trying to do.

Ben Gibson talked about using the far side of the ground to transition the ball and ensuring we were careful with our ball movement down the opposite side of the ground. I saw nothing of that.

Outside of that Collingwood win in the rain earlier in the year, I cannot actually remember the last game we won in the wet. Our game style breaks down terribly when we play in the wet, because it relies on handball from clearance or the back half. We need to be able to identify the conditions or the likely conditions the game will be played in and have solutions and a clear plan for the game. 

I'm not saying for a second that we sat around in Cairns for 3 days doing nothing, but Fremantle owned the far side and the corridor, were cleaner in possession, had better ball use and kicked to the right spots inside 50.

Our midfield mix is not getting the job done either and our forwardline has really struggled when Weideman has struggled. It seems like the players are more haphazard with their delivery to him, the less contests he gets to or halves. 

It's going to be a long off season.

[titan_uranus 25,020]

When in attack we kept kicking the ball wide and into the pockets. 

When trying to bring the ball out of defence we kept kicking wide and to small players.

We didn't appear to do what Gibson said we were going to do pre-game. We didn't appear to do what Goodwin said we were going to do at HT (be brave).

I thought the St Kilda win could be a defining moment for us. For the first time in a long time, Goodwin had out-coached his opposition. He came up with a plan, we stuck to it, and it worked. It is so incredibly difficult to understand how, over the next two games, we've looked so absolutely devoid of a plan and of confidence.

[Half forward flank 1,022]

If I hear people like AF talking about the full press and all that goes with it again I will spew. Tonight, all the commentators had it right, less handball, kick down the line, pressure and goal.  

[binman 43,138]

Just heard Longmuire interviewed on on the couch.

Couldn't believe it. 

He said, paraphrasing, they wanted to be more aggressive, switch wide and to tbe corridor. Back themselves to take risky kicks on. 

All straightforward stuff. What I couldn't believe is that he said he thought the dees 'would give them' that opportunity.

That to me sounds like a first year coach going to school on Goodwin tactically.

[Adam The God 30,286]

26 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

When in attack we kept kicking the ball wide and into the pockets. 

When trying to bring the ball out of defence we kept kicking wide and to small players.

We didn't appear to do what Gibson said we were going to do pre-game. We didn't appear to do what Goodwin said we were going to do at HT (be brave).

I thought the St Kilda win could be a defining moment for us. For the first time in a long time, Goodwin had out-coached his opposition. He came up with a plan, we stuck to it, and it worked. It is so incredibly difficult to understand how, over the next two games, we've looked so absolutely devoid of a plan and of confidence.

It's bizarre, isn't it? I can only assume the club thought it had done enough to play finals and rested on its laurels a bit.

The "kicking wide and to small players" tells me there was no system. It's a ridiculous plan to kick to smalls. We even kicked to Viney on a lead a number of times early. The guy is a garden gnome in the stature stakes. 

Even that Rivers kick out into the middle of the ground. It didn't seem planned. It seemed desperate. We didn't get numbers around the contest and Fremantle, like most of the night, mopped up the ground ball off the contest. 

I too figured the St Kilda win would be a defining moment for us. It appears I was very wrong.

As for you @Half forward flank, you've no idea if you think there was system to that game tonight. 

[Half forward flank 1,022]

9 minutes ago, A F said:

It's bizarre, isn't it? I can only assume the club thought it had done enough to play finals and rested on its laurels a bit.

The "kicking wide and to small players" tells me there was no system. It's a ridiculous plan to kick to smalls. We even kicked to Viney on a lead a number of times early. The guy is a garden gnome in the stature stakes. 

Even that Rivers kick out into the middle of the ground. It didn't seem planned. It seemed desperate. We didn't get numbers around the contest and Fremantle, like most of the night, mopped up the ground ball off the contest. 

I too figured the St Kilda win would be a defining moment for us. It appears I was very wrong.

As for you @Half forward flank, you've no idea if you think there was system to that game tonight. 

It is clear the players are systemed out and totally lost, unable to even play the way that came natural to them in Under 15s. Someone and some plan is to blame.

[Grr-owl 1,222]

5 hours ago, A F said:

I'm not interested in turning this very thoughtful thread into a Goodwin bashing zone, but I couldn't see any system tonight.

I was worried when the wind was up and about today, and then it started pouring early. 

The lack of work rate for most of the match made it difficult to judge, but I legitimately could not work out what we were trying to do.

Ben Gibson talked about using the far side of the ground to transition the ball and ensuring we were careful with our ball movement down the opposite side of the ground. I saw nothing of that.

Outside of that Collingwood win in the rain earlier in the year, I cannot actually remember the last game we won in the wet. Our game style breaks down terribly when we play in the wet, because it relies on handball from clearance or the back half. We need to be able to identify the conditions or the likely conditions the game will be played in and have solutions and a clear plan for the game. 

I'm not saying for a second that we sat around in Cairns for 3 days doing nothing, but Fremantle owned the far side and the corridor, were cleaner in possession, had better ball use and kicked to the right spots inside 50.

Our midfield mix is not getting the job done either and our forwardline has really struggled when Weideman has struggled. It seems like the players are more haphazard with their delivery to him, the less contests he gets to or halves. 

It's going to be a long off season.

Where were the options? It was just long, long long, no movement, no run..... The game this thread has so beautifully teased out seemed forgotten. What can explain this ongoing lack of awareness?

[Grr-owl 1,222]

I dunno which thread to write this in and I don't want to start another, so I'm going to say it here, flaky as it is. I've sensed in the last few injury videos that Burgo kinda feels like he's wasting his time. Seems a serious bloke when it comes to his business. Just a feeling. Hope I'm wrong.

 

 

[Adam The God 30,286]

6 hours ago, Grr-owl said:

Where were the options? It was just long, long long, no movement, no run..... The game this thread has so beautifully teased out seemed forgotten. What can explain this ongoing lack of awareness?

I stress that I'm only speculating here, but whilst there might have been some good ideas from Goodwin, it seems to me the way those ideas and messages have been communicated, particularly vis a vis culture, expectations and structures, has meant the players seemingly don't fully buy in.

[NeveroddoreveN 1,034]

Loved much of this thread, and have found much of it fascinating reading.

Our gameplan if system based is really ugly...the players do not know what to do or where to run.  Seems to me there is a complete breakdown of players knowing their role within a shaky system.

Would do better in all honesty with no system, just man on man and try to beat your opponent and impact when it is your turn to go.

We did this for last 12 minutes of the game, had we done it the whole day we would have won by 6 goals.

Tactically we really don't seem to adapt to oppositions gameplans.  Any Joe blow could coach this mob with better results just playing man on man and backing our players abilities.  Give me a packet of chips to do it, i would instil more passion and sytem that we are currently seeing.  Would not need 4 years to implement it either!

[Grr-owl 1,222]

4 hours ago, A F said:

I stress that I'm only speculating here, but whilst there might have been some good ideas from Goodwin, it seems to me the way those ideas and messages have been communicated, particularly vis a vis culture, expectations and structures, has meant the players seemingly don't fully buy in.

I'm totally with you. I suspect that the corporate PR management-speak that he dishes out in press conferences manifests itself within the organization as performance reviews, vision documents, all kinds of other micro-management horses*it that results in people groaning in mental fatigue in front of screens, ticking and not-ticking  boxes.

I have a feeling that Lockhart was dropped because some box somewhere wasn't ticked; otherwise I can't see a reason why the successful backline of Harmes, May, Lever, Tomlinson, Salem, Lockhart and Hibberd was disturbed (okay, Harmes was being wasted in the first place) and Smith brought back in to play where he has only failed. I can think of more examples.

I want to get off my chest why I think this kind of thinking is so bad. I work in an English Department at a University located somewhere between Beijing and Paris. Last week we were asked to analyze the top ten English departments around the world and develop a step by step plan to bring our department into alignment with them so the university can achieve its goal of being among the best in the world. Whatever we come up with will need to be cross referenced and aligned with various local and national goals as articulated in a multitude of other action plans and vision documents and requirements of accreditation bodies and so forth.

Well, you might be able to guess the immediate and overwhelming obstacle to achieving that goal: our students aren't the best in the world. In fact, some of them make it into my classes without being able to write a coherent sentence. And yet, we are required to endure the grind of producing that document, devoting time and energy that could be better spent on genuinely productive stuff such as..... let me think.... hmm... teaching them how to write a coherent sentence. 

Somewhere some people in the organisation are fooling themselves. That's the f*@#ing problem.

 

Edited September 8, 2020 by Grr-owl

[Grr-owl 1,222]

4 hours ago, NeveroddoreveN said:

Loved much of this thread, and have found much of it fascinating reading.

Our gameplan if system based is really ugly...the players do not know what to do or where to run.  Seems to me there is a complete breakdown of players knowing their role within a shaky system.

Would do better in all honesty with no system, just man on man and try to beat your opponent and impact when it is your turn to go.

We did this for last 12 minutes of the game, had we done it the whole day we would have won by 6 goals.

Tactically we really don't seem to adapt to oppositions gameplans.  Any Joe blow could coach this mob with better results just playing man on man and backing our players abilities.  Give me a packet of chips to do it, i would instil more passion and sytem that we are currently seeing.  Would not need 4 years to implement it either!

I sense that their heads are so full of horse*hit pyscho-babble micro-management bollocks that they're mentally fatigued to the point that they can't find the energy to actually do it.

[NeveroddoreveN 1,034]

10 minutes ago, Grr-owl said:

I sense that their heads are so full of horse*hit pyscho-babble micro-management bollocks that they're mentally fatigued to the point that they can't find the energy to actually do it.

Lol most likely!  Stay in your protected zone but be daring and take the game even if you have nobody to kick it to!  Don't overcommit to the tackle in case you get stepped!  Kick it to Max he can mark everything even if he is 5v1.  Send in more players at the stoppage and ignore the outsides. Be predictable in all areas of the ground, your teammates will know what you are upto! They are mentally fatiguing to watch let alone passionately support haha!

[Adam The God 30,286]

35 minutes ago, Grr-owl said:

I'm totally with you. I suspect that the corporate PR management-speak that he dishes out in press conferences manifests itself within the organization as performance reviews, vision documents, all kinds of other micro-management horses*it that results in people groaning in mental fatigue in front of screens, ticking and not-ticking  boxes.

I have a feeling that Lockhart was dropped because some box somewhere wasn't ticked; otherwise I can't see a reason why the successful backline of Harmes, May, Lever, Tomlinson, Salem, Lockhart and Hibberd was disturbed (okay, Harmes was being wasted in the first place) and Smith brought back in to play where he has only failed. I can think of more examples.

I want to get off my chest why I think this kind of thinking is so bad. I work in an English Department at a University located somewhere between Beijing and Paris. Last week we were asked to analyze the top ten English departments around the world and develop a step by step plan to bring our department into alignment with them so the university can achieve its goal of being among the best in the world. Whatever we come up with will need to be cross referenced and aligned with various local and national goals as articulated in a multitude of other action plans and vision documents and requirements of accreditation bodies and so forth.

Well, you might be able to guess the immediate and overwhelming obstacle to achieving that goal: our students aren't the best in the world. In fact, some of them make it into my classes without being able to write a coherent sentence. And yet, we are required to endure the grind of producing that document, devoting time and energy that could be better spent on genuinely productive stuff such as..... let me think.... hmm... teaching them how to write a coherent sentence. 

Somewhere some people in the organisation are fooling themselves. That's the f*@#ing problem.

 

I love the parable and I do think it applies to our societies as a whole. I think what it comes down to though IMV, is a lack of genuine leadership.

In regards to Goodwin, I just think (somewhat speculatively) that he hasn't always communicated his messages clearly to players and the captaincy hand over between Jones and Viney was clearly poorly handled. You don't want to help rifts manifest or grow within team environments. It means as soon as things don't work for you, there's a chance it could all fall in a heap. That's what I think is happening here.

As someone who manages people in my job and works in small teams, I'm not against the corporate speak to be honest, as long as it's linked to a vision. The best leaders IMO are those with a vision, can communicate it to others, and are willing to listen to others and let them do their thing. Sure, pull them into line if they need pulling into line, but when you're doing that, you better make sure you communicate it appropriately, fairly and clearly.

[DeeZee 7,425]

16 hours ago, binman said:

Just heard Longmuire interviewed on on the couch.

Couldn't believe it. 

He said, paraphrasing, they wanted to be more aggressive, switch wide and to tbe corridor. Back themselves to take risky kicks on. 

All straightforward stuff. What I couldn't believe is that he said he thought the dees 'would give them' that opportunity.

That to me sounds like a first year coach going to school on Goodwin tactically.

Spot on.