The one thing remaining to improve

[Deemania since 56 6,609]

11 hours ago, DeesFlag2020 said:

I think there have been a few instructive instances this year of your improvement in this regard. The best example l can think of offhand is the vital goal Gus Brayshaw kicked in the grannie in the third quarter on a 45 degree angle 45 metres out. He deliberately took his time and nailed it with a perfect kick. Meantime BT was going bananas in the commentary box saying he is not paying enough attention to the game and should hurry up!
 

Apparently Gus has been having special practice goal kicking at every training session at Choco’s skills academy because he has been unhappy with his goal kicking performance. A better example of advantage of specialist skills coaching l could not imagine as that kick more than any other got us up and running at a critical time in the game and we never looked back!

Agreed. Gus, once was - and it was not too long ago - a great shot at goal (on the run) but his GF effort(s) was terrific. As for BT's comments, we are left wondering why we bother to listen to his commentary, at all. Yes, he was a good forward; I still remember his sprint at Rodney the Grinter with the intent of flattening him. Grinter merely bent down and tossed him over the top of a neck hold, flat on his back onto the ground. Embarassing for BT and he had a very quiet day as a cosequence. That is the kind of onfield judgment (and less-than-desirable input to commentary these days) that BT exhibits. Anyway, Gus is a champ, a cool dude, a clever footballer and it's great to see him 'coming back' albeit 'out-of-position'' (coz he's one of the few with the talent to so do.

Carna Dees.

 

[deelusions from afar 1,803]

14 hours ago, Fanatique Demon said:

I don’t think that goal kicking accuracy is “the one thing remaining to improve”.

I've watched all the finals matches multiple times and I have started watching the season’s games from the beginning. I’m up to the Richmond game.

To me, it’s clear… We gave up too many goals to crumbing forwards when we dropped marks or spoiled in defence.  Despite Lever, May and Max marking well during the year, all three dropped too many marks (sometimes uncontested) and gave away goals. Additionally, when they spoiled in marking competitions, opposition small forwards pounced. I think the term is “ground ball gets”.

First, we need to hold those defensive marks. Second, we need better defending small backs for when the ball spills to ground within 20 metres of our opponents’ goal.

So yes, fix the goal kicking accuracy. But it’s not the ONE thing remaining to improve. 

I think you're getting a bit carried away.  Every player makes mistakes.  May, Lever and Gawn were All Australian and are all known for their intercepts.  Maybe they just put themselves in the right positions and more opportunities which means they'll drop more than other players - in the same way that Petracca has the most clangers in the league.

I think some people can get carried away with analysing the game - of course we want to eliminate dropped marks and clangers - but if the players are so fixated on not making a mistake, then they won't make the play that makes them the great players that they are.

They are up against opponents remember!  And when you're at the AA level, generally opponents that are doing everything possible to put them off their game. 

While there's always room for improvement, given we apparently had the lowest scoring percentage from forward fifty entries ever, I'd say the dropped marks (and our inability to deal with the resultant ground ball) was not a significant issue this year.  

 

[Fanatique Demon 2,642]

42 minutes ago, deelusions from afar said:

I think you're getting a bit carried away. 

Not at all carried away. Great team, great players. The topic is about the one thing to improve. I’ve merely pointed out another. Yes, players make mistakes. I accept that. But we’d improve if they made fewer, don’t you think?

[dee-tox 4,835]

1 hour ago, Deemania since 56 said:

I still remember his sprint at Rodney the Grinter with the intent of flattening him. Grinter merely bent down and tossed him over the top of a neck hold, flat on his back onto the ground. Embarassing for BT and he had a very quiet day as a cosequence. That is the kind of onfield judgment (and less-than-desirable input to commentary these days) that BT exhibits. 

 

 

Are you sure Grinter was involved? I would have sworn it was Danny Hughes...

Edited November 8, 2021 by dee-tox

[Deemania since 56 6,609]

13 minutes ago, dee-tox said:

Are you sure Grinter was involved? I would have sworn it was Danny Hughes...

Yes, Danny did it, as well later in the fixtures. 

[binman 42,702]

21 hours ago, FlashInThePan said:

 Every year you need to find things to improve though or other teams will overtake you. 

100% correct.

And there is no doubt we can improve our accuracy from set shots.

That said Fritter, after a shaky start to the season i the first 2-3 rounds, was incredibly accurate for the rest of the year. And as Growll notes a full season from Ben Brown will help the cause and Tmac is pretty reliable kick at goal too.

So key will be players like Nibbler, Spargo, Kozzie (who def improved his accuracy after he dropped his prancing horse routine), Jackson, Langers and the mids improving their set shot percentages. Even an incremental improvement from those players will help over the course of a full season. 

As evidenced by the dogs missing out on top 4 by half a percent, or some such, even a statistically tiny improvement might be the difference between say finishing second and a home QF, or finishing 3rd and having to play interstate. 

As Fanatique Demon notes there will be a range of other things the club will look to improve.

And no doubt Goody, without going crazy (because consistency and predictability is now a fundamental element of our model) will trial some new strategies and perhaps positional experiments.

What we might look to improve is an interesting question actually.

Goal kicking is one.

Improving how we defending small and medium  forwards might be another.   

And of course individual players, withy the support of the coaches, will always be looking to improve aspects of their game.

On the latter point, we saw the benefit of players improving their game this year. So many examples of this. Nibbler is an obvious one, as is Tmac and Hunt.

A less obvious one is Viney. Viney really improved his decision making and this improvement helped the team. He hit more targets, dumped kick into our forward line less often (the one in the 2nd q of the GF was an outlier) and stopped trying to take the tackler on all the time.

If say, players like Sparrow, Jordon, Spargo all improve their game a bit (as is likely given natural improvement), as do fringe players like Laurie, Smith, Chandler etc etc then we will improve as team (assuming others don't go backwards). 

And then you have Kozzie, Rivers and Jacko who scarily for opposition teams still have several levels of improvement in them.

And of course add our pick 17, Laurie and Rosman and Tomlinson to come back into contention for selection and things are looking pretty good on the improvement front. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by binman

[deelusions from afar 1,803]

1 hour ago, Fanatique Demon said:

Not at all carried away. Great team, great players. The topic is about the one thing to improve. I’ve merely pointed out another. Yes, players make mistakes. I accept that. But we’d improve if they made fewer, don’t you think?

I guess my point was that when we are rated THE BEST EVER for defending D50, there's probably other areas that should be higher priority.  Goal kicking is prob no1 for mine - but as others have said, it's part of our setup to kick to less dangerous spots (in case there's a turnover) and when it mattered in finals, goal kicking wasn't much of a problem.

Arguably the D50 stats are inflated due to the pressure coming from our midfielders and forwards which ensure less quality entries from the opposition, but they're still the best ever.

In addition to what Binman has outlined comprehensively, I think the key to us moving forward is continuing to innovate.  We are the definitively the hunted rather than the hunters now - so we can't expect it to just happen.  E.g. try Jackson as a ruck rover, throw Petty forward, give Kozzie some more midfield minutes, play Tmac on the wing.  Not necessarily all of this and certainly not all at once.  But we have genuine weapons who if played in the right spots are almost impossible to stop.

Next year everyone will be coming hard at us and trying to break down our system.  So while its important to back it in (as it will beat almost anyone if we are "on") we have to be ready to mix it up - to counter teams who have done their homework on us and to provide more options should we sustain some injuries to crucial players.

[Fritta and Turner 4,363]

On 11/7/2021 at 8:31 AM, FlashInThePan said:

in the 70s and 80s, goal kicking has not improved at all.

I will take a slightly contrarian view in that in those days there were gun full forwards who regularly kicked bags.  They hardly exist these days and there seems to be a larger spread of goal kickers - more players have got better at kicking.  This may just be poor memory but it seems harder goals are also being kicked.

In terms of improvements I think some of our defensive matchups could be improved, Spargo on Stanley, Viney on the Bont and Bowey standing the mark on a long set shot come to mind.

[binman 42,702]

12 minutes ago, Jontee said:

I will take a slightly contrarian view in that in those days there were gun full forwards who regularly kicked bags. 

They hardly exist these days and there seems to be a larger spread of goal kickers - more players have got better at kicking. 

This may just be poor memory but it seems harder goals are also being kicked.

 

Agree with all three points.

The other big difference to the 70s, 80s and 90s (and even into the 2000s) is back then key forwards rarely left the 50 metre arc. To a lesser extent the same is true for half forwards.

Which meant that they rarely had to kicked whilst super fatigued or gassed. Sure the guns had good technique, but fatigue exposes suspect techniques - and even small flaws. 

Compare the kms brown runs in a game to say Dunstall. Chalk and cheese i suspect. The only real equivalent to the old stay at home forward these days is Hawkins, and perhaps to lesser extent Dixon. It is no coincidence he is so accurate

Brown might follow the play all the way to the wing or even our defensive zone and 60 seconds later having a set shot at goal. The same is true for our small forwards.

And generally we play a very aerobically taxing game so there is every chance any player kicking for goals will be sucking wind. 

Another difference to the 70s, 80s and 90s is back then forwards more often had open leading lanes straight up the ground, so their shots were much more likely to be on good angles than today as modern forwards have to contend with zones, blocking, tow on ones, intercept marking and players blocking  leading lanes. 

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by binman

[Neil Crompton 5,519]

There might be kicking improvements and strategy tweaks, but I see the greatest improvement overall resulting from the sheer competition for and desire to obtain senior spots next year. There is no way players like Hunt, Tomlinson, Weideman, Jordon and Smith will not do all and more to get back in that side. And no premiership player will want to lose his spot for Dunstan. Should be a fun pre-season!

[Supreme_Demon 3,763]

It will definitely be interesting to see how we can improve next year.

I am mindful that there will be a lot of hungry players wanting more Premiership success. Breaking into the final 22 will be a challenge for those on the periphery.

After 57 years of pain and now ending the Premiership drought I think it is time for a flood of Premierships!

In 15 years time if we can have bragging rights over the vile scum at Essendon and Carlton with their 16 Premierships then I will certainly be very happy!

GO DEMONS!!!

[Fanatique Demon 2,642]

1 hour ago, Supreme_Demon said:

In 15 years time if we can have bragging rights over the vile scum at Essendon and Carlton with their 16 Premierships then I will certainly be very happy!

I might not be around then. Let’s make it 10.

[tiers 2,829]

4 hours ago, Jontee said:

 in those days there were gun full forwards who regularly kicked bags.  They hardly exist these days and there seems to be a larger spread of goal kickers - more players have got better at kicking.  This may just be poor memory but it seems harder goals are also being kicked.

 

The gun full forwards had at least three advantages over today's full forwards. First, they were the focus of all attacks (no kicking down the line to a pack), secondly they were generally one out in the days before zone and team defences and received better service from up the ground and, thirdly, they were just better footballers.

Hundred goals a year full forwards like Hudson, Wade, Jesaulenko, Lockett, Quinlan, Blight, Templeton, McKenna, Dunstall, Ablett were far better footballers than the best of the current era such as Hawkins and  Reiwoldt. Why the supply of such champions has stopped is a mystery but the way the game is played today with its emphasis on speed and possession rather than territory is a contributory factor.