I think we should chuck Jacko or Max up forward more if the opposition amp the pressure up and we start bombing it in so we can give our smalls a chance. 

We've been seeing teams flood our forward line since very early in the season. On Saturday night, and the same last week, we were comprehensively out marked. I think part was due to the flood, part due to the lack of effective leading patterns and part due to the delivery. Midfielders seem to have a pre-planned location in mind for their kick and consistently use it even if it is filled with tall defenders. Pearce last week and the Mcartin bros this week were doing what Lever and May have been doing to other teams for quite some time, intercepting and starting rebound chains.

We know that to beat our defence requires one of 3 things.

1. Fast, direct ball movement and winning a one on one marking contest. 

2. Bringing the ball to the ground with superior numbers at the fall

3. Changing the angles unpredictably and entering where the zone is weak.

I need to watch the replay, as you often see different things to what you see live at the game in the heat of it all. But it looked to me like we just kept targeting the same spots even when there were 4 or 5 Swans defenders in that spot and just one of the Browns. Hopefully we are learning from these last couple of weeks and working on more effective structures and tactics to counter.

So interesting from the weekend:

 

Max Gawn played 112 out of 115 minutes. All but basically 3 minutes.

Luke Jackson played 74 out of 115 minutes

Mitch Brown 95 out of 115

Ben Brown 78 of 115.

I think we are about to see Max play a hell of a lot more forward. 

1 hour ago, djr said:

Don't understand your first sentence.

yeah I should proof read - replace "November" with "movement"

someone mentioned no blocking which can't be done without movement from the forwards.

15 hours ago, monoccular said:

We need a strongly built, skilled deep KPP forward, with a touch of mongrel. Neita would have been a perfect fit into this team. 

I agree, we haven't had anywhere near Neita levels since, but I do think that our development & coaching surrounding our forwards hasn't been as good as what it could have been and that's no more evident than the result we see. 

21 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

It's a few things - someone mentioned no blocking which can't be done without November from the forwards.

The second part is being outmarked by oppo defenders, something which losing TMac really hurts us with. If our forwards don't mark it fine, but they can't get outmarked. They need to bring it to group d for our small forwards or so that when their defenders get it our pressure causes a hack kick and turnover.

Which brings me to the next point, the pressure all over the ground but particularly in our forward line has been lacking for sometime. We haven't been locking it in and getting repeat entries - it happened for about 20 minutes in the 3rd quarter last night but we didn't capitalise

The lack of pressure has been very noticeable! Freo and now Sydney just walked it out of our forward line over and over again. We depend on being able to lock it in to both strangle the oppo from scoring but also to force goals for us as part of our game plan.
 

I guess my point above is, because we couldn’t do that, then our f/50 entries have to be much more dangerous. And when the game was there to be won… we were just standing still. That says to me that there isn’t adaptability to the situation or an over belief in our game plan… even when Sydney defenders were marking absolutely everything in our f/50.

There has to be a different option going forward.

Honestly, the last few weeks our forward work has been more reminiscent of 2019-20 where we were looking great around the ground then just belting blind bombs into the forward 50 and hoping someone would make something happen.  I suspect that may be a function of opposition pressure on the mids as much as anything, but it's causing our whole attack to break down.  Without proper delivery, the forwards have stopped moving and are now sitting back waiting to see where the bomb is going to land.  That gives the defence a chance to take the initiative. 

The good news is that the team turned that around really quickly in 2021 and we dominated, so hopefully with some minor tweaking they can get things sorted out and start scoring again. 

None of our forwards have any mongrel or competitive see you next Tuesday about them. We’d have to be the ‘nicest’ forward line going around. No opposition back would fear what’s behind them.

We lack presence and desperation at the moment (we have all year). We need to get nastier in the forward line, making back lines second guess themselves. Doubt is a wonderful tool we simply are not harnessing at the moment.

Certainly need improvement in conversion and connection with our tall forwards.  And if they’re not marking it, they should at least contest to bring it to ground. Bbb and Weid have been very poor across. Tmcd is strongly and more contested in his marking.  
 

Whilst not focussed upon, our output and goals from small forwards also needs to be addressed.  
Pickett 15 goals (6behinds)
Spargo 5 goals (8 bdhinds)
ANB 2 goals (9 behinds) 

Kozzy should be a 40+ goalkicker.  He’s been very good in patches but needs to stay in forward 50 and occasionally venture upfield. His danger is within scoring distance.  Spargo and ANB contribute indirectly but need to be much more dangerous and score themselves.  Often inside 30 metres they look to handball rather than score.  I’d like to see Bedford given a real run and not as a full time medi sub. Bedford and Kozzzy inside 50 would be good to have for 3-4 weeks. At the moment Cameron (30) Bailey (26) McCarthy (18) have amassed 74 goals for the Lions. That’s a fair differential in scoring power.