Why did we fade out in games?

[Sir Why You Little 36,989]

I honestly think it was forward conversation rates. When the midfield was working well, we simply didn’t kick enough goals. 
and because they worked so hard, fatigue had to set in. 
It was evident even last Friday. We Smashed Brisbane early but kicked 3.6, if that had been 6.3, they wouldn’t have beaten us. 
A lot of people are blaming Selwyn Griffith, i am not. Our season came to an abrupt end because of Goal Kicking accuracy. 
We didn’t nail opportunities efficiently 

[Dockett 32 1,239]

How about reviewing the individual stats for the last half of the past two games.
Let’s see what that brings, who was absent etc. 

[monoccular 17,413]

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

Here's a stat for you.

We had an 11 point lead, or more, in all 24 games this year.

I wonder if:

1. that's ever happened before; and
2. if so, whether the last side to do it failed to make a prelim.

Could be a good question for Swamp on Twitter.

That is an incredibly damning statistic.   Mental relaxation or physical (stuffed, banged up, whatever you like to call it) : probably a combination of both. 

1 hour ago, drdrake said:

We had to chase to much, in the back half of the season our ability to lock the ball inside our forward 50 really fell away,,which means every one works hard forward and the ball was coming straight out with little pressure and you then need to work hard to get into your defensive set ups.

You lock the ball in back 6 push up and are set for repeat entries you get a bit of a spell.  It is easier when you control the ball in your forward half than having to work back to defend.

 

But why couldn’t we lock it in like last year.  That is the big question.  Desire? Worked out by opponents? Physically stuffed.  

43 minutes ago, Ron Burgundy said:

Darren. Burgess.

We desperately need him back. It’s simple stuff.

 

We can and never will know but I doubt if even Burgess could get this mob across the line. 

[drdrake 3,163]

17 minutes ago, monoccular said:

That is an incredibly damning statistic.   Mental relaxation or physical (stuffed, banged up, whatever you like to call it) : probably a combination of both. 

But why couldn’t we lock it in like last year.  That is the big question.  Desire? Worked out by opponents? Physically stuffed.  

Bit of all that, plus not playing the 2nd true tall forward, this was a really big issue.

[Gawndy the Great 9,011]

2 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

Here's a stat for you.

We had an 11 point lead, or more, in all 24 games this year.

I wonder if:

1. that's ever happened before; and
2. if so, whether the last side to do it failed to make a prelim.

Could be a good question for Swamp on Twitter.

It is something to definitely hold onto so as much as we all throw the baby out, there is not anything to suggest that a few adjustments to game plan won’t alter.

I think our fade outs were due to overall fitness and game plan. It was evident even in the first half of the year with all the ‘2nd gear nonsense’ - turns out the tranny was stuck and we couldn’t even shift out of 2nd. 

Now those that know my posts - I’m not overly optimistic - but in the wash up of this year I do have a lot to look forward to in 2023. A failed finals series will be  a massive reality check for most in the team that probably became complacent mid year after going 10 zip. In hindsight, the May incident was a huge snapshot into the culture at the time. Those thinking it was isolated to one person can keep living under a rock. But it clearly marked the start of our downfall.

Some time off to heal physically and mentally will do everyone some good.

I genuinely hope that the FD come back with some fresh ideas in how to negate the  top 4-6 teams that have an overly aggressive and attacking game style. 
 

We are no longer the fittest, fastest and smartest team in it and I hope that fact alone burns in the guts of the whole club over the next 2.5 months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

2 hours ago, titan_uranus said:

Here's a stat for you.

We had an 11 point lead, or more, in all 24 games this year.

I wonder if:

1. that's ever happened before; and
2. if so, whether the last side to do it failed to make a prelim.

Could be a good question for Swamp on Twitter.

Any idea how many times we were in the lead by say 25 points (could be multiple times during a game) but actually extended that lead by the end of the game?

Does that even make sense?

[rpfc 28,267]

2 hours ago, bing181 said:

Too many players carrying injuries or niggles, plus the cumulative fatigue of spending 2022 at the pointy end + a long 2021 with a deep finals run + reduced off-season/break. Throw into that that a lot of our players are still comparatively young and don't have the deep fitness that 10 years of pre-seasons develops.

Not a surprise that so few teams win back to back premierships.

Nothing to do with the coaching, or even the fitness staff for that matter. Griffith had the runs on the board, was head-hunted by Burgess and the FD as Burgess's replacement, and spent a year being trained up by Burgess.

Well said, Bing.

When Rd 1 came around it was amazing how sluggish both teams seemed to me, and how proppy some were after a concentrated pre -season where bodies perhaps didn’t recover. Then Salem came in, had one short kick and hobbled off ONLY TO COME BACK ON and then the annus horribilis began and some of the decisions on players ‘backing up’ seemed to make it worse, so I do think they need to review that management and whether they really did need to smash some of our best players through periods of the season.

[Sir Why You Little 36,989]

18 minutes ago, rpfc said:

Well said, Bing.

When Rd 1 came around it was amazing how sluggish both teams seemed to me, and how proppy some were after a concentrated pre -season where bodies perhaps didn’t recover. Then Salem came in, had one short kick and hobbled off ONLY TO COME BACK ON and then the annus horribilis began and some of the decisions on players ‘backing up’ seemed to make it worse, so I do think they need to review that management and whether they really did need to smash some of our best players through periods of the season.

All good points 

but how many times did we kick more points than goals, when we were strongly controlling general play?

Look at what we could still do at The Gabba in Round 23… 13.3 at Halftime 

[Nascent 9,117]

I think this shows that we are getting a lot right and it won't take much for us to work on some deficiencies and be right in the mix next year. We will benefit immensely from the added time in the off-season to get as many players as we can up and running for a full pre-season. Any alleged hubris left over from 2021 should be well and truly gone with an added sting of a straight sets finals exit providing added motivation. The forward line and connection to it is the major concern but I have faith we have, or will have, the required personnel to contend. The coaches need to work out a plan to become more efficient in the forward half. Defensively we are still sound, we need to added some attacking flare back into the mix.

[Hellaintabadplacetobe 4,294]

9 minutes ago, Sir Why You Little said:

All good points 

but how many times did we kick more points than goals, when we were strongly controlling general play?

Look at what we could still do at The Gabba in Round 23… 13.3 at Halftime 

Yep 

We were every bit as dominant in the first half on Friday as we were at the Gabba. I'm tipping the stats would be very similar for contested possession, clearance, inside 50s etc.

Only thing that changed was accuracy and we left the door open.

[Sir Why You Little 36,989]

15 minutes ago, Hellaintabadplacetobe said:

Yep 

We were every bit as dominant in the first half on Friday as we were at the Gabba. I'm tipping the stats would be very similar for contested possession, clearance, inside 50s etc.

Only thing that changed was accuracy and we left the door open.

Yep that’s it. And with the door still open, the midfield has to keep the intense pressure up. It’s not possible. 
It’s all Forward Line Conversion of opportunities 

We have to Find another Big Forward who can convert to work with JVR and hopefully TMac. 
BBB could still be damaging as a Tall, but he isn’t a Primary Target anymore 

[DemonSam 171]

I think Burgess went pretty hard on the players in the off season, but he timed it beautifully so they came back cherry ripe for finals, I think Selwyn is the new guy who was learning under Burgess, comes in and wants to make a statement, push them just that little bit harder, surely that gets a better result right?

Sadly we were fittest in May and a side that doesn't rotate the team ever, going back to back was going to be very difficult

[Sir Why You Little 36,989]

13 minutes ago, DemonSam said:

I think Burgess went pretty hard on the players in the off season, but he timed it beautifully so they came back cherry ripe for finals, I think Selwyn is the new guy who was learning under Burgess, comes in and wants to make a statement, push them just that little bit harder, surely that gets a better result right?

Sadly we were fittest in May and a side that doesn't rotate the team ever, going back to back was going to be very difficult

There’s no way we would have won the final 2 Rounds of the Season if that was the case. It ain’t on Selwyn 

[Bring-Back-Powell 14,778]

1 hour ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Any idea how many times we were in the lead by say 25 points (could be multiple times during a game) but actually extended that lead by the end of the game?

Does that even make sense?

That’s a hard one to quantify as the leads yo-yoed in some of our 25+ wins such as the Dogs, Port and Essendon wins.

GWS, St Kilda, WC, North, Brisbane x2, and Freo were genuine margin extending wins. (Although the Lions pegged us back a bit in the Rd 23 game)

The Port win at the Adelaide Oval we won by 32 points but the margin got out to 54 which demonstrated our season long fragility. Does that one count?

[titan_uranus 24,979]

10 hours ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Any idea how many times we were in the lead by say 25 points (could be multiple times during a game) but actually extended that lead by the end of the game?

Does that even make sense?

Round 1 vs the Dogs, we were in front early, then behind by 24-odd in the second quarter but won by 26. 

Round 2 vs GC we built a 16 point lead early then pushed it out to 23 before two late Suns goals. 

Round 3 vs Essendon we built a 20 point lead early then won by 29. 

Round 5 vs GWS we jumped out to a 26 point lead then won by 67. 

Round 6 vs Richmond we had a 14 point lead early, fell behind, then won by 22. 

Round 9 vs St Kilda we got out to 48 points up, they fought back, but we won by 38. 

Round 10 vs WC, 35 up at quarter time became a 74 point win. 

Round 11 vs North a 20 point half time lead became a 47 point win. 

Round 15 vs Brisbane we went from 6 down at quarter time to a 64 point win. 

Round 20 vs Fremantle we were 32 up in the second and won by 46. 

Round 23 vs Brisbane was a 10-12 goal margin for the second half. 

[binman 42,691]

11 hours ago, CYB said:

We are no longer the fittest, fastest and smartest team in it and I hope that fact alone burns in the guts of the whole club over the next 2.5 months.

I reckon this an excellent, and perhaps over looked point.

I don't think it is fair to put our fitness issues at Griffith's feet, as there are just so many variables that must come into play into terms of things that disrupt a physical training program.

Last year we had a dream run. this year we didn't, so its bit unfair on him to compare his results with that of Burgess - who by the by was our fitness guy in 2020 when we failed to make the finals. 

Be that as it may it was evident that, for whatever reason, we were not as fit as we were last year come finals,

But the pies and swans fitness teams, and it would appear also the cats, have done a brilliant job preparing their teams - and we lost our comparative advantage in terms of fitness.  

I had fully expected the Swans and pies to come off the boil a bit, but both remain incredibly fit. At least one of them have two games to play, so their fitness may still  drop off but hats off to both teams. 

In my opinion, the two biggest determinants of success in footy are (in order) injuries and fitness. We struggled on both fronts this year.

[old dee 23,782]

7 minutes ago, binman said:

I reckon this an excellent, and perhaps over looked point.

I don't think it is fair to put our fitness issues at Griffith's feet, as there are just so many variables that must come into play into terms of things that disrupt a physical training program.

Last year we had a dream run. this year we didn't, so its bit unfair on him to compare his results with that of Burgess - who by the by was our fitness guy in 2020 when we failed to make the finals. 

Be that as it may it was evident that, for whatever reason, we were not as fit as we were last year come finals,

But the pies and swans fitness teams, and it would appear also the cats, have done a brilliant job preparing their teams - and we lost our comparative advantage in terms of fitness.  

I had fully expected the Swans and pies to come off the boil a bit, but both remain incredibly fit. At least one of them have two games to play, so their fitness may still  drop off but hats off to both teams. 

In my opinion, the two biggest determinants of success in footy are (in order) injuries and fitness. We struggled on both fronts this year.

That covers it binman, I think it also showed in the case of KPF’s we had no back up player of any value. I discount JVR in the first 3/4 of the season. 

[Demonsone 2,036]

13 hours ago, tallstuey said:

Two words

Darren Burgess

Selwyn Griffiths worked under Burgess before taking over so would think he continued his programme/strategy, all 7 inc 2x finals  losses were the same, lead at 1/2 time by 20+  and got over run and would great to get feedback as to why, though don't hold your breath as clubs would never disclose this depth of detail.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Demonsone

[layzie 33,753]

16 hours ago, Engorged Onion said:

All our losses (bar Geelong) looked exactly the same - 4-5 goals up by half time and ultimately a 3-5 goal loss. Put your conjecture here!

Loading 

Fitness

Culture

Defensive Structure

Goodwin

Bathwater

Hunted

Forward and Mid Pressure

Whipping Boys (ANB/ Spargo/Sparrow)

Selfishness

 

So many options to debate…

EO that is pretty much it, you can't put your finger on one thing and literally every one of those things you've mentioned could be discussed when it comes to contributing factors. Obviously some will carry more weight than others but we as people are all so keen for the one thing to point to and I just don't think it's going to happen. A few words about each one:

Loading - The most air time of anything this year. It was frustrating, we all thought there were rewards coming from it and that wasn't the case. The theory I believe does work but there may be questions over how it was executed. I've said in the past that I didn't think Burgo was the be all and end all for this and that maybe it was only the extra 5 to 10% but maybe that is the difference? I don't know.

Fitness - In defence of the people who tell you that loading was the cause of the mid season slump and believed this would bear fruit, they were probably not banking on so many niggling injuries and structural issues. Again, it's frustrating and I was certainly hoping to see us run out games better at this time of year but we were up against it, especially on Fri when nearly everyone coming off either looked gassed or were hobbling.

Culture - Mostly a very sound culture. I think there is one incident we all think of though and if certain comments were said then it doesn't sit well with me. May have contributed a little when it came to the psyche? Again I think our culture is strong but maybe another 1%er that wasn't working for us this year.

Defensive Structure - Kept us in most games again. The chink in the armour is quick delivery when the ball comes to ground. On Fri night the Lions had 51 I50s, few backlines can stop scoring from that. A lot of positional shifts and interruptions but we came through very well I thought.

Goodwin - Generally coached well this season, I don't think we lost many games at selection. We know without a shadow of a doubt that Goody is a system coach who sticks fat, I admire this about him as he doesn't waver and give in to outside numps ideas. Hopefully one day people see this as a major positive. The one thing I'm not 100% sold on is his matchday decision making. I think that the game went very much towards the 'in game' happenings of coaching this year and we're seeing the Chris Scotts and John Longmires of the world excel with adjustments made in game. I think Melbourne needs a few extra gears and a few tricks up the sleeve when things aren't working.

Bathwater - Possible and a natural thing. Watching on Fri night I marveled at how much more Brisbane seemed to want it in the second half, first to almost every ball. Maybe a case of full bellies, it is extremely hard to manage this.

Hunted - Again, a natural thing. Teams had all summer to study film on us, it was there for all to see. These rocket science coaches have found the way to play us and succeeded. Extremely hard to succeed when most teams were playing their grand final against us each week. 

Forward and Mid Pressure - The big one. What happened here? Was it just fitness? It was just not there for long enough. Is this a big ask to require this for the whole gameplan to work each week? Running is hard, no two ways about it. After the 2017 Grand Final I honestly thought Richmond would fall back into the pack because their pressure was so immense that year and I just find pressure a real difficult thing to keep going long term. It is just impossible to sustain 100% of the time and maybe the only way you can is by having one of the best fitness coaches in the world who doesn't just get you fit and breaks your mindset down until you are literally a machine. It is extremely hard to rest on your laurels when you rely on this for your gameplan to work, you have to be 100% or not at all. That's the fact.

Whipping Boys (ANB/ Spargo/Sparrow) - Whipping boys may be a little harsh but we simply needed more out of our small forwards. I love ANB and Spargo but a goal a game was probably what was needed from them. The difference between last year and this year had a lot to do with the bottom 6 players. Not only did we have so many guys in career best form but we had a bottom 6 chipping in each week, this year we didn't.

Selfishness - Came into the game a few times this year. There may be people who would call the many times we didn't see or kick to open men as selfish but I have my doubts on whether or not this was selfish. I'd be more inclined to think this was players trying to follow a gameplan and not wanting to overthink things. I don't know what the answer to that is but that's why we have our coaches. We know about the Fritta moments that were magnified but I don't think our team suffers from selfish syndrome.

So that's it, not sexy and not the magic bullet everyone wants but that's my take. I thought about putting percentages of blame next to each one but then I thought why open myself up to potential ridicule and spear throwing.

[The heart beats true 18,110]

1 hour ago, binman said:

In my opinion, the two biggest determinants of success in footy are (in order) injuries and fitness. We struggled on both fronts this year.

I’d add to that consistency of having to play quality opponents. I wrote this in the loading thread but we played 12 of our last 14 games against top 8 sides, and 10 of those games were against the other top 5 teams! That will never happen again in an 18 side competition. We got very unlucky with our draw.

[roy11 3,837]

I would definitely like a little more rotation next season.

Was discussing the loss of Burgo with a pal on the weekend, it's obviously a loss as the man is talented but a little difficult to judge hard much much due to some factors including player injuries/playing cooked players. I understand the rationale was to keep sore players playing, but did we just have too many banged up players in 2022? Then again were they extra banged up cos no Burgo or just bad luck?

 

[Bystander 903]

Human nature being what it is, I can't help thinking that if a few players had been demoted for poor form the rest of the team would have found something extra in the second halves. I know my performance at home improves if I think I might be replaced the next week.

[Ted Lasso 19,334]

I'd say it's a combination of a few things 

• Winning the flag leaving the players slightly less hungry, complacent, thinking it'd just happen
• fatigue of a really long season in 2021 to a mostly very young list 
• banged up injury wise 
• lack of conversion leaving the team deflated, goals give the team a chance to rest and re-set. defending as much as we've had to at times is hard work 
• tweaks to the game style not working

[Vipercrunch 2,827]

13 hours ago, Nascent said:

I think this shows that we are getting a lot right and it won't take much for us to work on some deficiencies and be right in the mix next year. We will benefit immensely from the added time in the off-season to get as many players as we can up and running for a full pre-season. Any alleged hubris left over from 2021 should be well and truly gone with an added sting of a straight sets finals exit providing added motivation. The forward line and connection to it is the major concern but I have faith we have, or will have, the required personnel to contend. The coaches need to work out a plan to become more efficient in the forward half. Defensively we are still sound, we need to added some attacking flare back into the mix.

The straight sets motivation should be huge.  It's one of the most embarrassing things an AFL club can do and the media and fans of other teams won't let any one of us forget it for many years to come.

[layzie 33,753]

15 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

I honestly think it was forward conversation rates. When the midfield was working well, we simply didn’t kick enough goals. 
and because they worked so hard, fatigue had to set in. 
It was evident even last Friday. We Smashed Brisbane early but kicked 3.6, if that had been 6.3, they wouldn’t have beaten us. 
A lot of people are blaming Selwyn Griffith, i am not. Our season came to an abrupt end because of Goal Kicking accuracy. 
We didn’t nail opportunities efficiently 

It relies on getting that early lead. Our game style is extremely taxing and you almost knew towards the end that if we didn't nail every opportunity that we'd left the door ajar. 

That brings me to the next point, ok so we didn't take a lot of chances early but our best footy this year came when we were able to generate scoring chances in quick succession. When we went long periods without even a shot at goal we really struggled. We would get it into our 50 and even lock it in for a stoppage on Fri night but in that second half it seemed extremely difficult for our small forwards to get the ball with a smidge of space and get some kind of look at goal.

So forward conversion rates are definitely one thing, I wasn't super annoyed with the early inaccuracy as long as we kept creating chances which after half time we inevitably didn't. We need more guile in front of goal, there is a reason Sydney have made it this far.