Why are we continuously being beaten in clearances?

[JTR 2,632]

54 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

I’ve seen so many random midfield combos this year from us that I think we are genuinely taking the [censored] sometimes. When push comes to shove you’ll see Gawn, Clarry, Trac and Viney do 90% of the centre clearance work and you’ll see us win or at least break even in most of them. 
This year has been the most mid rotations I’ve seen us use under Goodwin. 
Trac is playing forward way more and Clarry is on the bench more often than ever. As is Viney. Gawn spends half the game at FF. This is not how things will pan out in September. But doing this now means that come September I’m not watching our best midfield combo limping on the field barely able to give a yelp like last year. 

Agree with this. 

Plenty of random combos last night too with probably the most non-standard at centre bounce being Jordan, Brayshaw & one of ANB or Rivers. 

[layzie 28,748]

1 hour ago, Jaded No More said:

I’ve seen so many random midfield combos this year from us that I think we are genuinely taking the [censored] sometimes. When push comes to shove you’ll see Gawn, Clarry, Trac and Viney do 90% of the centre clearance work and you’ll see us win or at least break even in most of them. 

This year has been the most mid rotations I’ve seen us use under Goodwin. 
Trac is playing forward way more and Clarry is on the bench more often than ever. As is Viney. Gawn spends half the game at FF.

This is not how things will pan out in September. But doing this now means that come September I’m not watching our best midfield combo limping on the field barely able to give a yelp like last year. 

100% this 

[titan_uranus 22,365]

3 hours ago, A F said:

No one has said they are mutually exclusive. The point is we don't have to rely on them and we're still in the top 4 for scores from clearances.

And the GF is in September. We're in Round 9. Plenty of time to experiment and still win by 9 goals.

Agreed.

We have used the first 9 weeks of this year to integrate new players all over the ground, including at stoppage (more Grundy, Rivers, Pickett and ANB and less of the same Gawn, Trac, Oliver, Viney combo).

That means it's OK in my book to be down in clearances given we're continuing to score. 

[Gawndy the Great 7,394]

4 hours ago, Jaded No More said:

I’ve seen so many random midfield combos this year from us that I think we are genuinely taking the [censored] sometimes. When push comes to shove you’ll see Gawn, Clarry, Trac and Viney do 90% of the centre clearance work and you’ll see us win or at least break even in most of them. 

This year has been the most mid rotations I’ve seen us use under Goodwin. 
Trac is playing forward way more and Clarry is on the bench more often than ever. As is Viney. Gawn spends half the game at FF.

This is not how things will pan out in September. But doing this now means that come September I’m not watching our best midfield combo limping on the field barely able to give a yelp like last year. 

I agree that it’s intent is to preserve our players as much as possible, but I think we can overplay its impact as we did last year with loading . Our stoppages, particularly in the centre square needs a bit more planning and training irrespective at who is in there. 

Personally having Kozzy in there to me is key as he is dynamic and can read the play better than most. Unfortunately he lacks size and can be neutralised very easily unless the team sets up to enable him to get free. 

[Redleg 37,612]

It is often the fumbling or the poor first disposal, that is to blame for the centre clearance losses.

Also Grundy doesn't seem to hit it to advantage as much as Gawn, but that will improve with more games played for us.

[titan_uranus 22,365]

On centre bounces, yesterday there were 24 of them (Grundy 14 and Gawn 10, ruck-wise).

For our mids, Oliver was at 18 of them but Trac and Viney only 14. The rest were Sparrow 10, Pickett 7, Brayshaw 6 and Jordon 3.

For a random comparison, in Round 10 last year (the last of our 10-game winning streak), there were 26 centre bounces - Trac did 22, Oliver 21, Dunstan (playing for Viney) 19. Only two other mids went in there - Sparrow 15 and ANB 1.

[Binmans PA 26,115]

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

Agreed.

We have used the first 9 weeks of this year to integrate new players all over the ground, including at stoppage (more Grundy, Rivers, Pickett and ANB and less of the same Gawn, Trac, Oliver, Viney combo).

That means it's OK in my book to be down in clearances given we're continuing to score. 

We're not just continuing to score. We're leading scores.

38 minutes ago, Gawndy the Great said:

I agree that it’s intent is to preserve our players as much as possible, but I think we can overplay its impact as we did last year with loading . Our stoppages, particularly in the centre square needs a bit more planning and training irrespective at who is in there. 

How do you know what sort of planning is or isn't going into stoppage work? Game play is the ultimate way to test and practice stoppage connectivity. So that's the path we've decided to go down in the first 9 weeks.

[Demon Dynasty 15,466]

8 hours ago, Redleg said:

It is often the fumbling or the poor first disposal, that is to blame for the centre clearance losses.

Also Grundy doesn't seem to hit it to advantage as much as Gawn, but that will improve with more games played for us.

Mathematically the more time we put into Grundy in the middle the less in game practice is happening between Maxy and the core group yes?

Does this have the potential to break down the cohesion and reads off the tap/taps to advantage between the better Max option (only my opp) little by little? 

I should point out only IF we take it too far.  Some should be fine if Grundy plays his part and some cohesion starts happening under pressure.  But is it starting to gel? And is it gelling enough to hold up against rated mid set ups?  Im still not convinced it is...so far.  That could change of course as the season progresses.

The end result (and a potential danger as a whole) might be that both options become a B rated version of the former (ie; mostly Max) which was up there as our 1 wood in 2021.

Most likely i am wrong on this but it has crossed my mind.  In particular afrer watching the 3rd quarter (twice) against the Hawks.

The Grundy version was pantsed from the get go, pretty much the entire time during his stint and the rot set in.  We only started to arrest and turn it back our way once Max was switched in later in the third.

If anyone has any doubts on this do yourself a favour and watch the third quarter 666s again.  It was like switching off a tap and slowly turning it back on again (pre/post Max)

Edited May 14, 2023 by Demon Dynasty

[Watson11 1,887]

Is it just me or do others think Friday was an inept coaching performance.  I get all the commentary in this thread about having one less at a stoppage and relying on intercept, but wouldn’t you think that in Fridays conditions it was a night for territory.

But no, Goody stuck with -1 at stoppage and it was so frustrating.  We lost non centre clearances 30-20. It’s why i50s were 61-48 and that was the game (imagine the commentary on here if Ports 32 shots on goal ended up as 18 goals).

The problem is apparent in 2 stoppages in the last 4 minutes. In the first on our 50m arc, Port have a spare which I can live with But the ball goes down the other end, and Port have a stoppage on their 50m arc, shown. We had even numbers and put someone goal side which makes sense.  But we leave Port with a spare on the other side. Max can’t safely tap goal side so all night he tapped forward or more often straight to Ports spare.  It’s just insanity. They had several shots on goal or goal assists from these types of stoppages.  It make no sense why Goody would not push an extra to the stoppage like Port do, as Gawns tap is never going back toward goal so we are effectively outnumbered every time. 

This happened all night and imo cost us the game. We need to beat Collingwood this year who will be +2 at stoppages.

 

 

[jacey 333]

16 minutes ago, Watson11 said:

Is it just me or do others think Friday was an inept coaching performance.  I get all the commentary in this thread about having one less at a stoppage and relying on intercept, but wouldn’t you think that in Fridays conditions it was a night for territory.

But no, Goody stuck with -1 at stoppage and it was so frustrating.  We lost non centre clearances 30-20. It’s why i50s were 61-48 and that was the game (imagine the commentary on here if Ports 32 shots on goal ended up as 18 goals).

The problem is apparent in 2 stoppages in the last 4 minutes. In the first on our 50m arc, Port have a spare which I can live with But the ball goes down the other end, and Port have a stoppage on their 50m arc, shown. We had even numbers and put someone goal side which makes sense.  But we leave Port with a spare on the other side. Max can’t safely tap goal side so all night he tapped forward or more often straight to Ports spare.  It’s just insanity. They had several shots on goal or goal assists from these types of stoppages.  It make no sense why Goody would not push an extra to the stoppage like Port do, as Gawns tap is never going back toward goal so we are effectively outnumbered every time. 

This happened all night and imo cost us the game. We need to beat Collingwood this year who will be +2 at stoppages.

 

 

It feels like when we won it, we wanted it to be the perfect pure clearance into fwd 50. It was wet and we fumbled and it got turned around as port went for territory.  

[Juk3b0x 166]

1 hour ago, Watson11 said:

all night he tapped forward or more often straight to Ports spare

Encourage anyone that was curious about this topic to replay the game and watch a lot of the taps.  The point above is painfully accurate and part of the reason we got monstered in this stat.

There's 2 perfect example centre bounce taps that Gawn wins without any real opposition but he puts the ball forward in front of the contest... except we don't have anyone forward of the contest and there were no players running through, so Port win it and run away virtually uncontested for a F50 entry.  I understand that this has worked for us at times and its looked good when we have, but this isn't 2021 where teams let it rampage through to win the ball forward of the contest... the times I had to watch us tap down the oppositions throat on Friday was infuriating!

[Demonsone 1,600]

Dogs have turned it around, so no reason why we can’t, whilst Oliver is great need to learn to win with out him 

[At the break of Gawn 3,497]

I think we’ll need even numbers at stoppage this week. I know Goody loves our turnover game, but Freo have a very good back 6 so I don’t think we’ll be as damaging. Freo are also the no.1 side in clearance differential the last few weeks. If we get smashed at clearances again it’ll cost us the game.

Edited May 21, 2023 by At the break of Gawn

[Binmans PA 26,115]

Chandler kicks his snap (he should have) and we win. Because he doesn't, our system doesn't work.

It doesn't always work, but if you think it's going to win you a flag (2021) with some additional tweaks (2023?), you have to take the losses when they come at Round 10 when experimentation continues.

In the meantime, Collingwood's system, which everyone seems to love, will see them lose games too and will it win them a flag? Who knows.

Our -1 at the contest is fine, it backs our mids to be clean around stoppage and our forwards to create contests and win ground ball. It puts it on the players to perform. They didn't get the job done.

We can't be perfect every week. I agree we'd like to get more out of stoppage, but there's still time. IMO, to abandon our intercept game (that has seen us lead scoring up til Round 10) would be an extreme folly.

We need to find our best mix soon,  but Round 10 isn't it.

I'll back the FD and our players to turn it around.

[dazzledavey36 48,771]

This thread reminds me exactly of the loading training thread last year lol.

We were all told by the experts on here that we'll hit our sweet spot and to back the coaches.

This pattern of concern has been ongoing since teams worked us out last year. 

I've seen nothing this year to suggest we've made any vast improvement at all in this area.

You'd thinking bringing in another A grade ruckman would improve us but it hasn't unfortunately. 

[Binmans PA 26,115]

5 minutes ago, dazzledavey36 said:

This thread reminds me exactly of the loading training thread last year lol.

We were all told by the experts on here that we'll hit our sweet spot and to back the coaches.

This pattern of concern has been ongoing since teams worked us out last year. 

I've seen nothing this year to suggest we've made any vast improvement at all in this area.

You'd thinking bringing in another A grade ruckman would improve us but it hasn't unfortunately. 

And yet we were in the top 4 for scores from turnover, scores from kick outs and scores from stoppages leading into the weekend.

Lose by 4 points and let's throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We're all free to hold our own positions on this, but the exact same arguments were also being had during the middle part and even the back end of 2021. 

Injury curtailed us in 2022, this year we've made some tweaks and it has us in good shape.

The easy position to take is the negative. I'd rather take the positive, constructive approach, but each to their own.

[Demon Dynasty 15,466]

7 hours ago, Watson11 said:

Is it just me or do others think Friday was an inept coaching performance.  I get all the commentary in this thread about having one less at a stoppage and relying on intercept, but wouldn’t you think that in Fridays conditions it was a night for territory.

But no, Goody stuck with -1 at stoppage and it was so frustrating.  We lost non centre clearances 30-20. It’s why i50s were 61-48 and that was the game (imagine the commentary on here if Ports 32 shots on goal ended up as 18 goals).

The problem is apparent in 2 stoppages in the last 4 minutes. In the first on our 50m arc, Port have a spare which I can live with But the ball goes down the other end, and Port have a stoppage on their 50m arc, shown. We had even numbers and put someone goal side which makes sense.  But we leave Port with a spare on the other side. Max can’t safely tap goal side so all night he tapped forward or more often straight to Ports spare.  It’s just insanity. They had several shots on goal or goal assists from these types of stoppages.  It make no sense why Goody would not push an extra to the stoppage like Port do, as Gawns tap is never going back toward goal so we are effectively outnumbered every time. 

This happened all night and imo cost us the game. We need to beat Collingwood this year who will be +2 at stoppages.

 

 

Excellent work W11.

The 'scores sources' stats say we only lost at around ground 'ball-ups'.

Assuming you are on the money re 'happening all night'.  You could have one of the greatest teams going around and still struggle here.

One would think the review team would surely have also seen this and it should be on the coach's agenda for review and correction.

And if we didnt adjust this in-game, especially after half time, why not??

Edited May 21, 2023 by Demon Dynasty

[rpfc 27,476]

7 hours ago, A F said:

Chandler kicks his snap (he should have) and we win. Because he doesn't, our system doesn't work.

…

I'll back the FD and our players to turn it around.

I was pointing out our issues with defensive intensity in the forward half and possible fade out issue when we won 10 straight games, a few of us were; so winning does not mean we don’t have issues.

We look a lot better than last year and this season is so even so I am not panicking but that common refrain that whatever it is, they’ll sort it out’ is not an argument against critique - it’s an argument against bothering to log on here and talk about the Dees.

Of course we want them to work it out - we even give our own thoughts on the challenges we need to overcome.

And lastly, you say it’s easy to be negative, when it was apparently much easier last year to be the ‘Fox with the fire all around’ and say ‘it’s fine’, there was so much surprise on here when we went out in straight sets…

[beelzebub 22,225]

11 hours ago, Watson11 said:

Is it just me or do others think Friday was an inept coaching performance.  I get all the commentary in this thread about having one less at a stoppage and relying on intercept, but wouldn’t you think that in Fridays conditions it was a night for territory.

But no, Goody stuck with -1 at stoppage and it was so frustrating.  We lost non centre clearances 30-20. It’s why i50s were 61-48 and that was the game (imagine the commentary on here if Ports 32 shots on goal ended up as 18 goals).

The problem is apparent in 2 stoppages in the last 4 minutes. In the first on our 50m arc, Port have a spare which I can live with But the ball goes down the other end, and Port have a stoppage on their 50m arc, shown. We had even numbers and put someone goal side which makes sense.  But we leave Port with a spare on the other side. Max can’t safely tap goal side so all night he tapped forward or more often straight to Ports spare.  It’s just insanity. They had several shots on goal or goal assists from these types of stoppages.  It make no sense why Goody would not push an extra to the stoppage like Port do, as Gawns tap is never going back toward goal so we are effectively outnumbered every time. 

This happened all night and imo cost us the game. We need to beat Collingwood this year who will be +2 at stoppages.

 

 

This must rate as one of the most informed and accurate observations of our "style" i have read.

I often lament we lose games by design...and you've described it brilliantly.

There were a number of curiosities about how we went about that game and every one of them points straight back at the Brains Trust. 

The coaching handicapped us.

It is indeed elementary eh Watson 

(Top Post👏👏👏)

[layzie 28,748]

13 hours ago, Watson11 said:

Is it just me or do others think Friday was an inept coaching performance.  I get all the commentary in this thread about having one less at a stoppage and relying on intercept, but wouldn’t you think that in Fridays conditions it was a night for territory.

But no, Goody stuck with -1 at stoppage and it was so frustrating.  We lost non centre clearances 30-20. It’s why i50s were 61-48 and that was the game (imagine the commentary on here if Ports 32 shots on goal ended up as 18 goals).

The problem is apparent in 2 stoppages in the last 4 minutes. In the first on our 50m arc, Port have a spare which I can live with But the ball goes down the other end, and Port have a stoppage on their 50m arc, shown. We had even numbers and put someone goal side which makes sense.  But we leave Port with a spare on the other side. Max can’t safely tap goal side so all night he tapped forward or more often straight to Ports spare.  It’s just insanity. They had several shots on goal or goal assists from these types of stoppages.  It make no sense why Goody would not push an extra to the stoppage like Port do, as Gawns tap is never going back toward goal so we are effectively outnumbered every time. 

This happened all night and imo cost us the game. We need to beat Collingwood this year who will be +2 at stoppages.

 

 

Thank you.

It became extremely apparent that this game was quickly becoming a 'scores from clearance' game, especially when we started doing well in the 3rd quarter. I love the fact that Goody has so much faith in his system but on this occasion it was counter intuitive to persist with giving Port a leg up at stoppage. We couldn't get anything happening in our intercept game, Lever, Gawn and Grundy had 1 mark between them to half time. The metrics couldn't have suggested any more that we needed to make adjustments.

I know a lot of people called for us to sit someone on Butters but I think we could have nullified his impact by just leveling up some numbers at the stoppages, if a few more of his contested possessions were ours it could have been the difference. 

[layzie 28,748]

13 hours ago, jacey said:

It feels like when we won it, we wanted it to be the perfect pure clearance into fwd 50. It was wet and we fumbled and it got turned around as port went for territory.  

Exactly and in games where the rain is pelting down why on earth do you want the perfect clearance? Bang it in there and get to work on the ground or get some repeat forward 50 stoppages. 

The number of times I'd see an imminent takeaway from us in the middle turn out to be Port's was mind boggling. 

[dazzledavey36 48,771]

11 hours ago, A F said:

And yet we were in the top 4 for scores from turnover, scores from kick outs and scores from stoppages leading into the weekend.

Lose by 4 points and let's throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We're all free to hold our own positions on this, but the exact same arguments were also being had during the middle part and even the back end of 2021. 

Injury curtailed us in 2022, this year we've made some tweaks and it has us in good shape.

The easy position to take is the negative. I'd rather take the positive, constructive approach, but each to their own.

We're top 4 for majority of these stats because we've already played 3 of the worst teams in the comp plus two very average teams in Sydney and Richmond. Anyone can bump their stats up when you're playing Hawthorn, West Coast and North.

The pattern of concern is that we simply cannot get the job done against quality top 4 sides. 

Got completely smashed in clearences against Brisbane and then to see it all unfold again against Port shows that there is still a level of inconsistency and inability to mitigate the damage when teams get a roll on. 

Beat us in the clearence and you can score quickly against us just like Hawthorn did in the 3rd quarter. If we can rectify this from our game then yes, we too can score quickly as shown in the 3rd quarter against Port.

[layzie 28,748]

I'd rather have an extra win right now than be the top scoring team just quietly..

[Binmans PA 26,115]

4 hours ago, rpfc said:

I was pointing out our issues with defensive intensity in the forward half and possible fade out issue when we won 10 straight games, a few of us were; so winning does not mean we don’t have issues.

We look a lot better than last year and this season is so even so I am not panicking but that common refrain that whatever it is, they’ll sort it out’ is not an argument against critique - it’s an argument against bothering to log on here and talk about the Dees.

Of course we want them to work it out - we even give our own thoughts on the challenges we need to overcome.

And lastly, you say it’s easy to be negative, when it was apparently much easier last year to be the ‘Fox with the fire all around’ and say ‘it’s fine’, there was so much surprise on here when we went out in straight sets…

I'm pointing out that we're in the top 4 for pretty much everything, including the ladder itself, and the default, 'the sky is falling' position is not constructive and it's the easy position to take.

Everyone could see defensive intensity issues in the forward half last year. That was not an oracle moment. The predictable ball movement was also widely and rightly lamented. But injuries are what curtailed last year's premiership defence IMO. Not being 'worked out'. Most of our important players were carrying injuries into the second half of the year and then Trac broke his leg in that first final. Both finals were narrow losses, that if fully fit, wouldn't have happened IMO.

As we know, flags require a huge amount of luck and luck wasn't with us in 2022, whereas it certainly was in 2021.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to argue during 2022 that we'd sort things out as we had done the previous year, but the injuries and niggles to key players (think Clarry having his finger kicked off by Selwood in that huge game down at Geelong) were unforeseeable.

2023 is a completely different year. I'm not saying we don't have issues either. Our biggest problem IMO at the moment is our inability to win ground ball at either end. When we don't, our game completely breaks down.

We also need to find the right forward and defensive make up, but we still have time.

[Binmans PA 26,115]

16 hours ago, Watson11 said:

Is it just me or do others think Friday was an inept coaching performance.  I get all the commentary in this thread about having one less at a stoppage and relying on intercept, but wouldn’t you think that in Fridays conditions it was a night for territory.

But no, Goody stuck with -1 at stoppage and it was so frustrating.  We lost non centre clearances 30-20. It’s why i50s were 61-48 and that was the game (imagine the commentary on here if Ports 32 shots on goal ended up as 18 goals).

The problem is apparent in 2 stoppages in the last 4 minutes. In the first on our 50m arc, Port have a spare which I can live with But the ball goes down the other end, and Port have a stoppage on their 50m arc, shown. We had even numbers and put someone goal side which makes sense.  But we leave Port with a spare on the other side. Max can’t safely tap goal side so all night he tapped forward or more often straight to Ports spare.  It’s just insanity. They had several shots on goal or goal assists from these types of stoppages.  It make no sense why Goody would not push an extra to the stoppage like Port do, as Gawns tap is never going back toward goal so we are effectively outnumbered every time. 

This happened all night and imo cost us the game. We need to beat Collingwood this year who will be +2 at stoppages.

 

 

Disagree with the idea that Max is never going to tap goal side. He constantly tapped goal side, and does most weeks, and this is how we concede stoppage goals, because that tap draws pressure immediately and our mids never seem on the same page as Max. It cost us at least one goal the other night. 

Having said all that, it will be interesting to see if we tweak the system without Oliver. When you no longer have the best contested player in the competition, it's a risky move to go -2 or even -1 at the contest.

Edited May 22, 2023 by A F