POSTGAME: Rd 05 vs Brisbane

[In Harmes Way 7,730]

Goody will have to contend with every other coach using this game as a blueprint to beat us. Win it in the guts and off you go.

[Dodos Demons 235]

21 hours ago, binman said:

Apply Occam's razor.

The hypothesis that requires the fewest possible assumptions (without internal intel) is that we were physically cooked from the get go (illness or conditioning, who knows).  Time will tell.  

[titan_uranus 24,963]

11 hours ago, In Harmes Way said:

Goody will have to contend with every other coach using this game as a blueprint to beat us. Win it in the guts and off you go.

I find this sort of reaction to our losses funny. Each time it's "we've been worked out", "this is the blueprint". Most of the time the result was brought about by something different anyway. We haven't been beaten this badly in the middle in 5+ years.

At any rate, the idea that smashing us in the middle puts you in a good place to beat us is hardly earth-shattering, is it?

It's almost akin to saying "the blueprint to beating Melbourne is to play really well".

[Engorged Onion 10,215]

56 minutes ago, titan_uranus said:

I find this sort of reaction to our losses funny. Each time it's "we've been worked out", "this is the blueprint". Most of the time the result was brought about by something different anyway. We haven't been beaten this badly in the middle in 5+ years.

At any rate, the idea that smashing us in the middle puts you in a good place to beat us is hardly earth-shattering, is it?

It's almost akin to saying "the blueprint to beating Melbourne is to play really well".

Agreed.
Brisbanes midfield is very very good - if else we are going to be objective as a supporter base. Other teams may have the ideal of a blueprint just not the athletes to actually pull it off. We’ve been very very fortunate to have the players we have had in the midfield perform exceptionally consistently over many years now. This one (whilst consistent with trends/themes around clearances in 2024) felt like one out of the box. 

Edited April 14 by Engorged Onion

[Left Foot Snap 2,384]

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

I find this sort of reaction to our losses funny. Each time it's "we've been worked out", "this is the blueprint". Most of the time the result was brought about by something different anyway. We haven't been beaten this badly in the middle in 5+ years.

At any rate, the idea that smashing us in the middle puts you in a good place to beat us is hardly earth-shattering, is it?

It's almost akin to saying "the blueprint to beating Melbourne is to play really well".

The thing that concerned me with this game from a tactical point of view is that Brisbane rushed up to shut down any efforts to release out the front of the stoppage. Combined with the usual tactic of bring manic pressure at the contected ball against us, it seemed to shut down our ability to release a bit of of pressure from the skirmish. They were set, had a plan and came to play. We didn't catch on that our 1 wood had been stolen.

[At Least I Saw a Flag 5,218]

37 minutes ago, Left Foot Snap said:

The thing that concerned me with this game from a tactical point of view is that Brisbane rushed up to shut down any efforts to release out the front of the stoppage. Combined with the usual tactic of bring manic pressure at the contected ball against us, it seemed to shut down our ability to release a bit of of pressure from the skirmish. They were set, had a plan and came to play. We didn't catch on that our 1 wood had been stolen.

"A plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel."

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=d479c9d490b2d7ef&sca_upv=1&rlz=1C1GCEU_enAU823AU847&tbm=vid&sxsrf=ACQVn09ObaIlJCvwd-JuQYUAPvV3Zu_YZA:1713070382625&q=baldrick+i+have+a+cunning+plan&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYtIa99MCFAxXKimMGHUhMDqEQ8ccDegQIEhAF&biw=1366&bih=625&dpr=1#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:0d78ed21,vid:Gp5St7hORyw,st:0

[Kent 2,905]

We are playing a poor style that wastes energy in my view

No where near attacking enough and the forwards system is non existent

Richmond could test us if we don't take the game on

[Demonland 71,131]

 

[At the break of Gawn 4,460]

On 14/04/2024 at 08:52, Dodos Demons said:

The hypothesis that requires the fewest possible assumptions (without internal intel) is that we were physically cooked from the get go (illness or conditioning, who knows).  Time will tell.  

Or that we were just beaten by a better team? They have basically had our measure since the ‘22 Semi final (won 3 of the last 4 and could easily be 4-0 if not for a miracle comeback).

[monoccular 17,409]

On 13/04/2024 at 12:19, samcantstandya said:

Our forwards are too static and predictable. They clump together and make it easy for their opponents to defend. Also going to the pockets makes it less pressured for them as well. Would like a new forward approach and definitely a new coach going forward. Stafford played in the ruck and his coaching shows that. 

Have we ever tried having the forwards disperse in all directions especially in a set shot (mark or free) from midfield.  Each would have to drag a defender.  Kick it in low, even if into space.  Going high makes the defenders’ life easy, and subjects our forwards to being repeatedly crunched. 

On 13/04/2024 at 15:10, He de mon said:

We won 7 out of 10 games without Oliver last year. Clearly there is some depth.

As I recall we did have Gus and Salem for most if not all of those games.   Suck depth of experience us hard to suddenly replace. 

[chook fowler 19,432]

32 minutes ago, Demonland said:

surprise surprise

 

[old dee 23,704]

Unlike the previous 4 weeks I was sulking on friday and saturday. Really no interest in sport then came late Saturday and all of a sudden the losing of a game of football became very small. Yesterday all I could think of was " it could have been my daughter, my wife, my grandchildren. What sort of world am I leaving my grandchildren? Thank god for sport it will help over the next week to escape the real world. 

[roy11 3,825]

53 minutes ago, Demonland said:

 

Assume they'll try say it was low impact and not medium impact?

When we appealed for Kozzie the tribunal concluded that the contact had the potential to cause injury, surely the same logic should apply for a dangerous tackle?

[binman 42,496]

On 12/04/2024 at 19:34, binman said:

Yep, sums up the game in a nutshell.

Fairly predictable the level of henny penny, sky is falling reactions in this post match thread.

I'm sure there was a similar level of angst on the swans Demonland equivalent after they were completely woeful in their loss to a very average tigers outfit.

But as objective footy fans, I'm pretty confident few Demonland posters think that very disappointing loss is evidence the swans are no good, won't make top 4, can't win the flag etc etc.

Similarly, when one of the other real contenders - giants, Port, blues and cats - inevitably lose a match they are favourites to win, few will argue that's evidence they can't win a flag.

Nice of the blues to make my point so soon by losing a home game against the winless and hapless Crows.

But seriously, how many posters actually objectively think that loss is evidence the Blues are not contenders, won't make top 4 and can't win the flag?

And the giants were very lucky to win at home against a middle of the road saints. Yes they won, but if the dees won a home game against the Saints in such an unconvincing fashion there would be plenty of DL posters saying it was evidence we are not contenders. 

[Engorged Onion 10,215]

From the lovely guy that is Andrew Stafford in The Age

"Spare a thought for Petracca and Oliver. Both were far below their best, with 38 possessions and just three clearances combined for the match. But the Dees were playing their third game in just 13 days, after backing up a narrow win over Port Adelaide on March 30 with a 15-point victory over the Crows on April 4 for Gather Round. Both games were Adelaide Oval.

Is it any wonder they looked flatter than the Nullarbor? The early start to the season – with eight teams playing opening round and byes everywhere you look – has resulted in some deeply iniquitous scheduling. Collingwood also played three games in 13 days after a shortened pre-season. They will play another three in 13 after their bye this week.

The fixture is contentious enough already without placing such insane demands on the athletes, who need adequate time to recover between half-marathons. Moreover, the staggered schedule means it won’t be until the end of round seven – when all 18 teams will have played the same amount of games for the first time this year – that we will truly know where clubs sit on the ladder.

In an attempt to compete with the NRL’s Las Vegas adventure, the AFL has only succeeded in further distorting the fixture picture in a way that serves no one except broadcasters."

[Adam The God 30,073]

15 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

From the lovely guy that is Andrew Stafford in The Age

"Spare a thought for Petracca and Oliver. Both were far below their best, with 38 possessions and just three clearances combined for the match. But the Dees were playing their third game in just 13 days, after backing up a narrow win over Port Adelaide on March 30 with a 15-point victory over the Crows on April 4 for Gather Round. Both games were Adelaide Oval.

Is it any wonder they looked flatter than the Nullarbor? The early start to the season – with eight teams playing opening round and byes everywhere you look – has resulted in some deeply iniquitous scheduling. Collingwood also played three games in 13 days after a shortened pre-season. They will play another three in 13 after their bye this week.

The fixture is contentious enough already without placing such insane demands on the athletes, who need adequate time to recover between half-marathons. Moreover, the staggered schedule means it won’t be until the end of round seven – when all 18 teams will have played the same amount of games for the first time this year – that we will truly know where clubs sit on the ladder.

In an attempt to compete with the NRL’s Las Vegas adventure, the AFL has only succeeded in further distorting the fixture picture in a way that serves no one except broadcasters."

Nah, what's he saying? How dare he proffer that fitness has anything to do with the result. Why doesn't he just come out and say we're loading?! Bloody excuse maker.

[Dodos Demons 235]

1 hour ago, At the break of Gawn said:

Or that we were just beaten by a better team? They have basically had our measure since the ‘22 Semi final (won 3 of the last 4 and could easily be 4-0 if not for a miracle comeback).

Definitely agree we were beaten by a better team but at the game the players definitely looked flat, slower, fumbly and hesitant. Don’t know if that can all be put down to them being a better team or applying more pressure. We looked a completely different side to the one that played Port only a week or so earlier. 

[Deemania since 56 6,605]

On 14/04/2024 at 00:58, In Harmes Way said:

Goody will have to contend with every other coach using this game as a blueprint to beat us. Win it in the guts and off you go.

The writing was clearly on the wall with Brizzy's successes against us in the recent past. Again, we had no plan B, plan C, mid-game Plan D. 

[Deemania since 56 6,605]

1 hour ago, monoccular said:

Have we ever tried having the forwards disperse in all directions especially in a set shot (mark or free) from midfield.  Each would have to drag a defender.  Kick it in low, even if into space.  Going high makes the defenders’ life easy, and subjects our forwards to being repeatedly crunched. 

Precisely! Prongs in all directions other than in the goal hot zone. Two players do it well, just two: Chandler and ANB. The rest pretend to clear and protect, crowd and populate chaos. Midfielders do not run on, either, missing certain prongs and overlooking such initiatives across the forward line. Our goal shooting is horse droppings as our foot passing is always sacrificed for the hope-and-a-prayer of our 'lovely' long kicks to weakness. 

[Jaded No More 68,855]

Brisbane certainly has the wood over us, have had for a while now.

The problem is that they have such an elite forwardline, that even our elite defense can't hold them to under 80 points, which means we have to be better than them in attack. Unfortunately that has not happened often, as they frequently manage to break even or beat us in the centre, leaving our forwardline with not enough quality entries to put a big enough score on the board. 

I feel like the same applies to Carlton in the last couple of years. Lucky for us May always competes exceptionally well against Curnow. 

[binman 42,496]

2 hours ago, Engorged Onion said:

From the lovely guy that is Andrew Stafford in The Age

"Spare a thought for Petracca and Oliver. Both were far below their best, with 38 possessions and just three clearances combined for the match. But the Dees were playing their third game in just 13 days, after backing up a narrow win over Port Adelaide on March 30 with a 15-point victory over the Crows on April 4 for Gather Round. Both games were Adelaide Oval.

Is it any wonder they looked flatter than the Nullarbor? The early start to the season – with eight teams playing opening round and byes everywhere you look – has resulted in some deeply iniquitous scheduling. Collingwood also played three games in 13 days after a shortened pre-season. They will play another three in 13 after their bye this week.

The fixture is contentious enough already without placing such insane demands on the athletes, who need adequate time to recover between half-marathons. Moreover, the staggered schedule means it won’t be until the end of round seven – when all 18 teams will have played the same amount of games for the first time this year – that we will truly know where clubs sit on the ladder.

In an attempt to compete with the NRL’s Las Vegas adventure, the AFL has only succeeded in further distorting the fixture picture in a way that serves no one except broadcasters."

Brilliant.

Finally a footy journo makes the bog obvious point about the impact of the insane aerobic demands on AFL players in the modern game.

I love this line:

'The fixture is contentious enough already without placing such insane demands on the athletes, who need adequate time to recover between half-marathons'

And even more importantly factors the impact of those demands into their analysis of the game.

The job of footy journos is helping fans understand the game. They do fans a complete disservice if they ignore a critical factor like physical readiness and the impact of fatigue on performance. 

Take the loss to the Lions. What are the reasons we lost?

In the this thread factors such as poor coaching, poor selection, players mentally not strong enough, smashed at the contest, not enough pressure and not running two ways have all been highlighted. And fair enough too, all are potential factors.  

But if the impact of fatigue is also not factored into any analysis of our performance, you are only left with such factors as potential reasons for the loss. Which means the assessment is off.

For example our all team defence is incredibly taxing, as is winning the clearance count, as is applying elite pressure, as is setting up one down at stoppages etc etc etc.

Logic says that if the players are fatigued, these, and other key elements of our method will be more difficult to implement (which will be reflected in the stats) and our chances of winning will decrease.

Factoring in fatigue is not making excuses, it is simply ensuring all potential reasons for a performance are considered. 

Were the dees fatigued against the lions? The eye test says yes, absolutely.

What was the cause of the fatigue? Who knows.

Perhaps, as Stafford suggests it was simply that we were playing our third game in just 13 days, which included a physically draining and intense win over Port Adelaide and backing up 5 days later to beat the Crows.

It is clear they targeted those games and in order to maximise our chances of winning both they would have designed their high performance program to peak for both games. If so, is it possible to then be in peak shape for the Lions game? 

Or perhaps in addition to the above, we also took the opportunity to get a heavy training block in ahead of our bye to take advantage of the two week week break to the tigers game (ie, so players have time to recover and taper)?

That may not be the case of course, but equally it shouldn't be rejected out of hand. 

In that context, as another poster noted, it's worth noting the pre bye record of the teams that played in the OR:

• Dees: 22 point loss to the lions
• Lions: 23 point loss to Freo
• Suns: 48 point loss to the dogs
• Tigers: 39 point loss to the Eagles
• Pies: led the hawks at half time by 38 points, stopped to a walk in the second half, only kicking 2 goals (none in the last) to luckily scrape in by 2 points
• Blues: scrappy, lucky 5 point win over the tigers
• Swans: beat west coast by 26 (having lost to the tigers the previous week)
• Giants: thumped Eagles

Edited April 15 by binman

[Garbo 1,517]

1 hour ago, binman said:

Brilliant.

Finally a footy journo makes the bog obvious point about the impact of the insane aerobic demands on AFL players in the modern game.

I love this line:

'The fixture is contentious enough already without placing such insane demands on the athletes, who need adequate time to recover between half-marathons'

And even more importantly factors the impact of those demands into their analysis of the game.

The job of footy journos is helping fans understand the game. They do fans a complete disservice if they ignore a critical factor like physical readiness and the impact of fatigue on performance. 

Take the loss to the Lions. What are the reasons we lost?

In the post match thread factors such as poor coaching, poor selection, players mentally not strong enough, smashed at the contest, not enough pressure and not running two ways have all been highlighted. And fair enough too. 

But if the impact of fatigue is also not factored into any analysis of our performance, you are only left with such factors as potential reasons for the loss. Which means the assessment is off.

For example our all team defence is incredibly taxing, as is winning the clearance count, as is applying elite pressure, as is setting up one down at stoppages etc etc etc.

Logic says that if the players are fatigued, these, and other key elements of our method will be more difficult to implement (which will be reflected in the stats) and our chances of winning will decrease.

Factoring in fatigue is not making excuses, it is simply ensuring all potential reasons for a performance are considered. 

Were the dees fatigued against the lions? The eye test says yes, absolutely.

What was the cause of the fatigue? Who knows.

Perhaps, as Stafford suggests it was simply that we were playing our third game in just 13 days, which included a physically draining and intense win over Port Adelaide and backing up 5 days later to beat the Crows.

It is clear they targeted those games and in order to maximise our chances of winning both they would have designed their high performance program to peak for both games. If so, is it possible to then be in peak shape for the Lions game? 

Or perhaps in addition to the above, we also took the opportunity to get a heavy training block in ahead of our bye to take advantage of the two week week break to the tigers game (ie, so players have time to recover and taper)?

That may not be the case of course, but equally it shouldn't be rejected out of hand. 

Who is the bright spark that would sign off on a heavy training load if that is even a thing and who makes no changes other than what was forced going into the game when a number of players are carrying injuries.

 

[binman 42,496]

42 minutes ago, Garbo said:

Who is the bright spark that would sign off on a heavy training load if that is even a thing and who makes no changes other than what was forced going into the game when a number of players are carrying injuries.

 

Totally reasonable questions.

Which point to another aspect to not ignoring the issue of fatigue.

If you accept fatigue plays a big role in the outcome of any given match then it is reasonable to critique the performance of the high performance team, decisions like not bringing in fresher players  (eg would Laurie have been a better option than Clarry?) or target specific games at the potential expense of others. 

[Engorged Onion 10,215]

2 hours ago, binman said:

Finally a footy journo makes the bog obvious point about the impact of the insane aerobic demands on AFL players in the modern game.

Andrew has led an interesting life and likes to challenge the status quo... hence the willingness to not tow the line...

Does great music reviews as well :)

[binman 42,496]

38 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

Andrew has led an interesting life and likes to challenge the status quo... hence the willingness to not tow the line...

Does great music reviews as well :)

I used to know an Andrew Stafford as a teenager. Was a big music fan.

How old is this Andrew Stafford?

Scratch that. Just read the info at the link. Different dude.

Edited April 15 by binman