Game Plan

[Jaded No More 68,915]

So, what is that game plan? Anyone know (no guesses please)? Most people watching have no idea what it is, nor apparently do the players.

Pray tell, at what point does the buck stop with Bailey. Its as if he's trying to turn a bunch of electricians into plumbers.

From everything I've heard and read, the game plan is to first and foremost be competitive.

Then the idea is to win the contested footy and to run the ball forward as quickly as possible, usually by means of handballing. How difficult is that to execute?

The buck does not stop with Bailey after 4 rounds. Heaven help us if a coach doesn't get at least two years before supporters start calling for blood.

I think Bailey is trying to turn a bunch of sooks into a decent football team.

Unless you can come up with a better way of doing that, I think you should leave the game planning up to people who actually know the players and understand what the team needs to more forward. A lazy, selfish, uncommitted game plan was tried for many years and failed. Time to move on.

If our supporters can't handle a rough year the way many rebuilding clubs have experienced, they can go support some rich soccer club overseas where success is guaranteed every season.

There won't (financially) be a club within 1 year at this rate, let alone 4.

And how many more years will we survive without winning a premiership?

[beelzebub 23,370]

Coaching is more than a new tactic, and like it or lump it. Any clown can come up the "new solution"; the hard part is getting it to work with the resources you have.

Then change the resources !! The clever pig figured that one out !! lol

As some of the kids get more time under belts and show something ..the whaet will sort itself from the chaff. Bailey will gradually get more and better resources. end of year.. another chance to upgrade resources.

[mo64 5,874]

From everything I've heard and read, the game plan is to first and foremost be competitive.

Then the idea is to win the contested footy and to run the ball forward as quickly as possible, usually by means of handballing. How difficult is that to execute?

Well if the game plan is to be competitive, it's not working.

And if you run and carry via handball, the greater the opportunity for the opposition to dispossess you via pressure. The turnover causes your teammates to be out of position, and be seen to be unaccountable. So unless you have super-skilled elusive midfielders, you are kidding yourself if you think it can work.

The Eagles are a case in point. Without Judd and Cousins, how well does their run and carry game plan hold up?

[Hellaintabadplacetobe 4,294]

Without trying to be a smartarse , do any of you know what the gameplan is ?? Enlighten me cos I honestly cant figure it out. Also , these rotations are seriously outta control. I watched Wheels come onto the ground once today, got about 30m out and turned around and ask where he was playing!

[beelzebub 23,370]

I think another way of looking at al this is that in order to carry out what Baileys ideally wants the team to play he needs players who have :

1) Ability and skills

2) fitness

3) commitment and competitiveness

its not a case of 2 out of three aint bad !!..The game needs all 3 !! from all players. What we are now seeing is who passes and who's failing that bar !!

[mo64 5,874]

I think another way of looking at al this is that in order to carry out what Baileys ideally wants the team to play he needs players who have :

1) Ability and skills

2) fitness

3) commitment and competitiveness

its not a case of 2 out of three aint bad !!..The game needs all 3 !! from all players. What we are now seeing is who passes and who's failing that bar !!

1) Ability and skills - If Bailey doesn't believe that he has the players with the ability and skills to carry out his plan, how many drafts does he think it will take until he does?

2) Fitness is a given. Can't be used an excuse.

3) Commitment and competitiveness comes with belief. Without belief in what you're doing, comes frustration (refer MFC players).

[Hellaintabadplacetobe 4,294]

I think another way of looking at al this is that in order to carry out what Baileys ideally wants the team to play he needs players who have :

1) Ability and skills

2) fitness

3) commitment and competitiveness

its not a case of 2 out of three aint bad !!..The game needs all 3 !! from all players. What we are now seeing is who passes and who's failing that bar !!

2 outta 3 would be F#*^%g fantastic . We are currently 0

[rpfc 28,417]

Some of you blokes are letting the players off too easy.

It was the same under Daniher; blame the coach when the players are the ones with no leadership skills, poor decision making abilities, and an inability to perform the most simple tasks under any pressure.

They handball to blokes standing still (the entire backline), they handball to blokes about to get tackled (Miller, Bruce, Jones), the handball to blokes' feet (McLean, Green, Wheatley). They kick indiscriminately (Green, Robbo, C.Johnson), they kick to the wrong side of their teammates(entire team), and they kick poorly full stop (C.Johnson, Jones, Robbo).

[rpfc 28,417]

The Senior Player Deadline

Round 6 is coming up and the average age of the side on saturday was 24.5 years. Valenti should play (and someone should retire) and Frawley, Buckley, Bate, Maric, Petterd, Moloney, Cheney, Meesen, Newton, McNamara, Martin, and Bode could not be worse than these blokes.

We are all rambling a bit after the loss but the older 'senior' players need to be moved out for players who might help us get a flag: Carroll (has been our best but is not going to be around when we are decent), Wheatley (half good, but again longevity and 'as a defender, he's one hell of a wingman', C.Johnson (no reason required), Miller (OOC in '09 - amazing), Neitz (great career; its over), Robertson (OOC in 2009 - has been awful), Whelan (injury ravaged, longevity), and White (last year anyway). That's 8 with Jamar to follow when P.Johnson is fit.

Only Bruce, Green and Macca get a pass because one is a leader and the other two should be preserved for trade week, if they are worth anything.

Bring in Frawley, Cheney, McNamara, Meesen, Petterd, Bate, Newton, Maric, and Valenti and our average age falls by three years.

[Rhino Richards 1,467]

Ok I'll answer it. 25, there happy?

If freewheeling football is the best way for our players to kick a winning score, then that's the way we should play. Give the players license to be attacking, rather than having the mindset of negative accountability. As i've written ad nauseum, the players appear to be focussing too much on doing the "Bailey thing", rather than playing instinctively. In turn, their confidence is shot. If Moloney was dropped after round 1 for his lack of accountability, it was a disgrace.

It's probably lost on you Rhino that a team actually has to kick goals to win a match. But that's not important to you, as long as the players are accountable.

Mo64 as 2004, 2005 and 2006 proved that the "freewheeling game" you desire delivers at best a MOR outcome which allows players on their merits to front run the ball and not be accountable for either their disposal or their opponent. Its facilitates the kick it to me culture and the raft of cheap uncontested possessions.

Good teams Mo, good teams that make serious bids in September habitually dismantle us.

Guess what Mo, in the past 3 years, the game has changed. No kidding Mo it has.

The game is faster captured by the immediate play after a point and the high level of rotations. Players are running harder with few stationery positions on the ground. The ground is smaller as player cover so much territory. This means that there is also far more pressure on the ball carrier.

To combat this you need to have 22 players focussed, skilled and committed to hard running, good decision making, strong defensive pressure to be successful. Unfortunately your freewheeling gamestyle harbours other traits and in todays football would have you cut down.

What has been obvious under Daniher (he noted the game had changed too) and what Bailey is trying to find out is what players can commit to the modern game and which players show the character that is the essence of successful teams?

Now that gets back to the list Mo. And its pretty good I hear But you wouldn't rank it against other teams. And no wonder. Outside Richmond and Carlton, we look systemically inferior across a number of fronts. We are low ranking in every area.

There are some pretty incisive questions being asked here and elsewhere about MFC list management. Bailey knows the holes that are there. He wants to assess the character behind the cattle.

It should be eye opening to you Mo (I said should be) that players cant do what is being demanded by the Club played by nearly every other Club. It should be a hint on the quality of some on the list.

And I agree confidence is shot. But the only way to improve on confidence is to practice, practice and get it right.

BTW, good point on WCE. They have lost arguably 2 players who had the stayed would have been possibly the greatest Eagles ever. They are gone. Embley is gone to. When you lose skill of the calibre of that players you need to develop the other players. They dont have the cattle to do it. Its not the game plan. Or do you think they should play a modified kick to kick game?

[Rhino Richards 1,467]

1) Ability and skills - If Bailey doesn't believe that he has the players with the ability and skills to carry out his plan, how many drafts does he think it will take until he does?

2) Fitness is a given. Can't be used an excuse.

3) Commitment and competitiveness comes with belief. Without belief in what you're doing, comes frustration (refer MFC players).

Mo,

I think there are areas of the list that good and salvageable for the future. But FFS, its list without leadership, senior player have been retained beyond their useful life, younger players have not had the development necessary, we have a lack of pace in the midfield and are one paced, we have no key bigman. Aside from Rivers our goal to goal line is questionable or non existent.

I think some players have got a rude awakening about what todays football is all about. Many of the so called quality players on our list have not worked out that you can no longer motor along. Some dont have the engine.

Our so called free wheeling game you like did not provide the goals you want. It shows how little the players know about this with their on field struggles.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

Mo64 as 2004, 2005 and 2006 proved that the "freewheeling game" you desire delivers at best a MOR outcome

That's not true.

In those years, when Melbourne played their best football (i.e. tended to win) they were playing the free flowing game. You will find that in just about all the games they lost they were chipping the ball around and weren't playing that attacking, free flowing game.

[52k2 0]

A couple of things to remember, hawthorn and geelong took time to rebuild its paid off for geelong and hawthorn dont look half bad either, on the previous posts people have said it will proberly take us years for it to pay off for us as well. Great now I know why I save MFC memburillia[something like that] because if it takes us years to improve memorabilia[found a dictionary] might be all we have left,going to a fair today to try and find more membership cards.

Yes I go to every game 6 this year and yes I will be there next week tearing what little hair left. BUT THE BIG QUESTION REMAINS DO WE HAVE THE YEARS NECESSARY FINANCE WISE TO REBUILD.

[Hards 2]

Our gameplan in those winning years was free wheeling but it wasn't the finished product. Players with less skill needed to be replaced (Godfrey, Ward), we needed a couple of harder bodies in the middle (eg Jones), and we needed to strengthen the defense.

When Geelong made the PF in 04 they didn't just chuck the system out because they didn't win the flag. They moulded it, adapted it, looked internally and solved their problems.

That's what we should have done at the start of 07. Given that year was a write off with injuries, a fresh approach at the start of 08 should have focused on building on what was built from 04-06.

To say that we wouldn't have gone anywhere with the style we had is imo way off track. If Brisbane had done the same in 1999, if Sydney had in 03 or West Coast had in 04 they wouldn't have won Premierships. We set ourselves on a course that with the right additions to the playing list and the right adaptions of the gameplan we had a chance at futher success in these years.

If that setup is to be torn down to build around Bailey's gameplan, it will take 5-7 years. Why so long? We need draft picks to use on players that suit the Bailey mould, and due to the new teams in West Sydney and the Gold Coast concession picks will make it harder to rebuild through the draft than normal.

And re the players escaping blame, far from it. They like any playing list have faults, but they need to be playing in a system where their talents can be utalised. People keep calling for Robbo to be dropped - he's getting his touches at half back not because its where he should be getting them but where he's being instructed to go. His greatest asset is being a tough matchup for any backline in our F50. He shouldn't be the only target, but he should be leading off Neitz and getting his man one on one. In the last quarter yesterday he did just that, and I don't think too many people missed the sarcastic hand clap directed at the coaches box when he goaled from a lead and mark late in the game.

Petulant and childish? Perhaps.

Correct? Absolutely.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

...

Brilliant post. I wanted to write something similar last night (probably not as good), but that says it all.

Well done.

[Jarka 767]

This year was always going to be a transitional season, I predicted that we'd be a bottom 4 team however I admittedly didn't think we'd be this bad.

Bailey has got a couple of issues to deal with and realistically one pre-season is not enough time to address them all. Sure the game plan hasn't clicked yet but with this current group of players is it hardly that surprising?

IMO the issues are:

1. Leadership - Our current leaders don't influence games. This has been a problem for about 4 seasons.

2. KPP's - Bigger bodied forwards have always kicked big bags against us and we lack the big forwards to take the contested marks in the F50 and kick goals.

3. Midfield depth - We have about 3 genuine mids on our list - McDonald, McLean & Jones. (I'm hoping we can add Grimes next year)

4. Skill - It's sad that we get excitied about players who can actually hit a target and able to take a couple of contested marks.

5. Mentally soft - We get smashed and we don't work hard when we don't have the ball, once again this is not something new.

The game plan is the least of our worries.

[52k2 0]

I dont know whether Robbo was clapping the coaches box or the player who passed him the ball[cant remember who],because that player was immediately interchanged for kicking such a good pass.

The interchange area was in a direct line with the coaches box, funny that?

[mo64 5,874]

Our gameplan in those winning years was free wheeling but it wasn't the finished product. Players with less skill needed to be replaced (Godfrey, Ward), we needed a couple of harder bodies in the middle (eg Jones), and we needed to strengthen the defense.

When Geelong made the PF in 04 they didn't just chuck the system out because they didn't win the flag. They moulded it, adapted it, looked internally and solved their problems.

That's what we should have done at the start of 07. Given that year was a write off with injuries, a fresh approach at the start of 08 should have focused on building on what was built from 04-06.

To say that we wouldn't have gone anywhere with the style we had is imo way off track. If Brisbane had done the same in 1999, if Sydney had in 03 or West Coast had in 04 they wouldn't have won Premierships. We set ourselves on a course that with the right additions to the playing list and the right adaptions of the gameplan we had a chance at futher success in these years.

If that setup is to be torn down to build around Bailey's gameplan, it will take 5-7 years. Why so long? We need draft picks to use on players that suit the Bailey mould, and due to the new teams in West Sydney and the Gold Coast concession picks will make it harder to rebuild through the draft than normal.

And re the players escaping blame, far from it. They like any playing list have faults, but they need to be playing in a system where their talents can be utalised. People keep calling for Robbo to be dropped - he's getting his touches at half back not because its where he should be getting them but where he's being instructed to go. His greatest asset is being a tough matchup for any backline in our F50. He shouldn't be the only target, but he should be leading off Neitz and getting his man one on one. In the last quarter yesterday he did just that, and I don't think too many people missed the sarcastic hand clap directed at the coaches box when he goaled from a lead and mark late in the game.

Petulant and childish? Perhaps.

Correct? Absolutely.

Summed it up perfectly Hards.

And Rhino, in regards to West Coast, you need players of the ilk of Judd and Cousins to make their game plan work. They're generational players, and you're not going to find replacements for them in the next 20 years. So what do you do? Based on your theory, you persist with the game plan until someone comes along that can emulate Judd and Cousins. My theory is that you work with what you've got, and try to make improvements by enhancing your list.

In regards to leadership, everyone was saying that Geelong lacked leadership prior to 2007. Their best player in the GF is also their most ill disciplined player. For mine, leadership is not the biggest issue. The game plan is.

The game has changed, and by the time Bailey get's his playing list to suit his game plan, it will be outdated, because the game is constantly changing.

[Mono 455]

Summed it up perfectly Hards.

And Rhino, in regards to West Coast, you need players of the ilk of Judd and Cousins to make their game plan work. They're generational players, and you're not going to find replacements for them in the next 20 years. So what do you do? Based on your theory, you persist with the game plan until someone comes along that can emulate Judd and Cousins. My theory is that you work with what you've got, and try to make improvements by enhancing your list.

In regards to leadership, everyone was saying that Geelong lacked leadership prior to 2007. Their best player in the GF is also their most ill disciplined player. For mine, leadership is not the biggest issue. The game plan is.

The game has changed, and by the time Bailey get's his playing list to suit his game plan, it will be outdated, because the game is constantly changing.

Another terrific post.

[Rhino Richards 1,467]

That's not true.

In those years, when Melbourne played their best football (i.e. tended to win) they were playing the free flowing game. You will find that in just about all the games they lost they were chipping the ball around and weren't playing that attacking, free flowing game.

Sorry Clint but it is when you look at bigger picture you are wrong...again.

In those same years why did we cave in continually in August and September against harder accountable team. Does not bear thinking about lest it shatters your dream?

And Rhino, in regards to West Coast, you need players of the ilk of Judd and Cousins to make their game plan work. They're generational players, and you're not going to find replacements for them in the next 20 years. So what do you do? Based on your theory, you persist with the game plan until someone comes along that can emulate Judd and Cousins. My theory is that you work with what you've got, and try to make improvements by enhancing your list.

In regards to leadership, everyone was saying that Geelong lacked leadership prior to 2007. Their best player in the GF is also their most ill disciplined player. For mine, leadership is not the biggest issue. The game plan is.

The game has changed, and by the time Bailey get's his playing list to suit his game plan, it will be outdated, because the game is constantly changing.

No you dont Mo.

Adelaide do it. Western Bulldogs do it. Geelong does it.

None of them have generational players. And misstating my argument is akin to your knowledge of game plans.....superficial

Prior to 2007, Geelong was a talented team with too many players playing for themselves...Mooney, Hunt and Johnson. Its ironic that Johnson starts committing to the team, becomes selfless and is actually very very disciplined on the ground. Mooney the same. Do you think we could get that out of Yze and Co. Geelong was let down by individuals. Its interesting that the punishment that the Geelong leadership group imposed on Johnson turn him around. Leadership is an important and is part of boiled egg culture at MFC.

Its amazing you claim that the game has changed and go for a plan that was flawed and out of date. Ironic isnt it?

[Mono 455]

BUT THE BIG QUESTION REMAINS DO WE HAVE THE YEARS NECESSARY FINANCE WISE TO REBUILD.

NO! Not if we keep getting flogged, AND puting up pathetic displays.

[Bruce Almighty 0]

seriously...

it is obvious to everyone we don't have the skill and ability to execute Bailey's game plan...we turned the ball over so many times today handballing when we should have kicked it...i am sick of everyone saying "we need time"...the way we are playing we WILL NOT WIN A GAME THIS YEAR!!!!!

pre-season and 4 games into the year we haven't even won a QUARTER of football...coach has a lot to answer for...if i hear that he is excited for the future in his press conference I WILL F'N SCREAM!!!!!

The "Game Plan" is not rocket science, and Bailey has stated numerous times that all he is asking the players to do differently is be competitive and accountable. The players at this level should never be given accolades for their talent because they all have talent, rather its the amount of effort they put in that they should be given accolades for. it is safe to say that the amount of turnovers/skill errors that we make is simply caused by the lack of concentration and effort the players are putting in. Bailey will be a good coach but first he has to change the culture at the club, and weed out the players that are not switched on.

[mo64 5,874]

The "Game Plan" is not rocket science, and Bailey has stated numerous times that all he is asking the players to do differently is be competitive and accountable. The players at this level should never be given accolades for their talent because they all have talent, rather its the amount of effort they put in that they should be given accolades for. it is safe to say that the amount of turnovers/skill errors that we make is simply caused by the lack of concentration and effort the players are putting in. Bailey will be a good coach but first he has to change the culture at the club, and weed out the players that are not switched on.

Then define competitive and accountable specifically in a "game plan" sense?

[Mono 455]

The "Game Plan" is not rocket science, and Bailey has stated numerous times that all he is asking the players to do differently is be competitive and accountable.

Differently from what? Every coach asks that. I could do that.

[Jaded No More 68,915]

Differently from what? Every coach asks that. I could do that.

Yet our players can't.

That they won't sustain a consistent effort over 4 quarters is not the fault of the game plan, or the rotations or how much hair Bailey has lost since taking the senior job.

It is the fault of our players who give up too easily, don't go hard enough when it is their turn and don't want to be accountable for their opponent. We've been doing the same thing for years. It's why we fade towards the end of quarters/matches/seasons.

Bailey wants to change all of that by any means possible and if that means we have to suffer big defeats along the way, than so be it.