Watson11

You missed the most important - When the game is on the line stand up and lead. We are lacking that from all our leaders at the moment, Max included. Max needs to get a bit of Lebron James into him and want to be the match winner. He should be wanting to clunk a few in front and want to kick them, especially in last quarters. He is more than capable.

For the total buy in I actually think the club needs an independent review before next season. Two reasons. One to support the path that got set 5 years ago which I don’t buy was wrong or is wrong. 6-6-6 has not had that big an impact but has had some. It would be a disaster to throw out the contested style. It stands up in finals, but can also fall apart if you have poor structures as we saw in last years prelim. It just needs refinement. Two, to get player feedback without fear of recriminations. Understand exactly what the players are thinking after this years disaster and then address it as a group and get total buy in on how to play. If that doesn’t happen then I fear for next year as well.

Most sensible post I’ve seen on demonland in 12 months. For all the “experts” on this site that are slamming the game plan, to me it looks like almost every team plays a similar game plan in wanting to win contested possession and clearances, get it forward and then score. Pretty simple. Richmond seem to be the exception in that they concede they are battlers in the ruck and so don’t mind losing contested possession and clearances as long as they pressure like mad and intercept. It can come undone spectacularly though as it did in the prelim last year. The second part of a game plan is how to lock it in and there are only minor differences between teams but it makes a huge difference. Geelong and Richmond are the best at it. They always have a full back and almost never get scored against out the back. We give up way too many easy goals out the back. Frustrates me no end when we turn it over in our forward 50, it is obvious we are caught out and everyone runs forward to stop the first kick to an open player and it pops over the top all the way to a goal. What’s wrong with conceding one or two easy kicks to the wing but ensuring there are no easy kicks forward of centre like Geelong and Richmond do, and definitely making sure we always have Jake Lever or similar goal side to stop the easy out the back. Forward half turnovers are the major score source for all teams, so I suspect our coaching group are so obsessed with creating turnovers in our forward half that they can’t see the woods for the trees. The other part of a game plan is what teams do when the ball goes into your defensive 50 and you intercept or kick in from a point. Two distinct game plans are control it carefully to get it down the other end again, or move it quickly to get it out and score on the counter. All teams mix it up but the balance changes. We prefer the quick movement, but last week it was obvious we were trying the control method as first preference and it was our worst performance in 2 years. We made 50 defensive 50 intercepts which was the highest we have had in 2 years, and did not score a single point from them, our worst performance in 2 years. Last year and through a part of this year we were 1st or 2nd for goals from defensive 50 intercepts. Against the saints we failed to score, and gave up 13.4 by coughing it up. Bad skills yes. But it looked like we were trying something new. I would much rather Goodwin stick to his guns and attack hard after the intercept when the opposition are out of position. It suits our list. But probably doesn’t suit our current fitness levels. The other part is our stoppages and forward line. The last 2 weeks we have been down on clearances. Once again it looks like we are trying something new. The mids who have been drilled to hunt the ball look like they are trying to keep better structure and get cleaner exits which is fine. But we gave up too many the other way so didn’t get it right. It may take time. However, when we did get clearances the quality was much better. As a result, we scored a season high from stoppages against the saints and eagles, but at the expense of only 39 and 41 inside 50s the last 2 weeks. Our season average i50 was 57. However, the last 2 weeks, we have scored from over 50% of inside 50’s against a season average of just over 30%. Stoppages helped, as did using more of the i50 space. That’s something new and we need to keep at it, not revert. I don’t buy the we don’t have the cattle rubbish. You can always improve a list, but we have the list to be pushing for top 4. It just seems that poor fitness, some poor structures, drop in confidence and now a bit of confusion over new structures is combining for an annus horribillus. It’s stating the obvious but it will be a huge preseason to sort these issues out and get fit. My view is we are 2 or 3% off in each of fitness, stoppage structures, and defensive structures. Adding some good outside speed and skills is another 1or 2%. All adds up to being 10% off. The comp is so close that just being 3% off makes all the difference and the combination of all the above is why we are 17th.

Nah last night was a whole new way to lose. How can you say it’s the same mistakes as say the Geelong game where we had over 70 inside 50’s. Our midfield has gone backwards. We only had 39 inside 50s. I suspect a lot of effort is going into trying to get our mids to be better balanced inside and outside, but it just looks like now they don’t know what to do. This should have been sorted well before now as it was obvious last year. Last night we had 50 defensive 50 intercepts and did not score from any of them. We looked to be slowing it down, and we got smothered. Intercepts are where we should take off and spread as that’s where sides are not setup to defend. On the other hand they scored 13.4 from turnovers which in my view was easy for them due to our slower ball movement out of the back half and poor skills.

I blame the 1965 equivalent of demonland and the “Is Norm Smith the right guy” topic.

West Coast statistically take the most difficult shots in the league according to Champion data. They don’t rely on out the back gimmes.

Sunday was the first I remember that we lost inside 50s and were right in it and would have won bar poor kicking for goal (and great kicking for goal by WC). The forward 50 look completely different. I rate Rawlings and hope he is having an impact. Too small a sample so far but good signs. Our worst losses including this year were both poor inside 50 conversion AND leaking goals at the other end. Even the prelim was 31 scoring shots from 52 inside 50s to West Coast. Nearly everyone put the weakest link as our defence which obviously the club did too. Bringing in May and Lever are genuine list changes. The issues you pointed out re structure around stoppages last year are still popping up and are just a giant fail on the coaching department and players. Compare to Richmond, who are the best structured team in the comp. They are just as lacking outside pace and skill as us but they are 10x better structurally and going forward and sit top 4 despite a bad run with injuries. I don’t buy it is our list. It can always be improved, but if we had addressed the issues you pointed out and our goal kicking we would be in the 8 now.

We have crucified our forwards this year. It must be tactics going forward. Stats from a few weeks ago on fox footy showed we on average take the easiest shots of all 18 teams, but have almost the worst conversion. On a level of difficulty, West Coast take the hardest, but have the best conversion. Watch the difference this week going i50. West coast spread defences to every inch of the i50 area, and end up scoring from around 1in 2 i50s. We try and always get the ball into a direct in front corridor, or pass off to team mates in better positions, and score from less than one in three i50s. Reminds me of how champion basketball teams can hurt opponents with 3 pointers, and as a result end up with the best FG percentage. They stretch defences. We are the equivalent of a basketball team always going for the easy layup or shot from the key. Too easy to defend against. That and practice goalkicking.

Freo obviously.

He not only kicked 2, but even with a messed up shoulder another 2 in the last qtr came directly from stoppages where he just monstered Reid and then Aliir out of ruck contests. His worth 2 or 3 goals a game even if he doesn’t kick any.

For dogs

Even with one arm our last two goals came from stoppages where Preuss monstered Alliir and Reid.

That’s not what Freo did. They just flooded back and setup in the defensive half. Rolling flood is more like the high press Melbourne and Richmond play which has been picked apart by WC and Collingwood. 666 is overhyped. There are more scores from centre clearances this year, but it is still a small percentage of overall scores.

Yes and Freo totally blunted it. Last night, after WCE the first 5 goals from 13 inside 50s they scored 5 more from 38. In the first 6 minutes of the 2nd qtr WCE had 30 uncontested marks in the back half. They just didn’t know what to do, and the dockers didn’t allow the eagles to play how they wanted. Freo should have won but for poor kicking for goal. Yet the eagles had almost 80% disposal efficiency versus freo 65%.

Thought it was worth bumping this after last night Freo v WC game. I thought Lyon showed how to beat the control and possession game plan after qtr time. After the first qtr Freo seemed to allow WC uncontested possessions in the back half when they lost the ball. They played something resembling the old flood. They did not press or waste energy trying to shut down WC forward of centre. If they had better skills the Dockers would have won. WC won uncontested possessions by 72, marks by 54, stoppage clearances by 13, but didn’t look like they knew what to do once they got it forward of centre because the flood of Freo players cut all of WCs space. Dockets were +13 in intercepts, probably mostly in defensive half and were effective in getting the ball back forward. Is this what we’ll start seeing to counter the WC type game plan.

Ideally we’ll kick 25 and concede 6...

You’re a bit hard to read Beezle. I seem to recall you were rather upset after we kicked 18 goals against Essendon, yet we’re ecstatic after our 10 goal effort against Geelong last September.

The reality is if we get the ball inside 50 60 times, and score 20 goals which is a great conversion rate, we still need to defend 40 times. No point kicking 18 goals if we leak 20 goals 10 the other way

In fairness to Prodee his argument was pretty prophetic, in that he argued we need to apply really good forward 50 pressure. It’s been our biggest problem for 3.5 games, but who would have thought the problem was worse without Preuss.

4. Our forward 50 stoppages work and we can score from them or if we don’t score can defend them. Preuss, just because of his size, seems to be as good or better than Gawn at stoppages. Small sample so far, but in the Pies practice game and Thursday he has kicked a goal in each game from a boundary throw in. I don’t recall us kicking a goal in the first 3 games from a stoppage, but I recall plenty where opposition easily ran it out down the other end for a goal.

Sorry but don’t agree and think it’s structural. If we apply intense pressure in the forward 50 then we force turnovers and the opposition uncontested numbers are down. Second half was good. First half was like first 3 games. Forward 6 need more time to gel defensively.

Nor does three losses a winter footy season make. Despite our terrible form, I’m still having us up there in contention in Sep. I’ll panic when we have 9 losses for the season. Second half showed how important the forward 6 are to our defence. I’d like to see Goody settle on Tracc, Weid, Preuss, Melk, Hunt, Tmac, and JSmith, AVB when fit as our forward 6 and rotations. If we can settle our forward 6 and they click defensively then we will be very very hard to beat from July on. Love Spargo but he needs time to build strength so his tackles stick. Preuss is really important. He stopped the leakage from forward 50 stoppages last night.

I missed a bit of the game, but what I did see we looked a lot better team with Preuss contesting stoppages in the forward 50. We won stoppage clearances by a mile tonight, and looked like we could have scored from most of the ones I saw. Contrast last 3 weeks where our forward 50 stoppages were more likely to result in goals at the other end.

Compare that to % of scores we concede from inside 50s. We are well over 50% defensively. We have also lost contested possession every game which is our strength. The fact Port and Essendon didn’t smash us, and Geelong only put us to the sword from half way though the 3rd quarter after 1 1/2 quarters of our forward time dominance without scoring, is because we actually have a champion midfield (even if they are not in great form). Our problems in the prelim last year were so different (smashed in contested possession and we turned it over in our defensive half and midfield). This year it has been all our forward 50 dysfunction that has started our problems. Ben Guthrie summed it up perfectly. We are not winning contests down there and terrible structures are leaving free opponents everywhere. Has been the issue from JLT1. https://m.afl.com.au/news/2019-04-07/nine-things-we-learned-from-round-three We will win a flag when our structures allow us to beat teams even when we lose contested possession.

You need defensive leaders to make the mids and forwards accountable. Lewis, Lever, May are natural leaders with the authority to tear shreds off those up the field when they don’t do their defensive job. Right now none of our back 6 seem to have that. Consequence are these sickening runs of bags of goals.