1964_2

Let’s wait and see DemonWA. Your ability to 100% discount it, is equally impressive.

Haha. This could make or break the cult.

A +40 point differential to us in the 2nd half this week, and the loading cult will be signing up new members thick and fast.

The thing I wonder about the stats proving both the kick-in to one side, and inside 50 entry to pocket is the “percentage play”, is surely those stats are factoring in an opposition, that doesn’t know exactly where we will go a majority of the time. Ie surely mixing it up a bit, allows us to maximise the “percentage play” by having an opposition that can’t setup with near certainty of knowing what we will do?!

Do we organise Maysie to take J.Smith, Chandler, Weid, JVR, Laurie, Hunt to Entrecôte and see how many more match winners he can develop?

Excellent thanks for this, makes sense. Will be watching closely Q4 vs lions to see how we run out the game.

Ha, please listen to Jake Lever interview this morning. “All teams push extra players behind the ball when they are protecting a lead with not long to go. Therefore it’s critical to find where we have the extra players and kick to them, rather than kick to the out number” I am not disagreeing with what you are saying. Just mentioning that it is 101 base level AFL understanding, rather than any genius coaching.

Good to hear. Question is can we implement a bit of this kind of creativity and attacking style before it gets to desperation stakes? (losing with minutes to go)

No offense taken, and not trying to be right or wrong. Just wanting to understand. Be great to hear from coach and some of the others on this as well. Can understand the idea of targeting say prelim or grand final day as your absolute peak, and I guess what we are discussing is the relative difference 1 / 2 / 6 weeks from this day (when we are no longer in a heaving loading training phase) vs 2 months ago (while heavy loading) where it was visible that the players had heavy legs and just couldn’t run the game out.

Yep, understand. Given we are dealing in assumptions, and we don’t know the impact of 1% of fitness it’s probably not the best way of talking about it. My assumption is that the idea of the loading program is to maintain somewhere near peak fitness for a prolonged period. And from that perspective, given they know the value of winning form heading into finals (and the tough run home with 4 top 6 teams), I have assumed that we are somewhere near the peak now, with the aim of maintaining the level through the finals. But again hope I am wrong, and there is significant levels of upside to come.

I don’t recall last year the oppo setting up with extra numbers on the one side at defensive kick-in’s, like they have been in recent times. Also many other examples of opposition strategies this year that we didn’t have to contend with last year. On the topic of fitness I am very much hoping you are correct, and I understand what you are saying with how it can work better at peak fitness. You are working from the assumption that we are at ~75% fitness, where as I am thinking we are somewhere around 90%. But again, very much hope you are correct, and we have many more levels to rise to in finals.

Sure maybe more aggressive defensive ball movement would lead to more oppo goals, than the benefit we can create from it. But you don’t know if you don’t try? And I guess that’s the problem. It’s now likely too late in the year to try and change anything too much.

Am referring to lack of end to end goals, as evidence of defensive / conservative ball movement from the backline. which I believe is occurring from both kick-in’s and defensive turnovers. Sure I may not have the direct stats to show why kick-in’s are not working, but I certainly know it’s more than just the amount of defensive repeat inside 50’s. both conservative kick-ins and conservative def 50 turnovers (eg long down the line) lead to more likelihood of poor forward 50 connection - which is a clearly identified issue from both the club and supporters.

Very interesting. A huge 2nd half against the lions will do big things for confidence (team and supporters) Although still not “running on top of the ground” I think it’s fair to say our run and intensity for the last 3 weeks has been significantly improved from the 1-2 months prior to that. But, the part I under-estimated during our loading period, is some of the game style issues that were evident at the time, unfortunately won’t be resolved from fitness alone. Having said that, if we can run fourth quarters out better in the next few weeks, maybe that can compensate for some of our other game style related challenges?

We are 17th for end to end goals. It’s a problem. Repeat defensive inside 50’s is only one part of the equation. The other part is the ability to setup goals starting from defensive ball movement. Many parts of our game that worked perfectly last year, are not working as well this year due to opposition tactics to limit some of our strengths. The arrogance I am seeing is our FD not reacting when our oppo comes up with successful tactics.

Do we have the option to tinker and adjust to a greater % of more aggressive ball movement? Or do we have to stick to what we know, even if some opposition have come up with successful strategies to limit its effectiveness

Ok, maybe we just haven’t different expectations of what good coaching involves. For mine it’s a pretty basic instruction to not kick down the line to an out-number, when we are behind with a couple of minutes on the clock. And no, Jake did not automatically know that the out-number would be there. Listen to his SEN interview this morning, and he says “we just have to find wherever it is that we have extra numbers”

Spot on. The teams with good enough skills/smarts have reacted to our “kick to the pocket” strategy, with more attacking ball movement out of their defence - avoiding the ability for our defensive zone to consistently create repeat entries (and strangle the opposition like we did more consistently last year). We are still creating very high inside 50’s, so parts of the strategy are working. But we are conceding significantly more end to end goals, and we are not converting a high enough % of our inside 50’s. How have or will we react to our plan not working as well for us anymore? It appears to me, that we just have this simple view of win the contest, and win inside 50’s (forward half game) and we will win the game more often than not (no matter what the forward line looks like). For this assumption to be correct for finals, our midfielders will have to dominate contested ball, and we will have to create more turnovers when the opposition attempt the attacking ball movement (greater forward half pressure in particular). Or alternatively we will have to magically improve the much talked about “forward connection issues” So we either stick to what we know, and what we have been doing. Or we become more attacking ourselves for larger periods of the game. Isn’t that what would suit a smaller, faster forward line? (with only 1 key fwd, and resting ruck) For mine when we are attacking we look good (eg when we are behind and are forced to be more attacking). PS. Stat from Kingy:- we are 17th for moving the ball from one end of the ground to the other. Too predictable / conservative coming out of defence?

Ok , Jake Lever just lied then.

SEN, with the loin chop https://media.whooshkaa.com/show/1919/episode/1032173.mp3?source=webplayer-download

Yeah ok, we maybe are talking about different things. Lever also said they learnt from the loss against the pies, and how they could have been better in the final minutes. So yes from that perspective, they have learnt a better way to move the ball when behind, with not much time left, and oppo numbers behind the ball. On the topic of game plan, strategy and in game changes, I didn’t see much evidence of any adjustments/improvements (for the 97% of game, before things got desperate in the final minutes)

Completely disagree. Just heard Lever speaking on the radio. He admitted the more attacking ball movement in the last couple of minutes (kick into the centre especially) was purely a function of being behind with not much time to go, and needing goals fast. He said everyone knows that when a team has a lead, almost automatically the oppo will roll extra numbers behind the ball. Hence why there was no point kicking long to the out-number. This was not a function of tinkering from goody.

I hope we are not under-estimating what the 2 best strategic coaches (Geel, Syd) could have waiting for us in finals

Hard to comprehend isn’t it. Even if switched it up 2-3 times per week, would still be enough to force oppo to defend other parts of the ground at kick-out, and make the left side kick more powerful when we go there. Only thing that would make sense, is if we had a tinker lined up for finals. But that be highly unlikely, given goody loves repeating habits / method etc.

Pretty basic stuff that buck. U12’s would know to go more attacking like that when you need fast goals. It must be fun being an opposition coach, spending the week planning strategy for Melb, knowing most likely what we will do, and the likelihood that we won’t change much during the game.