Its Time for Another

If I remember correctly Melksham did this last season and it put him out for quite a while. Unfortunate injury.

This view is also supported by the footage of Plapp praising Kossie for how well he had run off the ball to block the exit space.

Agree but that doesn't stop the Club doing these sort of interviews during the week. There seems to be an epidemic of fear that someone is going to give something away. This interview was brilliant and informative and no danger to the club.

Agree we were totally buggered by the time we met Eagles but don't forget they had a few key players missing in that round 22 win including Josh Kennedy and then Darling early in the first quarter so they had no forward line and we still very nearly lost. People are forgetting we'd hardly beaten a top 8 team until that round 22 win against injury depleted Eagles. It looks like a lot of the game style has been improved but I've thought for 4 years this is the missing piece to become a real contender.

I love the concept of "roles". I think the concept seems to be very under utilised. I heard the coaches got away from it too much last year and were over complicating things. It seems to simplify the game for players. Roos was the master of it. I remember Marty Mattner saying that when Roos interviewed him to go to the Swans he said if you come this will be your role. He defined it for him before he even arrived and he said it was exactly what he did when he got there. It's great to see Goody focusing on it so clearly.

Interesting you should mention that interview, I was discussing it with someone the other day. T Mac was asked two questions and I got more information out of his two answers about what went wrong last year, what's been done over the summer and what's going to happen going forward, than any other information from the Club, the To Hell and Back doco and every interview the Club has given all preseason. That was a great demonstration of how to give an interview and information that can be given without disclosing too much but giving supporters a lot more understanding and confidence for the season ahead.

I feel your five year old's frustration. Looks like you should try listening to him. He could obviously teach you a thing or two about football.

That's true to a point and certainly true against inferior opposition but we very nearly blew 3 out of 4 of those last games and the failure to capitalise on i50's had a lot to do with that. Just relying on the fact we got to a Prelim and ignoring the state of the opposition is frankly a bit pointless. This isn't just my opinion it was an internal view and was voiced on several occasions last year by Goodwin and others. I just hope and pray that part of the highly secret or alternatively so obvious it doesn't need to be spoken about game style includes fixing the i50's or it's going to be another very frustrating season.

I reckon we had a good helping of luck in 2018 facing a beat up Eagles, GWS, Cats & Hawks. I know that was the internal view. So don't really agree that making the Prelim proved that the lack of system i50's didn't matter. We also had some blow out wins against very inferior teams that helped to disguise the problem. The top 4 teams last year don't deliver i50 the way we do. I really hope you're wrong that the principle is still going to be the same. We won't win a premiership doing that. Interestingly Lewis who is part of the coaching staff mentioned in the last game that they won't win games blazing away the way they were. So if he recognises it surely others in the coaching group do as well. I guess that's the challenge of being a commentator and being part of the coaching group. Are you speaking out of school. I'm a bit surprised to be honest. The one training session I went to they were clearly practicing kicking the ball diagonally if necessary waiting for a clear lead to arrive rather than just kicking it long to the hot spot. They were also practicing leading patterns with dummy leads and then kicking it to a free player behind the lead. DIdn't see that really happening in the Marsh series.

Thanks Wise. I never said word for word. If you see my original OP I said it could have been in general terms. I would have been very happy to hear him say something like we recognised i50's were a problem and supporters will see a better system. That's hardly word for word or giving anything away but it does give supporters a level of confidence that a major problem has been recognised and is being addressed. I agreet it was the game plan in 2018 and the whole industry knew it didn't work. We had 4 games that season where we had considerably more i50's but couldn't convert. From memory we set a couple of records for the highest i50 differential without winning. We would have finished 2nd in 2018 if we'd won those 4 games. If it isn't fixed we'll be very lucky to become contenders. IMHO if it is fixed we'll be well on our way. It has clearly been a significant problem since before he took over and he's never fixed it.

Love you to explain the i50 game plan. I must be much dumber than you. No I can’t work it out. I’ve been waiting to see it for 4 years.

Yeh was really interested in the off the ball zoning work filling up escape space that Plapp went through with Kossie. There would obviously never be footage of that on a broadcast and I doubt most of us would pick it up even if there was.

Dworship you really like talking down to people don’t you. I had hoped for more insightful observation than someone being so condescending and rattling off a two year old mantra. The game style has cleary moves well beyond that this season. Perhaps you should try paying attention.

Couldn't disagree more. Game Style is Game Plan. It's the foundation of how a team plays and other teams are all over analysing it every week. It's not rocket science but as Goodwin has made a specific comment about it then I don't understand why he didn't define it. He did in 2018 and called it contested football. As for not being able to recognise game style. Off hand Hawthorn were recognised for a game plan/game style which was keeping possession of the ball and accurately kicking to close targets which meant they kept possession as they slowly moved to attack. Tigers started their attack by focusing on forward pressure and creating scores from the forward 50. GWS's was scoring predominantly from rebound using their foot skills to kick long to running players and quickly moving the ball into attack. Ours in 2018 was attacking the contest, winning the ball and kicking long i50 to contests creating chaos balls to score from. etc etc. Each to his own. He's put it out there so explain it. Pretty simple to say focus on winning in defence and launching attacks from there into the open. Or more focus on controlled accurate ball movement. Or whatever. Not that hard but it gives a bit of a bench mark without giving anything away.

Would help if the players recognised it.

Yep look at English at the Doggies. This is his 4th season and he's starting to be noticed. I loved how he was being physically pushed all over the place in the ruck contests by Ceglar but he just kept oozing enthusiasm and the minute they hit the ground he was up for 2nd 7 3rd efforts and Ceglar was nowhere to be seen.

Mate if he's saying he wants the supporters to be able to recognise it there's no big secret . Why say it then. No harm in letting us know what the benchmark is we should be looking for.

I didn’t expect Langdon’s and Tomlinson’s recruiting to result in a whole different game plan but it’s looking like that. The ratio of uncontested possessions has gone up significantly too which I guess reflects getting the ball out into the open more with the switching. Also a much more sustainable game plan injury wise.

WS interesting to see us sort of swapping game plans with Hawks. Who’s going to get that right. Goodwin or Clarkson?

From Goody's presser last night. "When we went into the summer we wanted to establish a game style that was recognisable to our supporters. When they come every week they can see a style that they can see consistently and something that will stand up over the duration of the season. I think the teams been able to do that over the summer. We've been able to establish some behaviours in a lot of phases and they should be really excited heading into the season and get a long to see the Dees." What do people think the game style is? As usual Goody makes a statement in riddles and so rarely actually tells you what he's talking about. Why can't he give us the game style in his words instead of making us guess. The Club really need to give him some media training. He should have a coffee with Daners and find out about his transition from never saying anything to realising as Coach he had to be the spokesperson for the Club and transform into the Reverend. He talks about it in his book. Goody mentioned early in the presser we're establishing how we want to play. Defensively really hard to play against and starting to get some reward for it. That's one aspect but surely that's not the definition of the game style. In 2018 his mantra was contested football. And we saw them playing on at all costs which sometimes was very exciting, sometimes creating very costly turnovers. In 2020 what I've seen is no longer the play on at all costs but being prepared to hold the play up to find a more certain option down the field which seems to be leading to more uncontested possessions. This seems also to be more switching the ball sideways to get into space rather than playing on straight down the ground. It looks like Tomlinson and Langdon are aiding this by using their running power to create targets in that space. I'm loving this aspect of what they are doing. What I'm not loving at all like others have mentioned is they're still bombing the ball i50 way too much and it rarely works. I'd much rather see them hold onto it and ping it sideways outside 50 till an option comes up. I saw them practicing this at the one training session I went to but I haven't seen it in games yet. I'm preying I do because as far as I'm concerned it's the missing piece to the game style to take us towards being a contender.

I agree with all of that except that he should have retired or been pushed. I think we've learnt our lesson from James McDonald's exit. Sometimes there are cultural intangibles that are more important than just the football. I have no doubt he understands if he's good enough he will play if he isn't he won't. But keeping him sends a clear cultural message of respect to the playing group which outweighs the cost of his position on the list.

Honestly I can't wait to see this scenario but see HB pounce on the loose ball kick it a milli second before the siren goes and see it sail through the goals after the siren for us to beat the filth by 1 point in this year's GF. I could truly die a happy man. Can't think of anything I'd be happier to take to the grave.

RDB made it a precondition to him coming back to the Club to coach. At that time the entire MFC Board were appointed by the MCC. He thought the Board were totally ill equipped to guide a footy club. I'm sure there was also some lingering resentment over the way they got rid of Norm.

Sydney tried desperately to hang on to Jones but he was determined to go home. He had tried to leave over the previous couple of seasons. On your theory Langdon must be a dud.

Agree. I wouldn't write off Ryder either. He was carrying bad injuries for most of his time at Port. He is apparently fit now. Agree Hannebury sounds like he's got his body right and same for Carlisle who has had injury worries for a few seasons. Their pace cut us to pieces last year and they've gone up another notch in speed with Hill and Jones. We haven't. They looked formidable in that first Marsh game. Very well structured around contests and clearing the ball to outside runners. Something I've been hoping to see us do but haven't yet. They had clear passes i50 to clear leads. Something I've been waiting to see since Goody took over in Roos's last year. We still don't. Hill is a match winner. Explosive pace but with elite decision making and skill to deliver the ball down people's throats. Langdon's stats pretty much matched Hills in the last period of last season but he doesn't have the same skill level. If he plays like he did in the last 5 weeks of last season he's going to be the smokey pick up of last year's trade period.