Its Time for Another

37,243 69 more since yesterday. So 2757 to go. There's 9 weeks left until the membership cutoff. At 5 working days a week that's 45 days. So we need to keep ticking over 62 a working day to get there or 306 a week. Hopefully there are a few more telephons with the players and we push hard with membership tents etc at home games. And most importantly keep those wins ticking over. Like this weekend.

2826 to go to 40,000. Can we do it?

Really surprised the Club haven't made a big deal about breaking the record. It's great news. No mention of it anywhere by the Club.

Don't make the past look worse than it already does. Hmm just noticed that ticks over my 1000th post. Too much time on my hands or too many good discussions to be had. Both I guess. This is a guilty pleasure the better half doesn't know about. Better she doesn't find out. I guess it's better than other guilty pleasures one could get up to.

Get the feeling today's game is going to be a battle of the Game Plans more than a battle of the personnel. It seems to me the Toigs Game Plan hasn't moved on from last season and is still about getting and controlling possession, slowing down play and slowly working forward to score. Our Game Plan has clearly moved on this year to fast ball movement from the backline, breaking the lines in numbers and delivering it inside 50 to the forwards advantage before the defenders get back in numbers. I figure if we execute our Game Plan and they execute their's we win.

Hi gs, unfortunately no takers. But I did have dinner at Gary Bakers Rockwall bar & grill. Served by Brent Croswells son. Place was full of Dee's supporters. Could not recommend it highly enough. Had one of the best steaks I've had anywhere una very long time. Outstanding service. Got a hello from the great man himself.

From the little I've seen of the grainy footage from the Casey games I'm not sure he's ready to go. My feeling seeing that footage was he could still do with another week. I spoke to some people who saw the game last weekend and they thought he needed more work on his disposal. Another week probably isn't a bad thing.

Yep, call me dumb. I didn't know how airy fairy terms like culture and behaviour's were actually going to manifest themselves practically in a way that I could tangibly see them in how the team plays. There are a mass of reasons why the team at this point in time is playing better under Roos. Recruiting, development and coaching come to mind. But culture and behaviours aren't so tangible. There seems to be a level of commitment to the contest and to executing the Game Plan that's been missing for the past 52 years. Maybe that's due to culture and behaviours.

I agree with your sentiment that if you can't do the basics you can't be competitive. But if you can do the basics and don't have a good Game Plan against teams that do, I don't think you'll win. Lately I've taken to watching a few of the Suns games to get an idea of how Prestia plays just in case he comes onto our radar at the end of the year. I had no idea how he played. I watched the Lions v Suns game last weekend. It was a pretty ordinary game. Both teams really struggled to kick goals when they had the opportunity They couldn't do the basics. It got me thinking about our forward line and how Hogan, Watts, Garlett and by the looks of it Weideman are very skilled forwards who can execute under pressure unlike what I'd seen in that game. I haven't seen a forward line this skilled in over 40 years of going to games. The future is looking very promising.

If I had to single out one attribute that defined Roos Swans teams and which is still his legacy now is that they always compete full on. Its fair to say when it's really needed those teams gave 110% of their capability which was often less than their competitors but they came away with the chocolates. Think '05 Premiership. From day one here he's banged on about culture and behaviours. I wasn't sure what that meant. Nearly 3 years later I think I get it. Having a 100% go and being very disciplined about executing the game plan. If you do that you have the foundations for long term success like the Swans are still enjoying. I'm guessing the first couple of seasons were more about building this culture than worrying about the actual game plan or scoring a bit more. They trumpeted competitiveness in their recruiting last draft and trade period and for me it is the most obvious improvement this year. It looks like the culture now gets a tick and the Game Plan is now significant because they have the attitude amongst other things to execute it.

Well if we all thought selection was going to be interesting this week. What about next week? CP5 will be banging the door down and probably won't be ignored. Clarry will have had his week off. One is a half forward/midfielder the other is a midfielder. So you wouldn't think someone like a Hunt or Wagner would make way as they're not playing in the same position. So who is going to make way. I would have to say that thus far Brayshaw has been very underwhelming. Unless he lifts his performance considerably this week he could be one. Maybe Harmesy will get a break. It's going to be a very interesting selection meeting.

I have only recently discovered the Ignore function. It works a treat.

Hogan was recruited before the Roos era so IMO should be included in this group.

I gather by the arm around the shoulders he's a bit upset. Be patient son and stay off the basketball court.

Don't like this post. It demonstrates an unacceptable level of literacy. Please delete.

I think the cap has made endurance more important than speed and he has elite endurance. He can also read the game and anticipate where to run to ahead of time. However, there still has to be a minimum amount of speed for a runner like him. Just hope he gets it back.

Leg speed. Skills, awareness etc great but no leg speed. Maybe he just needs time or maybe that loss of leg speed a few years ago wasn't due to the foot. I've got my fingers crossed. I must say from the bits of the Casey footage I've watched he does look pretty slow. Also watched him at the preseason intra match and he looked slow there but I put that down to first game back. Hopefully its just a matter of building up the running time in games.

I spoke to someone who watched Casey last weekend and said they thought he looks very slow.

I agree with you about the rebuild and have stated so on this topic but an interesting fact which I looked up on the weekend and was quite surprised by is that 11 of the players who played last weekend were on the list before Roos arrived. Half the team. I guess it's obvious that you turn over the 10 or so worst players on the list each year. So around 30 or 3/4's of the list have been turned over in Roos's time. Interestingly there are still 17 players on the list from before he came. Pre Roos Played last weekend Jetta T McDonald Dunn Watts M Jones Kent Hogan Gawn N Jones Viney Pedersen On list pre Roos Dawes Trengove Garland Grimes Spencer Terlich

Hemingway how do you separate them? The Game Plan has a major impact on nearly all of these factors if not all. Someone, it might have been Roosy, said the ultimate purpose of a Game Plan is predictability. It means players know what their teammates are going to do at any given situation on the field and can prepare and respond accordingly. I'm very confident in saying there were some very subtle demonstrations of this against the Pies where our players got the ball in defence and unsighted kicked it forward, sometimes over their heads and the kicks landed in a teammates hands. I used to see the Hawthorns and Geelongs do this and get peed off that the luck always runs their way whereas when we used to do that it would land in the oppositions hands and be a turnover. I've realised it's not luck. The reason it's changed is because our player knows if he gets the ball and kicks it to X spot in the ground a player down the ground knows that if he is kicking from Y, they need to get to X. So he blindly kicks it and it goes to the right players. That used to be a terrible turnover, it isn't anymore because someones there now. The same applies all over the ground. If you get the ball and know ahead of time where you are going to kick it then you don't make bad decisions that result in turnovers and you don't have the same skill errors. This happens because players down the field have created options for you because they know the Game Plan has taught them if you get the ball at X they have to present at Y. When all of this is happening it makes it a lot easier to play with intent and attack the game. All of that's what I'm seeing improved this year. And most of it is down to two things. The Game Plan and having players mature and conditioned enough to execute it.

You might be right, you might be wrong about whether Roos was too defensive in the first year. It's only ever going to be a matter of opinion, I don't think there will ever be a definitive answer. I don't agree with your comment that saying we didn't have the players is a cop out. It's a fact. It's also a fact that the players we had when Roos arrived weren't conditioned or mature enough to be capable of running both ways. It looks like it's taken until this season for them to be ready. If you can't run both ways you are in a lot of trouble. As someone else mentioned Hinkley came in with all out attack and a few years down the track they are in all sorts of trouble. It looks like Lyon is trying to change a very experienced group at Freo's Game Plan to be more attacking and they've lost 4 straight games. Fyfe said they are struggling with a new Game Plan. It takes time even with an experienced list. Attack starts from defence. If you can't defend, you can't start your attack. It seems to be a fact that young players arriving in the AFL are naturally more attacking and in most cases it takes time to teach them the discipline of being defensive. Some never get it. Think Blease. I believe it's critical to develop the defensive mindset first. And it's starting to show if you don't have it, attacking footy will run out. If you look at the Bulldogs stats, they are one of the best defences and also concede one of the lowest scores from turnovers. Their attacks start from defence. The Lions have the least amount of turnovers of any team, yet the highest points scored against from turnovers of any team. They don't know how to defend and cough up the ball in their backline. When you turn 3/4's of the list over it means each year you have a whole new batch of players to teach the Game Plan to from scratch. All of this takes time. If you look at the player turnover at the Clubs that had very quick turnarounds like Port and the Bulldogs I guarantee you they had most of a list ready to go. Port were cruelled by injuries the year before Hinkley arrived. They had very few new players in his first season. I think you'll find the same at the Bulldogs who had been properly developed under McCarthy for several years before Beveridge arrived.

It's clear from the Dons and Norf and parts of the Pies games that if we don't attack the ball with our maximum competitiveness we get beaten. It seems to start and finish there. You can't do much about a Game Plan if you don't have the ball. I have also noticed that we are getting way better at our defensive running. PIes had a couple of big breaks down the ground and we had enough numbers gut running back to stop them scoring. That's the other big step forward.

20/4/16 - 36,682 20/4/11 - 34,548 so we are running about 2,100 ahead of the record year at the same time and it went up about another 2,200 from now to the end. So we look like we are tracking to end up on 39,000. Our results in the first 6 rounds that year were DWLWWL. We started the year drawing with the Swans. It's possible we could be 4/2 in 2 games time. Wonder what that would do for memberships. Then again we could be 2/4.

"We feel like every week, we have the game plan that stacks up," Watts said. Wattsy's comment got me thinking on a number of levels about Game Plans. Firstly, seems to me Roosy has been taking a bit of a bum rap over what he's done with the Game Plan since he arrived. He made it pretty clear the first year was about fixing the defence and stopping the whopping loses. The second year was about fixing the midfield and clearly it follows that the third year was about fixing the final stage of the attack. Many commentators seem to only see the ultra defensive first year and are now only crediting Goodwin with the fast ball movement and improved attack in the third year. Lets not forget Roosy is still the Head Coach and ultimately he sets the Game Plan. Assistants in many Clubs are responsible for different parts of the Game Plan but you don't hear commentators saying it's their doing not the Head Coaches. It's Roosy's vision and he's put people in place to execute it. From what I've been reading Jennings sounds like a massive secret weapon with our ball movement and understanding how to stop the oppositions. Secondly I wonder how often a playing group as a whole decide a coach's Game Plan is a dud and is never going to work and they give up. Is this part of a coach losing the playing group. I spoke to Flash at the 2011 B & F and he told me that Bailey was trying to get them to play a Game Plan they couldn't execute. (By the way, this was essentially two way running. So probably the right Game Plan, he just didnt' have the players to execute it.) Roh Bail in a conversation with me after Neeld had left the building (a membership drive call) agreed that the players as a group probably were going into games thinking that they weren't going to win executing the Game Plan Neeld was getting them to play. So how refreshing to hear the players now believe in the Game Plan. And its working. Thirdly, the Pies and the Toigs both seem to be still playing Game Plans that are about getting possession and slowing the game down while other teams like us have moved on to getting the ball and doing very fast transitions into attack. I wonder if the playing groups at those Clubs have also lost confidence in their Game Plans and therefore their coaches. Fyfe mentioned Freo is struggling with a new Game Plan. Perhaps Lyon has them going through a transition to a more attacking Game Plan. That would run against the grain of what they've been doing since he arrived there.

That'd be the 193cm Oxley?