jnrmac

You must have watched a different game to me. Sydney generated a lot of their fwd play by switching from the back half. We seemed mostly unable to stop it. We on the other hand only tried it a few times but lack of player movement up the ground and slow movement from the kicker allowed the Swans to cover us. We continually eschewed short hit up kicks (as per the vision on Footy Classified last night) which is vital to 'fast' ball movement. We are obsessed with getting jamming the ball into the fwd 50 any way we can. So much so that players barely make a lead towards the kicker. If you do it 3 or 4 times and get ignored then you stop doing it. Its not working for us and shows little has changed since the finals. I'll reserve judgement until we see more after the Dogs game at the G but if things don't change it is a bad sign for us in 2024

Good vision last night on footy classified showing how the Dees continuously ignore short hit up leads in good positions to bomb it long to contests Viney particularly guilty happens so regularly it has to be instructions All on the coach

George What I saw in Sydney was the few times we tried to switch we then stopped thus allowing Sydney to move across to cover us. If you switch it has to be done swiftly with the next two or three in the chain. At worst hopefully you get a stoppage on the wing or HFwd line. At best you can cut back into the middle to enter the F50. We broke down because we were slow in moving it and/or honouring the lead up the ground. Sydney on the other hand kept the ball moving once they switched. Players like Jordon for us were masters at holding up the chain. He nearly always stopped and propped So much so that it must be to instruction. 'Don't kick to a one on one, wait till the cavalry arrive' I think that is part of Simon's defence first mantra but its worn thin and is now too predictable.

Our style of play is all about predictability to our team. Unfortunately its predictable to everyone else. We kick to Max. If he doesn't mark it we often get a stoppage outside of our D50. Stubborn Simon obviously feels this is the best way of minimising turnovers in a dangerous spot and plays to defence first. Whilst this has been successful its also easy to set up against. Geelong started double teaming Max with Blicavs leaping from behind to smash the ball fwd - and kneeing Max in the back in the process, The Swans did a similar thing. In the process Max is getting killed every time we kick it in. Our players don't bother running to space because they know it will rarely be kicked to them. They all crowd the down the line kick as it goes there 90% of the time. And our forwards move up the ground to the defensive side of the stoppage to give us more numbers. But when we get the ball and move it forward there is often no-one home in our fwd line. It wasn't until the 3rd qtr against Sydney that our fwds manned up the Sydney defenders and the game opened up. This is Simon's strategy of keeping it a tight contest until the second half Its not working any more and Simon has no other strategy.

When Sydney switched they moved it with speed and purpose. When we switched (rarely) we stopped and propped, giving time for Sydney to cover. Also, nearly every time we go to Max. Its so predictable and sooooo frustrating. (He will cop a battering this year and we are playing with the injury fire every game.) So much so that our players don't even bother to run to space. The number of times that we had a loose man for short hit up that was totally ignored was also frustrating. When leads are ignored players stop doing it. Hence we look stagnant with no player movement. Like last year totally opposite to how we played in pre-season. It's like ***** groundhog day with this team

Rack of ? Rack of lamb?

Its a cop out. Yes it was steamy but Sydney had very little trouble with it. It was more our positioning that put ourselves under pressure - then we fumbled. Sydney had a lot more clean possession because they largely switched play and went wide before breaking up our defence and coming through the middle. Many of their possessions were not under pressure. Ours on the other hand were highly pressured. Our kick to HB ratio was well off as well. Our leaders were largely woeful, crashed into each other and did nothing to spread the field out. We were stagnant when in possession with no one moving to space. Max did nothing to counter Gundy's crowding of space at ball ups. He had better get used to it and come up with a solution because he is going to be pole-axed every game by opposition rucks

watching the game live and then finally seeing the replay there were two things that stood out for me. 1. The fumbling was off the charts. Sydney handed the conditions well. We had NFI. Again our poor handling and decision making probably cost us the game. We could have taken a 3/4 goal lead at qtr time instead we had 1 goal. We over handled the ball and it cost us 2. Sydney continually switched play to find a loose player before kicking back into the corridor. Our defensive positioning was woeful. When they had the ball we were stagnant and had 2 or 3 players standing 10m away from their kicker 'guarding grass'. Sydney players would run wider and further allowing the kicker to spot up their players with relative ease. And under no pressure which made them look more sure handling Similarly when we had the ball we crowded the player with the ball rather than spreading out the ground. Sydney were able to create huge width with their positioning. We simply crammed players together in the middle. You could easily see this when we handballed to a teammate standing 2m away. And then we fumbled by putting ourselves under ridiculous pressure. Both issues reflect poor coaching and on field leadership.

Sydney record at the SCG in 2023 was not that formidable. In fact they struggled against the better teams. Feeling a lot better about Thursday night :) def Hawthorn (81pts) Lost to Port (2pts) Lost to Giants (1 pt) Lost to Freo (17 pts) Def Carlton (26 pts) Lost to St K (14pts) Def West Coast (151pts) Draw geelong Def Dogs (2pts) Def Gold Coast (24pts) Lost to Melb (21 pts)

Palpepper is one word

Perfect example of the Footscray Flick. Open hand handball is cheating

It's not just the injury list. The whole club has a huge number of question marks over it. People can say that players don't care about what happens at Board level or in the media etc etc but they do. They read about it. They get asked about it. To win a flag everything has to go pretty much right. And on field it was our leaders that lost us games. Think Lever taking a mark at CHB against Carlton with what, 90 secs on the clock? We were a few kicks away from success but those little things are portents of the bigger picture. Players leads not getting rewarded. Fritsch being selfish and then missing gimme goals. Team rules not being followed. And if the playing group see certain players getting treated differently or not making the same sacrifices to improve its a rot within the club. Jack Watts was a prime example of that. Good player well liked but was wanting in his commitment. The players would have known about the player currently under suspension. What did the leaders do about it? Why wasn't he brought into line? What would cause a fringe player like that to behave the way he did? Yes the players can block it out and go down the 'us v them' / we have something to prove route but its going to take something very special for the team to outperform as it stands. I for one am very concerned about how we will perform this year. Particularly early with a tough draw.

Billings is an upgrade on Jordon

We're cooked Sorry for Gus

Appreciate your response but yes it certainly felt that way!

The two finals in 2023 would beg to differ. Virtually every ball was bombed in.

Nice trolling

That's a very interesting statement. Suggests perhaps Olivers management has been a joint approach as it were.

I suspect both teams go out to try and play offensive football. It doesn't mean you don't defend but the midfield doesnt press up as high as they would in a normal game to assist the backline. The kms clocked I imagine would be 30-40% below a normal game. The worry was probably how easily they transitioned to the outside and swept the ball fwd and how for large parts we seemed clueless or powerless to do anything about it.

Written by Johnny Young

Interesting thought on Grundy. It has to be the reason. The club (and grundy) have been very tight lipped and I haven't heard a word of disparagement from either party. I personally can't believe they didn't play Grundy given A) it was final, B) it was against his old club and C) we beat then in rd 13 with two rucks.

I think we're in trouble.

I am going. There will be 10 of us. Looking forward to it.

Ahhh. 2017 wasn't that the final game of the season against Collingwood ? We were trying to make finals for the first time since 2006? And we came out breathing fire? Oh yes thats right. We didn't lay a tackle in the first 20 minutes and lost to the Pies.

Well....it's not been going super well But I understand your point!