Adam The God

IMV, 2021 is important, because we (and others) will use it as a template to try and emulate. Throw in some lessons/learnings from Geelong's management program last year as well, except unlike Geelong's approach we'll only know the full story of our own 2021 approach. As a result, I believe that we deliberately tweak our ball movement through the middle of the season. I think we may have landed on it in 2021 as a response to our fatigue in that year or had a very deliberate strategy going into 2021 knowing we'd do this. As @binman often alludes to, Goody is a coach that plays the percentages and is seemingly a man of data accordingly. I've no doubt our FD would be all over these same CD numbers (and thanks for sharing, @titan_uranus) and more, and be saying we're doing a lot right, we just have to execute better (ie at this stage, we have to take our opportunities in front of goal). But back to the tweaks to our ball movement during the middle parts of our season, we are happy to deliberately go slower and longer to contests inside 50 if that's the state of that particular play (ie there's not someone free or in plenty of space inside 50). The other situation we're okay with during the middle parts of the season are finding free players across the 50m arc or wider in the pockets. It means less running and as the opposition tries to cover the more dangerous central areas as they begin to fatigue as well, those situations are more likely to be easier to hit up. However, slow ball movement to 1v1 contests often result in stoppages and kicks to the pockets/flanks/outside 50m across the arc, result in poor conversion. The reason is obvious. Many of our shots are either coming from tough angles, long distances or from snap shots off stoppages. But the trade off is as we have territory, it means we're essentially protecting our defence up the other end, and making the opposition defend us. I think if you look back to our 2022 season, we did a similar thing with our ball movement. Because a lot of our guys were playing injured and we often had little continuity in the back 7-8 due to injury ruling out players entirely, we tried to protect the defence by taking territory and trying to lock the ball in. The problem was our ball movement became so predictable that it didn't always result in grinding out a territory win, but often allowed teams to slingshot on us from the ensuing ground ball that would go to a contest. But despite this predictable and dour style, it enabled us to be a stingy defence and defence wins flags. Our problem was we never really got our offence going again. The exception being that Brisbane game in Round 23 of 2022. Anyway, if you remember back to the last few weeks of the 2022 season, we started to try and take on the corridor more, but it seemed like a bit of a plan on the fly or we simply didn't have the right guys to execute it. This year, we've set ourselves up more to slingshot and take on the corridor when it's on. It feels like a very deliberate plan. However, this dare has gone out of our game somewhat in the middle part of our season, but with the slingshot method in play, IMV, we're giving ourselves a better chance of creating 1v1s or free numbers ahead of the ball by playing the slingshot method as a key to scoring. Also, one of the main differences during the middle part of this year in comparison to 2021 and 2022 (2022 in particular) is that when we're going slow and long to a contest inside 50, we're going more centrally. This does have the potential to open us up more as going centrally provides the opposition with more exits, but we're maintaining a really good shape behind the ball, which enables us to almost tempt the opposition to chain out of our A50 and get through us. However, it's a risky move for them, because if we can create a turnover, we should have a decent look going back the other way. And conversely even if the opposition do get through, hopefully we can push them wide, slow them down or win 1v1s behind the ball to halt their attack. In short, I believe we deliberately tweak our ball movement during this period of the year and part of that sees lower accuracy, but ultimately, I think our turnover game, which has been a greater focus this year, is providing us stronger scoring potential than a pure clearance focus and territory game as per 2021 and 2022. We simply need to be more accurate when we get those chances inside 50.

So who are you replacing him with? Keeping in mind, the modern game is a slingshot affair that requires blokes that can bring lots of pressure and get the job down at ground level.

I'd rate their forwardline roughly on par with ours, otherwise I agree with the rest. As for the thought experiment, it's a great one. I think they'd want to make some tweaks, but I reckon they'd basically go again next year. But Pendles and Sidebottom are getting long in the tooth, so it brings further heat onto the Daicos boys.

Chandler's actually laid 8 in the last 4 games. But he had zero in the Carlton game. Since then, he's stepped up and he's also had 4 shots on goal for 4 behinds. He needs to improve his accuracy, but if he kicks straight the last two games, we're talking about him very differently. It's a game of margins and I'd prefer to back the work rate of Chandler, which is also helping our forward half IMO.

Binners, I'd like to zero in on this point. I believe Collingwood's system as it stands is very susceptible to pressure and turnover. I know you agree. Is this what you're referencing above or in your view, do they have other issues?

Sorry, I was advocating for Chandler. Whilst he's not hitting the scoreboard and it's hurting us, he's bringing enough good defensive work to keep his spot. Charlie is not contributing enough however. And his relegation to sub is evidence of this.

More the second part I reckon.

They need to hit the scoreboard, no doubt, but the last two weeks, we're +24 for inside 50 tackles, so they are doing brilliant work defending and maintaining territory for us. JJs problem is with the addition of Hunter, JJ can no longer fill in on a wing, which means when he's not playing midfield, he's basically on the bench, because he's not great at half forward.

Exactly. I'd have tried to throw the tag by shifting him across to Butters, but we should have won regardless and didn't get the job done.

And the vast majority of touches were to 3/4 time... when we were ahead. Our players didn't get the job done in the last. FWIW, I would have played Viney on him, but it wouldn't have mattered at all, if JVR hadn't havegiven thstfree kick away or Chandler kicks his goal or Fritta kicks his.

It's a strawman. Unless you think Butters polled his 70+ votes against us...

How good is Clarry? 😍

What's your argument here...?

No, that's correct. There's usually a hand off. And we often sit our half back across A50 as an interceptor and allow them the +1 at stoppage inside our A50.

And we kicked 7.2 to 3.1 in the wet 3rd quarter against Port. I walked away from the game again thinking our game is vulnerable to wet weather (handball chaining in the wet for example), but that's a gameday anxiety thing (because handballs bring more pressure rather than mere territory) and probably not backed up by results. We have looked vulnerable when the ball is on the ground in D50 in dry or wet conditions, and maybe the wet conditions make it even tougher to defend those situations? But I'd say it's less about the elements, and more about simply not executing properly. If we kick as straight as we did earlier in the season, we beat Port, Freo and probably Geelong, and we'd sit equal top. But again, that's fatigue and our inability to execute under these conditions. I'd concur with the view that we overhandballed against Geelong, but I don't think that was a weather thing either. I'm not of the belief that we should be dump kicking into their interceptors laps, which I got annoyed each time we did it during the game. I was much happier with the alternative, and I suspect the coaches would be too, of chaining out instead. We simply made the wrong choices when we handballed too much though. The other thing I'd say is that we've only been playing this newer style of chaining out of stoppage and trying to move the ball quickly on slingshot for 14 or so weeks. For the most part we've been excellent at it, but the last 4 weeks has seen a significant drop off in our ability to slice teams up on the counter. Compare this with Collingwood who have been playing this style since the start of 2022, and it took them until the middle of the year for it to start to click last year. Now it's instinctive for them. We need to get to that level and then we can match their strength (without taking as many risks as them) and suppress their scores with our superior defensive set up.

Having to sit in the rain on Thursday night, it's a bit of a furphy to suggest we struggled because it rained. It didn't rain in the last quarter and that's when we lost it. Sure, we didn't ice the game prior to 3/4 time, but I put that down more to fatigue and inability to execute. We need to do better. Simple as that.

Half forwards push all the way inside defensive 50, whereas half backs mostly have the ball in front of them and don't go higher than half back. Would hope it's a possibility though as a positional swap.

And why do you think that might be? Nothing to do with fatigue?

Although our ground level pressure is really good at the moment (the last two games we've laid 17-4 vs Pies and 19-8 vs Geelong for +24 tackles inside 50), we're not converting our snap or burst chances inside 50. Therefore, I wonder if resting Chandler (some VFL and additional kms on the training track instead) and trying Bowser forward isn't such a bad move. He's quick, he's decent 1v1, he's clean and he's a beautiful kick, and played half forward as a junior. Just to try something a little different through this middle part of the season. The thing is, does he have the endurance?

I disagree. Since winning the flag, opposition supporters love to beat us. I'd like to throw an obvious rivalry in there, and that's the Bulldogs. At that Marvel game last year, I sat on the wing with @billy_blog and the Bulldog supporters around us were hugely spiteful towards us, I thought. When you lose a GF in the way they did to us, on top of the rivalry that was building in 2021, it has to stick a bit.

Yeah, revenue, how stupid.

You're very much determined, TU, that loading was no issue last year (you poo pooed it all year). Can I ask, have you actually listened to the Demonland podcast with Selwyn? Secondly, between approximately Rounds 11 to 19 in 2021, 2022 and we're seeing it again in 2023, we've seen a marked drop off in performance. That doesn't mean we lose every game, but it is a factor. This year it is most obviously apparent in our scoring accuracy, which is not only a by-product of fatigue, but our slower, less direct ball movement that then offers less penetrating forward 50 thrusts, is also related to fatigue. You'd like Selwyn on another podcast interview to come out and say we increase training of players during Rounds x to y? Or have we just suddenly become a poor footy team that can't execute three years in a row, after starting the first two 9 zip?

It may depend who we play in that first final too @Watson11. My recollection of the qualifying final in 2021 against the Lions in Adelaide was it was wet. The Lions are already a slow team, so it didn't overly impact the result.

We know the coaching team have a philosophy of backing in our system, but they've shown with their use of a defensive forward (previously Melksham and more recently Smith) and at times in 2021, a negating mid in Harmes to both Libba and Neale, we are prepared to use "negative" roles to ensure our system functions optimally. Do you think we should be more willing to use more negating players in our system?

Pretty unnecessary comment, I would have thought.