Adam The God

I do wonder if Fritsch getting the ball in the pockets was dummy leads, trying to create space for other forwards in the central corridor. We like most of our shots to go in that 20 to 30m range directly in front of goal. By leading to the pocket, Fritsch is creating space for others, but if our mids are stupid enough to kick it to the tougher option and Fritsch doesn't lead early enough or hard enough, he ends up being the problem too.

How was the wing position a problem for us yesterday?

I don't think @titan_uranus is saying there are one or two factors and that's it. He's just saying there might be multiple factors at play.

Absolutely. People are just frustrated and I get that, but it's misdirected. Tomlinson is slowly growing into the role back there.

I reckon our West Coast game was worse than yesterday's. At least we had midfield-forward connection at times and lowered our eyes most of the time. Against West Coast we bombed long every time on top of our forwards heads and to the advantage of West Coast players. Port was the worst, West Coast second worst, the Bulldogs display was frustrating like the Richmond and Geelong games. We struggled with our transition from offence to defence and back again against Richmond and Geelong, whereas we were okay in this respect yesterday.

We tend to play Metricon alright, so reckon it was a case of just not working hard enough. This may sound silly but I wonder what impact Jones' late withdrawal had on the forward mix and what we had planned there. We certainly lacked leadership across half forward and the midfield.

By the way, how do you know we offered Tomlinson a substantial contract? You dodged that question earlier...

The club recruited him to play wing with Ed Langdon. With Ed offering great run and AVB bringing a crunch around contests, we moved Tomlinson back to fill a more significant need. And by doing this we have improved our defensive system that is keeping us in games. I don't really care how the club markets things to members. Marketing is marketing. I care about what I am seeing on the football field. That said, I have been very impressed by our marketing team this year. I am saying that, yes. Why else would they keep him on the list if they didn't think he would improve? I'm not an Omac fan, but was prepared to back the club to give him time as a developing KP tall. I think it's probably run its course now and I think the club seem to agree, given their selections of late.

Couple of points on this. 1) how do you know we've offered him a 'substantial contract'? 2) he is playing well in defence. You're annoyed he's playing well? Who cares where he was recruited to play. 3) his versatility has been very handy to plug holes due to injury (Petty) or failure to come on (Oscar). 4) we will recruit a KPB to take Oscar's spot on the list or Petty will move back and Tomlinson will move onto a wing in 2021. I'm not sure why you're feeling so sleighted by the club here, because Tomlinson is performing his role well and is apart of a markedly improved defensive unit. Clearly the big team positive out of this year.

The biggest change required is to match them or better them in terms of work rate. Do that and spread hard from contests offensively and defensively and we win IMV. I reckon we need to slow the game down more too and not get sucked into playing fast the whole time. I'd like to know what our play on numbers were like yesterday in comparison to previous weeks. Also think because our mids didn't work hard enough yesterday, we couldn't get it on the outside enough.

Whilst I agree it's somewhat incumbent on a coach to get his players up, are you really suggesting that Goodwin didn't propose pressure would be important for the second half, just as it was in the first half? I think Goodwin is still trying to match or balance his stubbornness of commitment to a brand and his stubbornness to the right mix righting itself on game day. I agree that he can seem reactionary in his match committee selections, but his game day coaching philosophy is the defensive system will keep us close enough and if the mids and forwards work hard enough, we'll get enough of a look in at the other end. Half way through the last quarter we had more scoring shots than them even though they'd thoroughly outworked the majority of our team for most of the day. This speaks to your point about the vulnerability of the Bulldogs system. Their work rate had to be through the roof and even then their turn overs by foot were giving us chances to hurt them going the other way, but our guys either weren't converting our ample chances or working hard enough to defend. I think in time Goodwin will learn to be more flexible and loosen that stubbornness that I mention above, but that often comes with experience and knowing when and where you can afford to be flexible vis a vis either your system or positionally.

What would you plug the hole with though? As an example. Is it positional changes or tweaks to the systems around the ball?

That onus should be on Viney as the midfield leader then. He worked hard, but played his dumb selfish brand of see ball get ball and didn't seem to hold the other guys to account when they weren't running hard enough, because it continued. Whereas, the defensive unit held up pretty well all things considered.

Disagree. May and Lever show very strong leadership to set up the team from the back. I reckon they'd be filthy on the lack of defensive running in front of them yesterday.

Frost completely ruined our defensive system with his unpredictable headless chicken act. Tomlinson is solid back there. We clearly hoped Oscar McDonald would be able to hold down that third spot and that Petty, who will end up being the defender he was drafted as, would have provided an option here. Tomlinson will play on a wing next year. As for Frost, anyone that thinks he is a loss doesn't understand the predictability needed in the modern game from the back. Or has wilfully forgotten how unpredictable he was, even in his 8th year. There ironically seems to be a correlation between those that think Goodwin should have everything together, but stick up for a defender who was in his 8th season and still couldn't play to system or eliminate brain fades.

Please don't suggest this. He's a butcher back there. As soon as he went back to ruck a defensive stoppage he kicked it straight into a Bulldog who picked up the crumb and kicked an easy goal. As @DeeSpencer says, his problem is he overrates his abilities and doesn't play the percentages. That spells death in defence. Would get killed once the ball hits the deck too. I think he plays out the season as a KPF and we look to trade him. The problem is we're a bit skint on KPFs. Weideman, Jackson, Petty(?) and Brown. You couldn't see the latter being on the list next year either. If Richmond can build a forwardline around one KPF in 2017 and win the flag, then we shouldn't be afraid of the prospect of having Weideman and Jackson with a rotating ruckman down there.

It's interesting that the game plan is being built around a superior midfield dominance and extreme pressure from our forwards. These are the two areas that often go missing in work rate and rarely click consistently. It makes enough sense that the element that requires the least talent (work rate and fitness) is apart of your game plan, because it means you should be able to have a bunch of plug and play small forwards and pressure forwards to come in. It's definitely a major problem with inconsistency. Even when our midfield is firing, often there will be 1 or 2 forwards who have those stats that you mention, particularly the tackle stat. I do wonder if it's a bit of case of the forwardline being a sum of all its parts. If one or two chains are loose, the rest of the thing falls down. I think it holds up better than that though, because usually Melksham, Fritsch and Bennell barely tackle, Hannan comes in and out of games, ANB is on and off, Spargo struggles to play four quarters. Kozzie fumbles more often than not. There's inconsistency across that group. Weideman finally seems to be building some consistency, but his kicking is inconsistent. Tom is as you say, a liability at times. It's a piecemeal forwardline at the moment without Petty or Jackson able to come in. I don't rate him, but I'm surprised we bothered to sign Brown, because we've basically not played him. I'm a bit exhausted after today to be honest.

So today was a very good example of what happens to the systems and zones when the work rate isn't up to scratch. How many of you think that it's incumbent on the coach to shift things in game versus trusting the systems will right themselves and empowering the players to lift their performance in order for things to be successful? It's an interesting question, because I'm inclined to think if you're going to play a system that relies on pressure, if the players don't bring it, there's really no amount of flicking the magnets around that will change the result.

That's nonsensical.

Quality post. Nice and easy. There is nothing from my post there I wouldn't equally stand by right now. We have the cattle. Not the required consistent work rate...

IMV he exploited the ruck position all day, precisely because he sees how one dimensional the position is. We were probably caught off guard by a smaller ruckman in the first quarter and slowly we readjusted (Preuss using his body more against the smaller opponent) and did enough to force Beveridge to change tact by half time. He recognised they needed a more physical contest (ie halve it) and Bruce gave them that and our mids completely failed to defend transition and their mids got it on the outside time and again. I agree with you in that it is rarely ever just one thing, but I think 90%+ of today was on the lack of work rate from the players. I'm not sure a few tweaks around the sides like sending Harmes to Bontempelli would have done much. We weren't clean enough all day around stoppage, our ball use exiting stoppage, probably due to poor work rate from our forwards, was ordinary too. I just think if we'd brought work rate the Bulldogs can't switch and are continually forced to go down the line, where we then neutralise or win the next clearance. If we bring tackle pressure across half forward, we don't enable easy transition from one end of the ground to the other. Yet, we did.

We were smashed in transition IMO. Our defence generally held up well to their break aways from stoppage. May was immense in this respect. Agreed. Pickett did very little early on and ended up laying 5, mostly in the second half. Disagree. If our players worked hard enough, the Bulldogs can't switch to anyone and look up and have easy transition down the other side of the ground. It's simply not a coaching thing. It's a work rate thing on our mids and forwards. Preuss was doing exactly what Max regularly does when other teams rove to his taps or he tapped to the Bulldog players. Really not a Max v Preuss thing. Max would have given us far more around the ground, but that wouldn't have helped us. We needed gut running. We didn't get it. At the end of the day, the ruck position is a junk position. One of the truly ineffective and overrated positions in the modern game. Beveridge clearly agrees and won a premiership with that philosophy.

Shallow analysis too. This was lost on the ground. Our players didn't work hard enough. Clear as day. The best evidence is how easily we let them switch and transition from one end of the ground to the other.

Look who's back. To level this at coaching is typically shallow analysis from you, but I'd expect nothing more.

Hang on, hang on, mate. Hibbo turned the ball over a bit and Harmes didn't get much of it. Agree Melksham, Fritsch and McDonald were poor, but the midfield group and the forward group didn't work hard enough. Nothing to do with Plan B. Execute on the game plan. We didn't.