Adam The God

Paging @Pollyanna. Reckon you could throw Viney in a forward pocket. Agree on Gus though. Needs to keep playing midfield.

Well, probably Sparrow and play Rivers off half back. He can even have some of Sparrow's midfield minutes.

What a zinger. Thanks coach.

Fair enough mate. We'll agree to disagree on that. Port, for me, was clearly a game where we didn't turn up. Yesterday, the midfield was terrible and the forwardline didn't bring enough pressure. The corralling from the previous weeks was gone. I'd love to get some stats on the 1%ers too. As for our ball use in the West Coast game, it was utterly pathetic. I know it's frustrating, but I think we're still learning what it takes. I had hoped it had clicked going into this game. I did say I thought we'd put in 1 or 2 more stinkers this season like every other team is dishing up too. Just thought this would come a bit later in the season.

Haha, Plapp is our forward coach, ya goose. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Biffboy. Don't get too angry on a Sunday.

I reckon the majority of Demonland just want more out of Harmes and believe he could offer the team more up the ground.

Well done, Biffboy. You're best on ground. We're all sheep and you're the tactical genius.

Absolutely. Agreed. I worded my previous point poorly. This speaks to the strength of the defensive system we've built IMO. Switching definitely helps spread the zone, but if the defending team is on its game and works hard, the zone moves with the ball to close up space and prevents the opposition from launch an adequate attack inside 50. I agree we weren't able to pressure their mids on the outside anywhere near enough. Bontempelli had heaps of space almost every time. Our mids were getting sucked into the contest without thought for the outside and I wouldn't be surprised if whoever played on Vanders dragged him away from the contest where possible. I don't recall him impacting the contest very often.

I still think we backed our system to do more damage than theirs. And to be honest, had we kicked straight, our defensive system and set ups still would have been a major factor for the win. Our system has always broken down if we let half backs run freely. When we're on song, our half forwards are crunching those running half backs and making them kick down the line or turning it over in the corridor or at our half forward. Without that, these half backs can create attacks. The bigger question is why weren't our mids and half forwards creating this pressure? I reckon they knew they couldn't keep going down the line to contests, because on reset we'd win clearance. We'd also mauled sides the previous three games who refused to switch. Our work rate against Collingwood applied yesterday would have prevented these switches and enabled us to slingshot back or control possession leading back towards our own goal. Given our midfield dominance, we would have been able to control the game. I think they couldn't believe their luck at how easy the first switch was and just kept going to it because it was clear we weren't working hard enough. I think this is all work rate though. The zone moves across the ground naturally when we're on song and so it prevents the switch. It strangles teams eventually and with our alleged fitness (and I say alleged because we looked sloppy yesterday and tired), this should be repeatable within game and from week to week.

Great post. Where's Viney's leadership in all of this? I agree wholeheartedly with @Patches O’houlihan that we can't play Viney in the midfield mix. I can be convinced by @Pollyanna that moving him forward and enabling him to go to forward stoppages could be a good thing. I just think out of the middle he's a liability. The two standout possession for Viney yesterday were two kicks inside 50. The first one to Fritsch, where he lead to the wrong pocket and missed on a tight angle amongst the swirling breeze. The other was a shallow move barely inside 50 to Oliver, who failed to make the distance into the wind. The rest of the time, he worked hard, but undid his good work with poor possessions or upset the balance of the midfield by being sucked in to everything. I think the club has to make a strong call here. Either Viney plays the majority forward or we let him walk via FA. Many will disagree with me on here, but the evidence is mounting. Maybe it'll take a new coach to make the hard call?

Which bit, mate?

And what happens when Dangerfield, Selwood, Ablett and Hawkins all retire in the next 2-3 years? They'd want to win one before then, but that'd mean having to win a final, where they go to water.

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.