Adam The God

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.

I've since edited my post mate. Thought Gus was poor too. Our entire midfield was poor, including Preuss. We simply don't know what to do when teams get it or try to get it on the outside of stoppages. Okay, so we didn't work hard enough to pressure the first ball, let alone the second, but our stoppage set ups are head scratching at times. A few times Preuss would tap directly to Dogs mids on the wrong side of the contest, which Max is also regularly guilty of too. I'm not sure Harmes would have added much more given our poor the rest of the midfield was. I don't think injecting him into the mix would have changed the cleanness and the lack of two-way run and spread.

You could tell we weren't on half way through the first quarter. Game over. That may have sounded melodramatic at the time, but you can tell when a team isn't switched on. May and Lever, the exception. The midfield was terrible, utterly hopeless defensively. We let them switch with ease all day and when our forwards don't lay tackles, we get murdered on the outside and in transition. Absolutely cut to ribbons. It's not the game plan's fault, it's not the deeper lying defenders' fault either, it's absolutely a midfield/forward issue. Far too much inconsistency and picking and choosing when to go to contests or spread and work hard. I thought we'd play a bit more good footy before seeing a marked lapse, but not to be. May and Lever a mile ahead of anyone else. The defence did okay all things considered. Viney the hardest worker in our midfield, but a butcher of the footy. He's tough, he's a hard worker, but a dumb footballer, who IMV makes our midfield worse with his ball use. I counted 4 direct scores from his kicks pinging back the other way. Bleeds red and blue, blah, blah, he's a turnover merchant who thinks he's playing rugby half the time. Oliver reverted to his quick handball game again in the second half too. I liked that he, Gus and Petracca were looking for the shorter options instead bombing away, but their skills let them down badly. Their refusal to work in transition was pathetic. We got done so many times on the spread too. It was a very familiar loss in that respect. Quicker sides get us on the outside. If teams are prepared to spread harder and switch more than us we don't win. Simple as that. Whereas, the Dogs' style is very similar to our 2018 style, they're a super aggressive pressing side, which we saw in the first half enabled us to get a bunch of goals out the back. We didn't exploit this nearly enough. Our team on its day is a far better team than what the Bulldogs are at their best. Deeply disappointing. I'd say Petracca looked tired, but he's played a few of those sort of games this year. I can hear the commentators probably still salivating over his game, but did he have a single clean possession all day? Had 26 touches, but was truly ordinary to very poor. Even the basic handball to Weideman in the first missed the target by 5 metres, under no pressure. As Gary, rightly, kept banging on about. I was wrong. I thought it had finally clicked for our midfield. But clearly still a work in progress. We need to refresh the half forward line. Kozzie laid 5 tackles, but barely sighted in the first half when the game was on. I'd rest him if we had some pace to come in. Melksham should be dropped but won't be because when he's on, he's vital to our forward connection. But we have too many forwards who don't tackle. I've been on Fritsch about this. He and Melksham squibbed a few contests, not to mention Melksham's inexcusable 50 metre penalty. Hannan very little influence too. I'd bring Rivers in and shift Harmes forward as a pressure player and hopefully Jones is up for next week and we play him as another pressure forward. Still reckon we'll play finals, but unless we shed the inconsistency, I have no faith we'll be able to do any damage whatsoever.

Beveridge has definitely coached well but our mids haven't defended at all and the zone hasn't moved. You could tell we were going to lose half way through the first quarter. The system falls over without sufficient work rate.

Melksham has been disgusting.

Whenever we lose, you notice Fritsch missing regularly. Just for the record.

That play is literally why Viney makes us worse from midfield. Great effort and hard and all that but his kicking is utterly useless. Pings back the other way, 3rd or 4th time as a result of his possession.