Binmans PA

As Lever intimated in his post game interview, we got our strategy wrong early and in the last quarter, we went more attacking. IMV, if we knew we were going to struggle arousal wise for 4 quarters, we should have started attacking from the top and then dug in to defend a lead. I think we're making too much of stoppages at the moment. Of course, we need to get better, but last night we were useless in the contest, with all our mids banged up, so naturally we were smashed in stoppages. In previous weeks losing stoppage has meant we cab slingshot, provided the post clearance pressure is good enough. Last night at times it was non existent. Furthermore, I'm on record saying the ruck position is the most overrated position in the game. The reason Max is so good is his marking around the ground, not his tap work IMO. He taps it directly to the opposition more often than tapping it directly to team mates, and the strategy this year and towards the end of last year was to take the ball from the ruck as often as possible and get territory. I think it has its place as a strategy if we're being beaten soundly at stoppages, but not as a first option. I'd much prefer him tapping to his feet and allowing our mids to shark or defend the opposition sharking.

Don't you worry I was saying it to them all night, but they kept up...

They had the bye. In no other elite sport in the world would you play 3 games in 12 with the near identical personnel. You look at soccer, they play a second string team for EFL and FA Cup ties and ring the changes in midweek games. Their sport is also less physically taxing not only in the kms run, but in the sheer physicality. It made a huge difference. You could tell we were out on our feet by the second quarter.

Oh, and I maintain what I said about Brisbane supporters in the run in to this game. They are as smarmy as Zorko and whichever nuffy sledged Petty about crying again.

Clearly we had a bunch of our best players underdone (Trac, Viney, Clarry, Brown, May and Petty), but I do think we made a tactical error that was clear by the middle of the second quarter. We played the 2023 game style with a really aggressive press without Kozzy - so as opposed to the deeper lying defence that we've played the last few weeks. We also refused to set up for the switch from stationary situations at half back, and went long down the line far too often from this position and from kick outs, which slung shot straight back to Brisbane forwards. We knew we were going in underdone given the 3 games in 12 days (insane, this doesn't happen in any other sport in the world and think about how physically and emotionally taxing the modern game is), I think what we should have done is gone really hard from the start and tried to put some points on them, and then accept we'd fade away in the second half. Instead we went too defensive with ball movement from the top, and what broke this strategy down and made any strategy impossible really is our contest around the ball and in the air was just horrendous. So perhaps even with the above strategy we'd have been in a fair bit of trouble? You can't play a really high press and get smashed in clearances like we were and expect to win. I've never seen us lose around the ground stoppages so comprehensively (we were -18 at one point in just stoppage clearances alone), and much of that was being flat around the contest, poor tackling efforts (Viney was clearly exhausted, his meekest game ever) and Max's insistence that he'd try and take the ball out of the ruck every time and kick it 10m up in the air to no advantage. This latter strategy was clearly not working from very early on and yet he persisted with it until the final quarter, where he started to tap to his feet and keep it in close, and we started to win centre clearance at least. Tom McDonald was brilliant tonight though, May solid too, ANB tried hard as always and that's about it. Max tried to lift in the last quarter, and did, but it wasn't enough. Put this one in the rear view mirror, have a break and plan for Richmond.

Lord Nev 🙏♥️

Similar with Caleb. Demonlanders need to temper expectations rather than hyping up these boys and then ripping them down when they don't dominate or when they have normal developmental patches.

We did score 25 points from centre clearances, but we also scored 32 points from the wing. So whilst we only scored 7 points from chains starting in the D50, this could also suggest we simply turned the ball over/intercepted it earlier. Which remains an important score source from us in 2024. I agree with the Richmond game last year doesn't fit as aptly as the Brisbane and Adelaide games the prior weeks, but there was a distinct loosening of our defensive system to score more points. We have clearly worked on connection over the summer though and that's your point. So we now enter with much flatter kicks from slower plays inside 50 and we start more scoring chains from our D50.

And I'm saying we've deliberately been sitting our defence deeper, ie not trying to play a forward half territory game. And of course there is nuance to this. Within game we may try to take territory and push home the contested advantage.

Fair enough. I don't think you can really play a forward half game when you're sitting your defence as deep as we have this year, so agree to disagree.

I'd be just tempering our expectations a bit. If he can make a hit or two, and lay 3 or 4 tackles, I think that'd be a great debut.

We still tried to play forward half in most games last year except Rounds 19-21, where we played from the back more.

So why is ANB not on the above list then? Weird.

Weitering the Melbourne supporter you mean? 😜 I thought he'd recently extended, but happy to hear he could be on the market post 2025. Would be the perfect May replacement and since he gives his bank details away to anyone, he might need the extra cash.

Caleb has been really good and I really like him as a player, but the hype on here (and elsewhere) is astronomical IMO.

Have you seen stats around this or is it the eye test thing?

Disagree. Let's see who's right as the season goes on mate.

Our system wouldn't allow that now anyway. As long as we cut off the first handball, we set our defence so deep now, there's far less space in behind.

I'm happy with us losing clearance/stoppage, ground ball, inside 50 differential, but winning on the scoreboard. Maybe I've rose-coloured glasses on or I'm being conspiratorial, but I reckon Goody would be perfectly happy keeping things as they are and he's playing a few games in his presser today. (ie he doesn't want to completely let on to opposition analysts how we're looking to win this year) If we win too much clearance and have the ball locked in our front half too often, it means we've got to be perfect to find space or a target inside 50. To me, that's unsustainable as a strategy nowadays. Teams are highly inefficient, us especially, when we play forward half. Perhaps we'd prefer to be defending most plays through the centre corridor and the wings, and turning the ball over earlier (higher up the ground/closer to our own goal) rather than playing from our D50, but ultimately most top 8 teams won't give up too many points from their own defensive half consistently. I do concur with Goody though that we'd probably want a greater inside 50 differential than against say Port (-21). You're asking way too much of your defensive system and defenders to defend that sort of differential.

Never heard of him. Interesting. Ta.

Very true. Perhaps it was more of a personnel limitation in the past? It may also have been Collingwood winning that sped up our shift to playing the deeper style. I remember in that QF last year when we were dominating territory and there was 100m open for Collingwood to work back into. Even though we were dominating territory, it felt like they were super dangerous defending from their own defensive half. We may have taken heavily from them or it may be a natural evolution to maximise our defensive system and lower the likelihood of teams slingshotting against us (ie combating the game style that was, as @binman says, developed to beat our 2021 defensive set up). I'm looking forward to watching closely how our mids set up on Thursday night. It's not even so much the set up, but how we attack the ball. In the two games I've seen live this year, it's been relatively obvious that we only send one mid to win possession, the others spread or take up defensive positions. This probably speaks to why we're losing clearance on net. Be fascinating to see how we approach this as the season progresses.

Just be careful, PF. You said 'um'. We don't tolerate that around here.

My wife was quite surprised with my reaction, which was something like that's a terrible song, we don't sing that in this house. 🤣 I'm like you do realise you're married to a nuffy that lives the MFC, so much so that I went to the footy the day after our wedding, and planned the date around the footy. Ya silly sauage wifey.

Uber creepy, Bitters.

Nah, I like the length. Thanks very much.