Akum

'Cheapies' - in every way - are Sheedy's bread & butter. Not surprising that he's forced the more effective of his captains to play the Sheedy way.

Just as well that our recruiters don't feel the same then.

Is that like a tapeworm?

Surprised there aren't more comments about this. The difference between this and our 10-15 goal wins last year was the defensive pressure, which caused a number of turnovers when the opposition ball carrier had nowhere to go and had to kick sideways or take risks and we nailed it. Allowed us to keep the ball in our forward half for large chunks of the game, despite them flooding the back line and getting absolutely nothing from the umps in the forward 50. That sort of defensive pressure just wasn't there last year. The spread was also really good. And we played the entire second half without our best player of the first half. Oh, and Gysberts & Strauss & Martin had good games for Casey.

He won't, and it is. AFL is aiming to maximise GWS exposure.

Nah. THey'll give it to Cameron for 3 junk-time goals.

I thought this was a ruling made ex cathedra specifically for one C. Judd (to quote the umpire at the time: "he tried to get rid of it, he only has to try to get rid of it") & doesn't apply to mere mortals.

This is what gets me. Every other team seems to rove to Jamar much better than we do. Are there any stats around for clearances won from opposing hitouts?

I'd imagine that Neeld would just want to satisfy himself that Cale was sufficiently disgusted with himself and sufficiently aware of what he should have done. I have no concerns with either man's response.

Hurley is Cowboy Neale without the bow legs.

Has a side ever got about 80 i50 entries and lost? After Lloyd, Monfries & now Jetta - and a LOT of ducking and very friendly umpiring in the last quarter last night - is Hirdy suggesting that the Bombers get a rough deal from umps?

Anything above 3 would be fantastic given our start!

Billy Battenburg?

My concern about Moloney was that he seemed to just have one string to his bow, and with the younger mids coming through to take his place in the midfield, his days as a Dee might be numbered, as there was nowhere else for him to play. Saturday night totally changed all that. He will be very hard to match up against on HFF because of his strength, and will give every other team's small defenders plenty to think about. He could also be really damaging as an attacking HBF. Great credit to Neeld for asking Beamer & Col to play more disciplined roles, rather than allowing them to freewheel. The Garland move got all the attention, but the Moloney move could well pay more dividends in the long term. And great credit to them for grabbing the challenge put to them with both hands and really putting in the effort. Could be a great move for both of them.

I think with Grimes it's purely a matter of fitness. Whenever he's fit enough to run out the full game in the centre, that's where he plays. Trengove too, he's not quite there yet, but I thought he was better with more time on the ball. Garland & Watts just give us more options. Garland gives defensive pressure & marking power inside f50. Jack gives more creativity out of defence. One thing a coach needs is to have extra options when things aren't going well, that might swing the game back in our favour.

This will be the story of this year - "setting the foundations for the future and ensuring the right behaviours are being followed". That's the absolute priority. And that's exactly the right way to go about it. That's what we needed Neeld for.

Seriously, I don't think anybody's suggesting that Neeld "threw away" anything, or that he should. He started by focussing on improving the side's defensive and contested ball skills. He emphasised that by encouraging them to kick to contests, to force them to gain experience in contested footy, 'cos this was our great weakness. A "crash course", if you like, under match conditions, because you can't get adequate experience at this stuff at training. Part of this "crash course" was that there was no point in making leads or creating space or run, because everyone was under firm instruction to kick to contests, and if you made space, you were ignored by the players and criticised by the coaches. Our uncontested possessions plummeted, but that wasn't a problem. The results weren't as important as getting the defensive & contested ball structures and skills, so lacking under Bailey, into place. But it began to be more predictable, easily countered by other teams, and we lost because of not being able to hurt teams going the other way. Perhaps he felt that the defensive structures were in place about as well as they could be, even though they're not perfect. And perhaps the Swans debacle was the "enough is enough" moment. So OK, we can now start putting the two halves together. The most important priority is to maintain the defensive stuff, but when there's an opportunity, particularly when we've got good possession, we can run the other way, lower our eyes, look for targets. Our uncontested possessions were 20-25% higher - say, a full quarter of football higher. Something changed, but not because Neeld "threw away" his game plan, but for the first time we start to see something resembling the complete game plan. And it looks OK. Still a long way to go, but all the elements are there.

Surely 222 uncontested possessions is a massive change to something. By being able to string together uncontested possessions, rather than just kicking to contests, we hurt them going the other way. The game plan was not switched around from defensive to attacking. But we were able to supplement our defensive game plan by some really effective attacking footy too. I had always hoped this was going to happen, but with Bailey, we had the attacking without the defensive capacity. The Neeld way is the right way to go about it. But I must agree with Hardnut - this was the first game this year that I've seen both the defensive (contested footy) and attacking (uncontested footy) parts of the game plan come together. And that's what we need going forward. To continue kicking to contests wouldn't have got us anywhere. 222 uncontested possessions! That's 50 more than our average this season. For the first time for at least 4 years, we now have a well-rounded game plan. Saturday night wasn't an accident.

Would it have been reviewed if it was called a goal???

Agree partly, but I also think he's putting him where he's most use to the team. Our ball use coming out of the d50 continues to be a problem. With Jack back there, it's just a hell of a lot better - not perfect by any means, but a lot better. At the moment, the team badly needs better ball use out of d50. Does anybody really think that a coach like Neeld would put Jack back in defence just to make life easier for Jack? For mine, Jack is in defence because at the moment, he gives something to the defence better than anybody else in the squad, and that's better ball use, in addition to being competitive against his opponent. The fact that he gains confidence and learns about defensive footy are just beneficial side-effects, but not the main reasons he's back there. We won't always need him back there, and a fully fit and firing Frawley and Strauss are much better longterm options for using the ball well out of defence. But for now, he's our best option.

If Hurley & Watts swapped teams & positions on Sat night, we would have lost by 4 or 5 goals. Yes, Hurley crashed more packs, and that will delight some of his fans here, despite the fact that nothing came of it, and that he got caught a few more times trying to crash through tackles instead of giving it off. But Watts was simply far more effective.

... and that the leadership team responded so well! The last quarters of Grimes, Garland, Jones, Trengove & Jamar (and even of ex-leaders in Rivers & Moloney) were just sensational - great example of the leaders stepping up when it was really needed. Not something we're used to.

Was this the first last quarter they've won for the year? Conditions would have been tough physically last night too. So perhaps they've hit some kind of fitness threshold. On the other hand, maybe the team balance was just right. And I agree with Hardnut - they used it much better when they had it, mainly because players provided options ahead of the ball and they were looking for each other. As a result, we got many more uncontested possessions, and that's what's been missing from the game plan until yesterday. It was a definite change.

Neeld made some great moves yesterday, the obvious one being Garland to the forward line. But to me it was very noticeable that the two captains had much more time on the ball than I've ever seen, and Moloney had a field position most of the night & spent very little time on the ball. Jacks G & T had interrupted pre-seasons and lack of fitness has prevented them from being played where they had most effect on a game, until last night. The quality of their clearances and ability to find space in traffic is the best we have. This was a watershed game, a changing of the guard, in that respect, and it paid great dividends all round. As far as I'm concerned, with the two Captain Jacks and Jones as our main midfielders, we will look so much better. Moloney too gave heaps in his unfamiliar role, still got plenty of good possessions, and he will be a huge handful for any HBF. Wouldn't have been easy to tell Beamer he was playing HFF.

You're much less grumpy when he plays badly! LOL