binman

Agree. Given this don't you find it strange how we allowed the cats game to play out?

Zones and system. Both of which require complete trust and synergy to work. Which takes time to develop. Which is why clubs are generally loathe to change their back six if they can avoid. I think they are committed to their current set up and asumming this is the case shouldn't change it An issue with one player playing the key intercept role these days is that opposition teams can target them to negate their influence. They can do this in a number of ways, for example by playing a defensive forward on them or spreading the forward line and isolating them against a big (as teams are doing with lever). This means teams now need mutiple intercept options. And perhaps this is why they like Smith in the side.

I am increasingly of the view the only way to increase scoring is to incentivise it . And the most logical way to do is say a priemership point for 100 points, win or lose (Or 80 in 16 minute quarters). As we have seen rules changes have unintended consequences but more importantly don't work. Coaches will always find a way to have defence as the fundamental tactical strategy. For example let's say we didn't allow any rotations. The coaches would just then implement the go slow tactics Scott employed so players can simply get their rest on the ground (remembering the principle of rotations is players getting 2 or 3 minute tests so they run in bursts). They might do the same if we went to 16 a side. No better way to stop your opponent scoring than by controlling the ball. Its exactly how weak soccer teams generally look to beat teams with more gifted players. It is what Scott did to us. If coaches had a premiership point as an option their risk reward assessment would change. And whilst they would still be inherently defensive they would at least have another option. Conditions are a furphy. The issue is defensive zones and systems not conditions. And contrary to standard argument there is no advantage at the docklands as it is narrower and harder to break zones there. The g is easier to score on. Sure rain is an issue but luck has always played a part and it would even out in any case.

No, watching a terrific series on Netflx called Dark (which i highly recommend). It is all about alternative realities.

I have a lot of time for May and really like his interviews. He is refreshingly honest and as you say answers the questions he is asked. I totally agree with your comment about tactical nous, particularly as it applies so the coaches. I'm a Goodwin fan but against the blues his lack of tactical response to arrest their momentum was poor as was the lack of a tactical response in the Cast game. As i posted earlier in this thread (and i think in the game thread) we totally telegraphed how we wanted to play with our selections (and in pre match pressers) ie we wanted to play fast and trap it inside 50. So what did Scott do? Deny us the ball and inside 50s by playing keeping offs and by playing so slowly negating our desired game plan. He said as much in his post game presser. Simples. Mays comments suggest not but surely the coaching unit should have planned for this eventuality? Perhaps they did but either were happy to have low scoring game thinking we would get on top (which to be fair we nearly did) or the the players did not respond to instructions. On the former being happy for a low scoring game is hardly in line with his promise of fast attacking brand of football dees fan would enjoy. But more importantly why would they be happy to have the game played totally played on the Cat's terms? Surely we want to play it on ours, how we had trained to play? On the latter Goodwin noted post game that one of the 'learnings' was not to allow so may non contested marks. I mean, really? Surely they did not need to learn that post game and both the coaches and players should have responded after the quarter time break by pushing up and denying them easy kicks and marks. Doing so would have opened us up to counter attacks but would have forced the game to be more offensive and therefore more on our terms and in line with how we trained and selected. And supposedly one of the 'learnings' from the blues game (according to May coincidentally) was that we played not to lose after quarter time rather then to win. Well why didn't we apply that learning and attack them, take risks - play to win - rather then sit back and let them control the tempo of the game and keep close to them with hope of sneaking what would have been an undeserved win. I tipped the dees coming into that match (after having tipping correctly for all the previous seven games in the round and being in with chance of a healthy pick 9 jackpot in my tipping comp) as i thought we would twin. And win well. We should have. And i believe would have if Goodwin had responded to Scott's go slow palaver.

Totes agree. Don't need Omac Look i know we recruited Lever to play a specific role - third man in, intercept marker floating 'round the back line, with other defensive bigs covering for him - but Lever is awesome one on one and is super, super strong through the core. With his combination of the ability to out mark any key forward one on one and his sheer physical strength he is an elite key position defender. He has been a revelation in this role at the dees. Week in week out he takes the best big forwards and simply out muscles them and shuts them down. Reads the ball so well in flight and just knows how to position his body to beat his man one on one. He has certainly surprised me as i always thought that he was terrible one on one and could be easily shoved aside even by medium forwards, like say a Rowan. And playing Lever as key defender against opposition bigs is just so smart as, one he is just terrific at it and two we need an intercept defender and it has allowed them to bring in Smith to play that role. And like Lever he is just a natural footballer. With his strength Lever will monster Lynch and if he plays on Jack will be way too wily one one one. Bring it on.

I menat the interview. I'm listening to the live on air pre record as we speak/write

ironic given you are listening to a pre record

Could not believe he didn't. Or if he didn't think he was a chance put it 20 metres out and gives us a chance to mark or rove a ground ball. Inexplicable. And that after Salem, an experienced AFL player didn't sprint up the ground after being given a 50 to at least have the option of getting to an out number. And then after ambling up the ground and finally arriving burning a critical 20 seconds (after seemingly looking to the bench to see how long to go) before trying a low percentage pass. So, so dumb. The whole match was like being forced to watch all the jackass films back to back. Prior to the restart Goodwin promised us an attacking game that was enjoyable to watch. He has not delivered on that promise.

It is like an episode of yes minister -this from lever post game: "It was really disappointing to walk off with a loss, but I’m hoping the coaches have a lot of learnings for us from this game and I think as players we have a lot of learnings as well.”

Wow a tigers demons game promises to be such a high scoring shoot out.

And we have players who simply do not have the confidence in their skill to cross the ball with a say 50 metre kick. At both ends of the ground. Which denies us an attacking option traps us on one side of the ground makes us predictable and is a big factor why we end up bombing it in to the top of the goal square.

Agree. Add not busting a gut chading even when you ate unlikely to caych him to try and least put referred pressure on them. Melkskam gave up on a chase on the wing and leaving aside not putting referred pressure on it was a shocking look from a so called leader. Oliver did something similar and it was made worse by the fact the ball carrier got held up as tbere was no kick on and Oliver would have caught him if he had kept chasing.

Good point D3. Maxy was awesome. He was shattered at the end of the 2nd through sheer effort. I was super proud of him. But who was going with him? Melk has lost me. Lazy and tries too many cute by half things such ss the stupid little dribble in the last quarter. On the mids not only did they not run with their opponents they did not gun run to stop those stupid chip kicks they did. And on that as wars in noted the tigers forward line push hard up the ground to help stop that. Where were ours?

All fair and reasonable points wise, with possible exception of him not making a lick of difference to our side right now. What I wouldn't give to have have has watts plsy in all 3 games this year and actually hit a target going inside 50. Remember he led goal assists in almost every year he played with us. Hogan loved him. But I understand the cultural reasons for goody trading him. Perhaps the real issue is that he has not replaced what we lost in terms of skills. The opposite in fact. Bennell is the only player we have drafted or recruited that has his foot skills and he is a gamble. Ryan, Martin , hill, jetta, suckling, are the sort of players we should have moved heaven and earth to get.

I just read your post red. Great minds and all that.

Agree on Hogan, he wanted to go home. Watts was a mistake. I said so at the time and say so now. Sure he may not have been as super committed as he might have been and didn't fit the Goodwin robot mould. But teams need different personalities. And good coaches get the best out of players and recognise not everyone can be the same. Arguably that was Phil Jackson's greatest strength. Clarkson would have made it work Going nowhere with us? He didn't need to do anymore than he was doing to be valuable. Just play a role. People said fritter was a like for like. Please. Time has shown that to be bollocks. And besides it we could have had both - it wasn't either or. Wattsy's skill set is exactly what we are missing. We are the worst kicking side in the league and we get rid of one of the best in the league. Stupid. When the chips were down? Name one player in our side who kicks that goal against the pies? Or one who kicks the set shot against the suns to save us from a ignominious loss? Or any of his perfectly weighted kicks to a forward? Or one who has his ability to assess options, to have time and space, to make smart decisions and most criticaly of all to execute, to hit targets. Tomlinson and Langdon filled an important need. But both are rubbish kicks. Same goes for lever. And I thought may was a better kick. Bennel is the only elite kick we have drafted or recruited in the last 8 years with Fritter and salem not being far off elite and rivers looking good. That is simply not enough and in my view is the key reasons for our current issues. In the Roos/Goodwin era we have put way too much emphasis on drafting for grunt not skill, in large part because of their belief in an inside out, contest based game plan. But both have got it badly wrong. Their game plan is now old hat and with zones and all ground manic pressure now being so effective the ability to hit targets by foot has never been more important. And with the need to sometimes play tempo footy and keep possesion by kicking the ball around or the need to tic tac the ball down the ground you need players who can be relied on not to break that chain. Yesterday's game was the perfect example of the issue we have created for ourselves. The cats (who were nearly as poor as us it must be said) chipped it around all day, completely controlled the tempo and then made better entries inside 50. We won the contested ball and inside 50s but butchered the ball and wasted so many chances. Watson kept saying we needed to change angles to give us better looks. The problem is we dont have players who can reliably do that as it takes skill to cross, weight a ball into a pocket of space, hit a lead up player who has someone right on him, kick flat, kick to advantage etc. In the last 10 years the only player who had the ability to reliably execute these skills was Watts. How many press conferences do we need to hear goody say we just need to tidy up our forward entries, connect etc etc. Last night, seemingly with no irony, he embellished that by saying when we do fix that problem 'look out'. Really? Goodwin is in his fourth year as senior coach after being the senior assistant. The problem should have been well fixed by drafting and recruiting the right players. We should have targeted players like suckling. Instead we focused on inside players with poor foot skills and got rid our best kick and decision maker in Watts. It was stupid then. And in hindsight it is even more so.

I wasn't too worried about losing Kent, though i liked him as a player and would have liked him to stay at the club. But he struggled a bit with injury and we had other similar players. Hogan and Watts are a different kettle of fish. I was dead against trading both. This was a quote in an article in news.com (largely about how god awful today's game was): 'The Demons enjoyed a 32-23 clearance advantage and had eight more inside-50s but were undone by their inefficiency' That could be cut and paste from 95% of write ups of games from last year, and even 2018. And certainly this year to. I understand that there's stuff i don't know about off field with both players and Jessie wanted to go home (but we could have simply kept him) but our foot skills are so, so poor. And our decision making almost as bad. Both players would help mitigate both of these weakness, in particular Watts.

I'm not convinced about that. We were woeful. A win would not have hidden that, just at didn't hide the last 2 quarters of the blues game.

Sorry DS can't agree. Two dropped marks and leaving aside being out marked easily a couple of times, not going up at all for the mark foote kicked for the first goal and then getting shoved out of the way by rowan and not being able to touch the ball on the goal line (although Maxy was not great then either) cost us two goals in game we lost by four points. It's fair to say if Omac had made those errors he would get panned. Given Lever is well over kis knee injury and supposedly had a great preseason then we are entitled to expect a hell of a lot better than being two dropped marks away from good performance.

Agree. The coaching staff and players should be embarrassed by the game plan Scott employed. Which was predicated on the knowledge: we have players who don't work hard enough with their defensive running. We will make errors under pressure We wanted to play fast and by playing slow we wouldn't know how to respond

I wasn't one of them. But we've got him so I could care less about that decision now. My issue is how they play him. He is flat out woeful one on one. So don't play him one on one. Set up the structure so he can do what he does best - an intercept mark and third man in.

We telegraph we are going to play fast with our selection. What does Scott do? Simply tell his team to play super slow ball knowing we have a a few players who don't run hard enough to cover.

Happy garry baker avatar told me he is struggling. But expects we will fire up now.

How in God's name was that not a free kick to tmac?