rjay

Part of it's the way we play too. It's often and extremely crowded forward half. If we can isolate him a bit with quicker ball movement then there will be a lot of worried defenders around.

There's your problem. You don't know what's going on but go on to cast blame anyway.

Even that part of the game in Brisbane early this year after the outage. We came on and threw everything at it and nearly got the win. I would like to see us move away from the current conservative game. It's going to be an interesting watch over the rest of this season.

Also a big factor is not having a fit Brown or Tommy Mac...

It seems they are playing to instruction 'Macca'...a lot are picking out the obvious or blaming player x or y, but it's deeper than that. Or they are looking at simplistic solutions. This is the problem I have with some of the analysis. Earlier in the season we were attacking the front of the goal face more (I think we led the accuracy stat) but we were also leaking a lot of goals the other way. The FD obviously decided we needed to tighten things up, hence we now attack more to the pockets and then look to lock the ball down in our forward half. This is the instruction and blind Freddie should be able to see that. One of the big problems with our forward entries are the bounce backs...the time the ball is cleared by the opposition under pressure, turned over and we pump it back in. This inflates our forward entry figure and doesn't give a true indication of what's happening. It's all well and good to get the turnover but a big problem is they still have a lot of numbers back. Their defence is set and our forward half is too congested to find clear space. I think, well I think it's pretty obvious as you have said that we only have one decent forward (I might add Kozzie to the list but no matter we don't have a tall forward at all) and the FD also know this, they're not stupid...they must think in a shoot out we lose hence the current strategy. Is there a balance? do we underrate our scoring ability? or do we just hope the wheel turns a bit and we hit a few shots? There is no answer personnel wise in the short term so how do we structure a winning plan?

...nuance 'bub'. He didn't say that at all.

I've made similar points on here 'Jimmy'... The thing with Bartel is he understands the nuance, unlike most of the personality experts.

Thanks for reinforcing my point 'Jimmy'... Bartel is not long out of the game & his analysis is pretty good.

I give up...no miff. Just making the comment that I would prefer to here from experts who are just out of the game. That's all. ...and maybe we need to look at the list. Yes nibbler makes mistakes...he's not an A grader, he's going to hit some, he's going to miss some. Some on here seem to think we don't have enough skilled players then complain and blame Goody when these not skilled players can't hit targets or our game plan is developed around these not skilled players to get the best result we can. I mean you 'Jimmy' We overrate our list on here if we thing we should be a generational team...we're not, we're a good team in amongst a group of other good teams. We're a chance if all goes right. ...and last week a lot were complaining that we didn't play wet weather football, handball and played too much of a possession game. Well guess what, this week we went territory and didn't PF around with the ball and still that's not right. Yep, I give up. ...and maybe look at what Gary was saying to Carlton a few weeks ago about playing Curnow up the ground more like Cameron. Guess what, Voss took the advice and Carlton couldn't kick a goal...funnily enough Curnow is there number one goal kicker and he was running around up the ground. It's easy to make comments when you have no responsibility for the outcome... edit...by the way, did I say I give up.

No, anyone can comment. I mean we do all the time...sometimes we may be on the mark, a lot of times we aren't. We're even further removed. I just find that the longer someone has been out of the game the less they should retain expert status. I don't take what Gary and his cohort say as gospel, I just think of them as footy personalities in the hunt for ratings. Sometimes they have interesting points but more often than not they pick low hanging fruit...and say the obvious without any consequences. I do like to hear from players but more specifically coaches who are fresh out of the game. I find Brenton Sanderson interesting listening.

You know him do you '58er', or is this just guesswork from afar?

You do understand that Gary is first & foremost an entertainer, a football personality. Whether good or not is up to personal taste... He's been in the media since he retired, not in the game. He's never coached at AFL level... I have no issue with him critiquing us...I just don't put as much weight in that critique as you seem too. I would love to hear Chris Scott's critique, that would be very relevant. I would also love to get a full backgrounding from our FD on our game plan Of course that won't happen.

Going by the pix I've seen she looks to be a fair bit stronger???

Their forward options are way ahead of ours.

Where did I say AA? We don't have the tall cattle forward that other top 8 teams have. Open your eyes and have a good look. Even the bottom 2 teams have better KPF's than us. Not all AA's but good solid KPF's, we don't have one. All teams have weaknesses and it's been ours for a couple of seasons now.

We have 2 quality forwards Kossie and Fritsch. What do you expect Stafford to do with a bunch of role players? It's the list.

I think the forwards are putting pressure on the disposal...but in reality that's the easy bit. Better they get the ball and put pressure on the scoreboard.

Ok, lets look at his suggestions. It's always easy to isolate incidents and show players up...you could do that with every team, every game. 5 suggestions. 1. Isolate Kysaiah Pickett inside 50 more often and play him out of the goalsquare. Lyon said: He’s a terrible match-up one-out deep.” Yeah...maybe but it's never that easy. Otherwise the Tiges for one would do it all the time with Dusty who is an even worse match up. Opposition teams just don't let it happen like that. 2. Don’t be afraid to play Christian Petracca forward more. Lyon said: “He’s their best one-on-one player … At some stage against St Kilda, one of the great defensive teams, it just might be Petracca and (Clayton) Oliver (inside 50) – and clear out. Or it might be (Max) Gawn one out in the goalsquare.” Clayton Oliver is injured Gary...It's a big reason Tracc has had to do more midfield time. Again it's not easy to clear out the forward half particularly against a team like the Saints. I would look to move the ball quicker though. It would help Kozzie and Trac if they could get more even match ups rather than a packed forward line. It's hard to find space with nearly all players in your forward half... 3. Re-call Charlie Spargo to the starting 22. Lyon said: “I think he’s their best inside 50 kick. He needs to come back in at some stage.” Charlie was in poor form and doesn't deserve a call up...our best kick inside 50 is probably Bowey or Salem but we don't have stats on that as they don't often get high enough up the ground. A move may help. 4. Re-call Jacob van Rooyen to the starting 22. Lyon said: “(Harry) Petty and van Rooyen is the combination (inside 50). I don’t know why they went away from that … because they need competitors as the contest number tells you. Petty and van Rooyen are competitors.” Not so sure with Petty as it's going to depend on match ups. It's pretty obvious why they went away from it...it really only worked properly against the Hawks in the 1st half. Our FD didn't trust Tommo to play on Cameron, as it was it was a non issue but who was to know. We're a better team with Lever as an interceptor. As for JVR, I would rather he played but maybe they wanted to take the pressure off and give BBB a run...in my mind wrong game and wrong time. ...and really JVR isn't the answer, he's a good kid finding his way. This is one of those easy to say things but fact is we are bereft of KPF's and a big part of the problem. We've had to manufacture a plan to deal with a lack of key personnel.... 5. Push Christian Salem up the ground to help with their inside 50 kick retention issues. Lyon said: “He’s a very good distributor, maybe he takes a position forward of the ball.” Salem or Bowey for mine, we could do with better ball use. I would think of playing one on a wing and moving Hunter forward. He's a smart player close to goal. That seems obvious from the outside.

Not attacking his arguments...I only hold them marginally higher than yours or any other knowledgeable fan. ...but just because you agree with him doesn't make it right either.

I'm not a fan of Gary's analysis at the best of times. I think he's been out of the game for far too long to be relevant. Also he has never coached at the level. Unfortunately this is the case with most of the so called experts. They are really not football experts they are football personalities. Maybe Hardwick would be interesting for a year or so but unfortunately I think coaches who want to get back in the game hold their cards too close and don't really give everything away.

I suspect a couple of things here. It would be interesting to see how many of our inside 50's are from us winning the ball back and pushing it back inside. If this number is as I suspect then the forwards are playing a defensive role in assisting turnovers. ...but I think we would all be happier with less inside 50's with greater scoring efficiency. I just don't know that we have the players to do it.

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Selection is not going to fix it. We can't select what we don't have. We have a list problem and we're trying to manufacture a game plan around it.

His and our expectations are too high. Some of those shots were not easy, they were 50/50's at best. Unfortunately he's taking those on board when he gets the easy shots and it's effecting him. Easy to say, hard to do but if he just took the Ted Lasso advice to be a goldfish his conversion rate would rise significantly.

Agree with you...and they need to let Kossie play footy, not just play defend. Lesser players can play that role. I would look at Bowey forward or on a wing. We need someone with smarts who has good depth & hits targets with his kicks, players or goals. Too many role players forward of centre is indeed the wrong mix.