Earl Hood

Except it wasn’t a tackle or a push it was just body contact on a player over the ball.

I hopped off the bandwagon slowly in the second half of the season as we went 6 wins/8 losses! If you think our static, defensive second half 2022 game plan will cut it in 2023 with a set of injury free players you are mistaken. The best Teams are moving the ball at breakneck speed through the corridor (as we saw tonight) and delivering it fast and low into their forward lines all to negate our strengths, May, Lever intercept marking and Gawn’s marking down the line. The game evolves so do we need to review how we play.

The game plan would not have delivered us anything. As the plan evolved or maybe a better description is degenerated over the second half of the season, banged up players or not, we were barely a top 8 team.

Geelong is only doing to Brisbane what we did to Brisbane for 9.5 plus quarters of footy this year. It was that last 2 quarters last week where we inexplicably let the Lions off the leash and that stuffed us for the season. If we had flukes a win last week I suspect we would be copping exactly what the Lions are tonight. Geelong look very good. Hey the Cats keep moving the ball quickly and mostly through the corridor, that [censored] is not for us.

My theory is our predictable, defensive, static game plan invites it. Teams absorb the early assault from us and then as we slow down and play even more predictably and defensively they can apply maximum pressure around the ball carrier and run off us.

Another option to prolong Max’s career would be to change the game plan! This years “play to our strengths, kick down the line, hug the boundary & work for a boundary throw in” game plan is all designed around the dominance of Max as a tap ruckman and around the ground marking/spoiling target. It is very physically demanding on the main man. And we now know it doesn’t work against good sides. A new game plan might use more running players through the corridor, less throw ins and less demands on Max.

40 and 41 goals for a small forward is elite stuff two years running. His defensive presence is a bonus and I think he does that well.

If it was up to me Tomlinson will be required and training with the backs along with Joel Smith and Turner while Petty will be training with the key forwards along with JVR and TMac. Unless we trade in a key forward or back that is what we need to work with for 2023.

How do they measure those pressure ratings? I wonder is it easier to up that rating however it is measured if your opponent is playing static, predictable, boundary hugging football? If the measure is based on how well you close down an opponent’s time and space then our game plan was inviting it.

And some outside runners with foot speed and kicking ability as well please.

Yes. Interestingly Gary Lyon on SEN this morning said he had thought long and hard about what happened to Melbourne in the second half games after round 10 and he could only come up with the theory that players dropped their intensity, the hunger wasn’t there as it was in 2021. He is probably correct but my immediate thought was you counter that by dropping players who you identify might be not going hard enough to put pressure on the others. After setting ourselves up at 10-0 we had the luxury to reward the better players at Casey to set the required standard even if it cost us a few games and as it turned out we lost games anyway. I still think the defensive, predictable game plan set us up for failure as well.

An alternative might have been to bring in a few Casey players who were in form and rest and rehab a few banged up players and a few other players who were totally out of form. Instead we hung on with the same battle weary crew playing an ever more defensive, static game plan that was asking to be over run by any side willing and able to take a risk and run with the ball. Goody talked about the challenges of being the hunted vs the Hunter this season but in my mind the first people to blink was the coaching group with their game plan that resembled a hybrid of Mick Malthouse’s 2010 and Paul Roos in 2005 - defensive, contested, boundary line hugging, ignore the corridor, stoppage footy at every opportunity. The Dogs in 2016, then the Tigers blew slow, contested, stoppage footy away in 2019 and 2020. Then in 2021 when we demolished Geelong in the Prelim that marked the end of measured, possession footy I thought. The Cats & Pies have gone ultra offensive, running and moving the ball forward at all costs along with Freo and the Swans and just about everyone else with varying degrees of success against us. In short in my mind the coaching group bears much of the responsibility for where we ended up through game plan, and team selection.

The DARE has been deliberately coached out of the side. It is forbidden, not part of our game plan. The side has been drilled to relentlessly play the defensive percentages, kick down the line for Max to mark or knock it out and set up for the throw in and repeat. Kick long to the fwd pocket basically to get an out of bounds again, then hope for a goal from the throw in. It mostly works but not against the best sides who read what we are doing and start to congregate around where they know the ball is going then intercept and run and take risks to get the ball forward quickly with low passes into their fwd 50.

I saw him do that same thing at training about 6 weeks ago. It took him 10 minutes to recover. Got no idea what that is about except he has an ankle with a mind of its own sometimes.

Gee so many conservative plays kicking down the line when a switch was on to spread their defence. Goody relentlessly plays the predictable % play I know but we could have blown them away that quarter with some bold play.

Indeed I have just landed at Heathrow Uncle, on this most sombre of occasions, having been given a heads up by the Palace early yesterday that I should hasten to Balmoral as Her Majesty was slipping away, unfortunately all too late. The Queen is Dead, Long Live King Charles! I am assuming, like Federal Parliament the AFL finals have been postponed for 2 weeks, this is no time for mere games of sport after all.

Harmes in the middle to tag Lachie Neale, Brayshaw back to the wing. Tracc to play majority half forward if he is 80% fit. Dunstan onto the bench. Freo debuted a forward kid last Saturday so I would be tempted to give Van Rooyan a crack up forward. Max to play majority first ruck and stay behind the ball. LJ not sure what to do with him, he is not doing a lot. Anyway it’s all academic, knowing Goody he will trust his system and go in unchanged if players are deemed fit.

Spargo in hospital, scans on knees for Fritsch, Melk, Tracy according to Sam Edmund. We are looking a bit banged up after one final.

6 Oliver 5 May 4 Fritsch 3 Gawn 2 Harmes 1 Petty

A lot of basic skill errors, we should used to this pressure footy.

At the Grace Darling for pre game dinner. It’s busy, loud and my order is taking ages. Better have another drink.

Go for it Uncle. If you are still conscious!

And the Carlton forward coach might think to make sure they have a couple of crumbers in front of the forwards when they send in those repeated helicopter kicks that will inevitably get punched forward. Everytime there were 2 Pies and zero Blues to take the ball away.

6 Oliver 5 Petracca 4 Lever 3 Fritsch 2 Pickett 1 Brayshaw

Coach’s orders?