Earl Hood

45 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

TMAc deserves credit for winning us that match, but boy did he have some stinking moments out there today. His best and worst are so far apart and today both were on full display. Dr Jeykell and Mr Hyde sorta stuff. He kills me at times.

He persisted today and to his credit, came good when it mattered. 

Yes Tommy had a fair few possessions in the first 3 quarters but had stuffed up just about every possession and then at the start of the fourth he stuffed a kick forward again and I noticed him yelling a response to some fans on the northern stand Punt Rd flank. I thought that’s about it he is mentally shot. However from that point on he put on a clinic of contested marking, goal kicking and competitive ruck work. Just like we thought he could do. One difference today I think was Tom spent a lot of time on the wing and ruck that he was able to get into the game and finally it clicked. 

Dumb 

Hunts gone downstairs! 

How do we stop Walters? 

Gunston kicks ball siren goes but ball then bounces through goals, paid a goal? I thought the ball is dead once the siren goes. 

On 6/20/2019 at 7:34 PM, dieter said:

Precisely. Absolute silence from the MFC about his disappearance. I suspect the worst, namely he's not doing too well. If that's the case I wish him all the best and I have no doubt the armchair experts on this site, the same manic naysayers who comment on and foretell the worst case scenario on gameday posts would have contributed to any lack of confidence he might be experiencing. 

Running laps at training on Monday. Injured but not sure of the problem. 

21 minutes ago, Sorry kids said:

EH, understanding you are a lay person, but did you see any signs of what was frustrating Macca with the guys performance. I wonder if it is part frustration that the guys have just stopped listening to him personally. Wasn't there some divided opinion when he was at the Bulldogs. Its a tough gig motivating and putting kids on the right path on any area of endeavor. Just look at Stevenson at the Pies who has ruined his run of good form with a stupid meaningless bet of which he said he did not know the consequences. In his case he either did not understand the consequences of betting or did not take note because of who and how the message was delivered.

SK the drills run by Macca on Monday looked OK to me, yes a few players slipped over but it was damp, a few missed their targets and players dropped some marks but overall I thought the standard was good albeit in near perfect conditions. My wife is a Hawthorn supporter and this is the first time she has seen us train, her thoughts after Macca’s comments were that there was a lack of intensity in the drills as compared to what she has seen at Waverley occasionally. But does intensity vary between a Monday session, then ramp up mid week and down again for last run before a game? I don’t know. Does the lack of competition for places due to injury play a part in how players train? I will have to walk up the road and look at the Pies one day to see if there is a difference there. 

2 hours ago, dazzledavey36 said:

The biggest line I have taken out of this is the players feedback around this issue. Changes have been made based on feedback from staff and players.

And the big one to come out of that was McCartney now won't be involved with match day commitments on a full time basis but instead will be at Casey working on development on players and coaches. 

Am I the only who sees this as players not wanting much of McCartney come game day?

Apparently Rawlings is highly respected amongst the playing hence why now he has been given a full time role on match day.

 

All this is very interesting to me. As I reported on the Monday training thread I had a chat to McCartney, the background is he put his jacket on the fence near me and my wife and quipped he was going to get these guys fired up as he walked out to run a series of drills where he ran them pretty hard and it looked like a good session to me. He then came over to pick up his jacket and his first words were these guys just don’t understand it yet, their young but they have to train harder and stop taking shortcuts, you play how you train, great sides set high standards they have to understand that. 

My take on his comments at the time were that the playing group (and by inference the leading players) is not setting the bar high enough at training, thinking after last year, that it is all just going to happen. 

Given that Macca looks like he has been sidelined, I am thinking his opinion is at odds with the other coaches and it seems the players as he was clearly a bit pizzed off, now I know why. 

11 minutes ago, Leoncelli_36 said:

Did Hibberd train? A bit of a whisper that he might be injured 

Didn’t see him now that you mention him. 

Just now, chook fowler said:

Hallelujah. Rooke  has obviously been identified as the weakest link and McCartney is on the way out - after what he reportedly said about goal kicking in the training report, no wonder.

Chook what McCartney said to me about goal kicking, I took not to be his decision, it was a coaching panel decision. Brendan is not in charge of the forwards , so not his call, let’s try to keep to the facts we know. 

Just now, bluey said:

Officially in crisis mode, nothing’s off the table from here on in, including all coaches, players and the bored!

Well it makes sense, the season has gone so let’s review our coaches for the last 11 matches. I never liked that Rawlings went to Casey but thought it must be at his request for development but now we have him back. What changes in the so called lack of midfield connection to the forward line, next week will be interesting to see. Let’s hope it gets better. 

The Age is talking about a coaching revamp, Rawlings takes over the forward line, McCartney and Rooke back to player development. Recognition that things aren’t working! 

1 hour ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

Goodwin has been saying similar:  the goals will come.  Macca seems to be saying set shot kicking accuracy will come when players stop thinking about it.  Rather than wait till things sort themselves out I wonder what are we doing to make them happen?   I'm keeping the faith but those comments do not fill me with confidence.  

The yips for goal has little to do with our fitness or injury problems.  We've had all year to solve the goal kicking yips be they physical, technique or head related.   I see little progress after 12 games.

At the end of the day actions speak louder than words. 

I am wondering if goal kicking issues became a major focus in their post match analyses and attempts to rectify the problem have proved counterproductive to the point where last week we had players passing off (e.g. Jeffy, Oliver) when they were within their normal range? It seemed to me the problem had spread through out the team last week. So now the strategy is to stop talking about it and take the pressure off. 

1 hour ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Wonderful report. thanks Earl Hood.

Completely staggered at the positions of Macca. Speechless. 

On the contrary I can understand where he is coming from. If you keep concentrating on trying to fix a problem with your technique it may just get worse as you over analyse the mechanics of kicking a ball straight. A lot of advice to cure the putting yips in golf does not involve the mechanics of the swing but rather what’s going on in your mind when you line up. 

Dropped by training for 30 minutes this morning in beautiful sunny and calm conditions. Neville  was running laps endlessly with Crossy, OMac running laps as well and AVB walking around a little. Viney showed up late and did some close in ball work with Hannan but not much else. Didn’t sight Lever while I was there.

The others were going hard at it with numerous drills moving the ball by foot, kicking low 30m passes to a player on the lead. It wasn’t perfect but I thought most players were hitting their targets. These 30 meter passes are the ones we seem to be over cooking on the few occasions that our mids lower their eyes when delivering to a target in our forward line. 

There were also numerous drills where a player had to move through heavy traffic to get the ball with other players armed with the big pads,so there were some heavy hits as players tried to crash through. 

Harmes, JKH, KK, Stretch and Jeffy were involved in all the quick ball movement drills, moving well and delivering to targets. There was a lot going on around the ground so it was hard to take it all in. 

Training finished with the usual freestyle goal kicking practice at the northern end where players practiced whatever they needed to I suppose, set shots from 40 m for some, running snap shots for others.

i have mentioned previously that given our abysmal set shot accuracy this year why aren’t our forwards working on technique and routine with a specialist coach to iron out their issues. So it was interesting when at the end of training Brendan McCartney came over for a chat and said he was not happy with the standard of training, that there is still a lot of work needed if we are to improve and the playing group, although young had to understand this. 

I asked him about our goal kicking yips and shouldn’t we be working on our technique more and developing routines. His response was interesting, yes they are spooked on setshots but no we have done all that technique stuff, it will only turn around when they stop thinking about it. By which I think he means to stop thinking about the mechanics of it all because that is self defeating. This makes sense when I think about it because no matter what level of sport you played you will at some stage executed something well above your normal level and I bet when you did you were not thinking much about technique, more likely you were thinking of outcomes and the rest was just happening subconsciously. 

19 minutes ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

How’s the bruises on Fantasia’s arm from Stratton pinching him? Bizarre from Stratton. 

If you did that at suburban level football you would end up on the ground with your nose all over your face. 

2 hours ago, leucopogon said:

We recruited a big body in Preuss that might actually bring a few of these aimless bombs from our prolific mids to ground or, God forbid, even clunk some marks. However, the selection panel, in their wisdom, have preferred to shuffle the deck chairs and persist with a putrid TMac and shocking kick for goal in Tracc as our key fwd targets and effectively let our season slip away without so much as a whimper. 

Yes I have been somewhat perplexed with our selections. When we go forward option A if under pressure is to bomb the ball into the hotspot 20m out from the goal so you might look to having the Pruess/Max ruck combo always sitting in the hot seat up forward but no we have gone with TMac and Smith and now Weideman and none of them are great contested marks. Added to that we haven’t got a competent goal kicking crumber when the ball hits the deck. Does our game plan suit the cattle we select game day? 

I am a bit tired of this lack of forward connection terminology. It seems to be a weasel word to cover up widespread incompetence, including poor delivery by foot to forwards who can’t take a contested mark and the inevitable spoil goes to small forwards who can’t crumb or hold the ball inside forward 50 and allow the opposition to waltz out of defence and blah, blah, we have seen the results this year. 

1 hour ago, La Dee-vina Comedia said:

I challenge anyone to understand free kicks given away in rucking contests.

They were clear to me, when there was a ball up at a stoppage and Grundy and Max were holding each other to maintain position, Max would get pinged for holding! Simple really.

Greg Stafford is the only assistant who can hold his head up?. The rest have their jobs on the line and we need changes. Is it time to lure an Adem Yze back with his Hawks IP or Cameron Bruce? 

The goal kicking yips have spread through the team like influenza this season.

Can we just win this last quarter. 

1 minute ago, Return to Glory said:

You did see the Neeld period right?

Yes I did, back then we never had possession to display a skill error?

In one quarter of footy we managed to display every type of skill error it is possible to execute on a footy field. 

Fingers crossed for the Queens Birthday honours,  I am expecting some good news at last, belated recognition for my tireless work for the recently beleaguered financial sector. But you didn’t hear it here Okay! 

2 hours ago, Moonshadow said:

 

I posted this pic in a January training report. Tennis balls are used in training auskick footballers to have careful ball drop (not what you might think, Uncle...). If it lands 5mm from the sweet spot on the foot it will go sideways. It's an approach also used in training teens and adults. Whilst most agree kicking techniques are established by about 15, they can still improve at professional level, otherwise they wouldn't do it at training. Iirc, his ball drop was low and careful with the tennis ball. Go figure!

Oz Open tennis promo I reckon!