We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

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carn_sainter
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We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673692Post carn_sainter »

Thinking about those three phases of the game:

1) The opposition have the ball - we're really quite good. At our best we're very hard to play against. Even today against the dogs our tackling, particularly early, was really good and made life hard for them. We set-up pretty well behind the ball and are good at picking off opposition kicks.

2) The ball is in dispute - we're pretty good here too. I'm not going to look it up but I reckon our contested ball stats are pretty good, pressure points are good, besides a few glaringly bad patches in a couple of games, I feel like the clearance work is pretty good too.

3) We have the ball - my word, we are just awful. Awful. Let's be clear about this, awful. Our ball movement against the dogs consisted of chipping it backwards and sideways, wrestling the pill up to the centre wing over far too long a period of time and then having it go out of bounds, turned over or into a stoppage of some kind. We beat ourselves more than the opposition beats us. We are our own worst enemy.


A lot of it is skill but it is also movement patterns. One thing I thought on the way home was 'did we go up the corridor at all?' And last week against the swans, did we? Have we forgotten about the corridor?

It's like we did well with a chip game up the side of the ground against the hawks and now we think it is gonna work all of the time.

Why do we not have options leading up to the ball and ideally leading up the middle of the ground?

The last 8 quarters, we have been completely impotent. No firepower. No good looks at goal. No avenues to goal. This is a huge concern.

How many goals have we scored from a forward leading, being hit on the chest 30-40m out and going back and kicking the set shot goal? 10 games...has it happened even 20 times? I'd almost bet it hasn't.


Around the ball we're good, behind the ball we're good, in front of the ball we are crippled.


Against the dogs (I watched on level 1 near the cheer squad), we had very few players who got the better of their opponent, which is bad news. I liked Gilbert, Ross, Carlisle. Maybe Newnes. But that aside, we were destroyed structurally. Thoroughly outcoached and playing without a winning system. Again, going back to avenues to goal, we had none.

Until we sort out the third phase of the game - traditionally thought of as the easiest to get right - we're going nowhere.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673763Post mickey »

This is the best post I've read. I can't believe you haven't had everyone agreeing with you. You see the game like I do (maybe why I don't get many replies to my posts). We smash sides in all aspects of the game, we have numbers streaming into the forward line with no pressure & somehow we blow it, the team think easy goal & relax .., turnover .. straight back the other way for easy goal. We are too manic for our own ability, slow down & think when entering the forward line.. simples !! Jono brown had been saying it for weeks. I could go on but why bother, same thing different year.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673776Post WellardSaint »

In the first qtr, the commentators said we had gone inside 50
maybe 3 times for every one entry by the Doggies.

I agree with the Op because our forward entries are absolute garbage.
Against Giants, in the last qtr, Acres took 2 nice marks right in front, and goaled, which is where the classic goals are scored.
Not bang it in and hope for the best.
Make space, pick somebody out, and put it on their chest.
Several times, Paddy was in front of his man, leading well, but our guy with the pill wasn't told by team-mates
or refused to listen.

Horrible horrible horrible


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673789Post Toy Saint »

Surperb post.

At every center bounce players are generally in their traditional positions, the forwards are in the forward line. If we win the centre clearance our forwards can lead toward the ball carrier.

But if we don't win the centre clearance our forwards drift up the ground, then when we do gain possession our forwards are often up on the wing or even in our defensive zone.

Logic would suggest that we either need to win the centre clearance, or alternately keep a couple of forwards in the forward line.

If we choose to do neither of these, then we are effectively choosing to chip sideways and backwards. Or perhaps we can kick to a forward running with the flight of the ball. This makes the easiest part of the game look the hardest.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673793Post Impatient Sainter »

Totally agree with the OP. Our transition from defence/midfield to the forward line us diabolical. There is something seriously amiss with our ball movement and game plan, we are far too easily to defend and play against.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673826Post SemperFidelis »

Excellent post. We are asking so much of our defenders. We need to be so much better with ball in hand, but especially those forward of the ball.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673859Post CarlTaughtMeEnglish »

Watching from the wing today and the number of time we would switch the ball across our defensive 50 to create space then completely ignore the mids finding space on the edge of the square and instead bang it to a contest down the line. Surely at quarter time breaks these guys being ignored stand up and demand the kick inside - that's why we have a leadership group.

I can't believe Richo would have said at 3/4 time, "let's keep plugging away down the line". Surely he must have said "we're down so let's roll the dice and take our chances". It is the exciting play we all want to see. We have Sinclair that can thread the needle by foot. Blake who can take the contested grab and break tackles. The Jacks with some daring dash. I saw none of that in a game that just drifted away from us. Is it that Jimmy W is the only one prepared to take the game on?

When we do somehow manage to get it into our forward 50 and set up our wall we now seem to have this pissing contest to see who can bang it back in the furthest. At one stage in the third we had managed to cause a mung punt out which savage got onto. Instead of looking to his right where half the team had just spread to the fat side he roosts it onto the top of the goal square. Surely he knows we don't have a player capable of taking the high specie, or the man mountain that defenders fall off. Paddy for all his potential is only ever going to mark a ball coming in like that once a season. Bringing it to ground and letting our smalls go to work might be the thinking but half of them still live in hope of getting on the end of a pass and have led to the space on the fat side and our bash and crash pack roving types like Mav and meatball are so outnumbered that they don't stand a chance of getting any space.

For all my negatives there is a plus with the defence. Has anybody else noticed how many times we have forced teams to shoot from outside 50. Like in basketball I would reckon most coaches would be happy for them to take the long bombs at goal. If champion data had a number for it I am sure we would be right up there. Unfortunately for us the top teams like the dogs, Geelong and gws have shown us they are stacked full of players capable slotting them from down town.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673862Post BigMart »

It's not as simple as that.

All defender sets up exactly where you want it kicked... if you chose that option and turn it over, you will concede a goal

Going laterally is designed to shift the defender to open up gaps in the defence and draw the press

The hope is to get through and out the back

What we do is f*** around with the ball by hand when clearing the ball from stoppage


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673902Post carn_sainter »

BigMart wrote:It's not as simple as that.

All defender sets up exactly where you want it kicked... if you chose that option and turn it over, you will concede a goal

Going laterally is designed to shift the defender to open up gaps in the defence and draw the press

The hope is to get through and out the back

What we do is f*** around with the ball by hand when clearing the ball from stoppage
This is a good post. It's not simple. But we are not putting any resistance up against that defence, or challenging it in any way. We are conceding.

Going laterally is fine, but we, in the last two weeks, have too often gone laterally, then laterally, then sometimes again laterally, but without ever going forward. At some point, we need to straighten up and be direct.

We're far too slow and indirect lately. We are not challenging the opposition in this regard and the reason we aren't able to shift the defenders and open them up is that we are too slow. And we're too slow because nobody forward of the ball is making space by leading. So we meander up the wings and then just have to give up and bang it in to a losing contest. Especially against the dogs, turning it over at centre half forward is like conceding a goal.

I reckon if you were to look at where we moved and had possession of the ball yesterday, it would be a U shape from one centre wing, down to full back and around back up to the other centre wing. There would be nothing in the centre square and no touches inside 50.

The handball is often one too many, that's true. But that may also be a sympton of having nothing to kick to.

Stringer wasn't particularly great yesterday in terms of winning contests (he was damaging on the scoreboard) but he got on the end of it many times by being in the right spot, a spot where we had nobody all day. The forward line.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1673914Post Con Gorozidis »

So we already knew that teams that spread us with good kicking can beat us easily.
Last night we learnt that handballing sides can also beat us.
Our main weakness is poor kicking skills and lack of creating and hitting targets by foot.
We stuff around by hand then run frantically and kick mongrels. That is our entire game plan and it isn't AFL standard.
The coach actually bragged about the long bomb strategy before the season.
Dumb strategy.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1674074Post damienc »

carn_sainter wrote:Thinking about those three phases of the game:

1) The opposition have the ball - we're really quite good. At our best we're very hard to play against. Even today against the dogs our tackling, particularly early, was really good and made life hard for them. We set-up pretty well behind the ball and are good at picking off opposition kicks.

2) The ball is in dispute - we're pretty good here too. I'm not going to look it up but I reckon our contested ball stats are pretty good, pressure points are good, besides a few glaringly bad patches in a couple of games, I feel like the clearance work is pretty good too.

3) We have the ball - my word, we are just awful. Awful. Let's be clear about this, awful. Our ball movement against the dogs consisted of chipping it backwards and sideways, wrestling the pill up to the centre wing over far too long a period of time and then having it go out of bounds, turned over or into a stoppage of some kind. We beat ourselves more than the opposition beats us. We are our own worst enemy.


A lot of it is skill but it is also movement patterns. One thing I thought on the way home was 'did we go up the corridor at all?' And last week against the swans, did we? Have we forgotten about the corridor?

It's like we did well with a chip game up the side of the ground against the hawks and now we think it is gonna work all of the time.

Why do we not have options leading up to the ball and ideally leading up the middle of the ground?

The last 8 quarters, we have been completely impotent. No firepower. No good looks at goal. No avenues to goal. This is a huge concern.

How many goals have we scored from a forward leading, being hit on the chest 30-40m out and going back and kicking the set shot goal? 10 games...has it happened even 20 times? I'd almost bet it hasn't.


Around the ball we're good, behind the ball we're good, in front of the ball we are crippled.


Against the dogs (I watched on level 1 near the cheer squad), we had very few players who got the better of their opponent, which is bad news. I liked Gilbert, Ross, Carlisle. Maybe Newnes. But that aside, we were destroyed structurally. Thoroughly outcoached and playing without a winning system. Again, going back to avenues to goal, we had none.

Until we sort out the third phase of the game - traditionally thought of as the easiest to get right - we're going nowhere.

Agree with you 100 percent.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1674078Post spert »

All I can say is that Carlise and Brown should be given a big pat on the back- our backline has been put under unnecessary pressure of late due to lack of defensive systems up the ground. Those two have stood up greatly.


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Re: We make the easiest part of the game look the hardest

Post: # 1674082Post BigMart »

What I can say is

Nathan Brown is not a good match up for Jake Stringer

Nor is Jake Carlisle

And blind Freddy could have picked that before the ball was bounced


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