Coach Adam Simpson Megathread est. 2017 - Staying for 2024, Lyon’s Cryin’

[Goroyals22]

2nd highest for pressure acts across the weekend.

Don't fumble the ball constantly and make basic skill errors and we win the game comfortably.

Let's see what kind of response the players give on Sunday.

And what over the past 3 years has given you anyhope the players will respond to anything.. milestone games, last games, important games all pass with barely a whimper.

 

[RookiePick]

Dug this up from two years back...

This is really where I would like to see improvement.

There is at least talk now about moving the ball faster. I'm not sure what we are going to do about the complete disconnection between our lines though :/

I really feel like this is what is making more and more of us go a bit crazy. Years of clearly identifiable problems with essentially zero progress or even further regression taking place.

 

[VicBased]

And what over the past 3 years has given you anyhope the players will respond to anything.. milestone games, last games, important games all pass with barely a whimper.

Yep, who noticed Kennedy retired?

 

[Rowan18]

Dug this up from two years back...

This is really where I would like to see improvement.

There is at least talk now about moving the ball faster. I'm not sure what we are going to do about the complete disconnection between our lines though :/

I really feel like this is what is making more and more of us go a bit crazy. Years of clearly identifiable problems with essentially zero progress or even further regression taking place.

It's starting to feel like we support Port Adelaide

 

[Goroyals22]

Yep, who noticed Kennedy retired?

They might only realise when he does his lap of honour on Sunday

 

[bzparkes]

And what over the past 3 years has given you anyhope the players will respond to anything.. milestone games, last games, important games all pass with barely a whimper.

2 new coaches that didn't really get a crack at implementing anything due to well-known circumstances last year, plus our recruitment of players appears to be indicating bigger, faster, stronger mids, as well as one-touch players.

People complain about "Duh, what's the club doing?? We have no decent rucks, bigger bodied mids, etc..." yet when the club attempts to address those exact complaints through the draft, the same people ignore this and continue to whinge.

 

[bzparkes]

Yep good points, pressure rating can be skewed however. When we don't have the ball and we are constantly tackling, attempting to tackle the pressure rating is high. But we still don't have the ball. know what I mean?
The intent has to be there, but how much of an intent is what matters.
I am hunger is different in everybody. In football teams it must be across the board.

The difference, from what I have noticed, is that over the past couple of seasons, the intent wasn't even there and the players just coralled. There definitely seemed to be a shift in this post-bye last year, without the scoreboard results.

Obviously the 2nd quarter vs North last week was utter trash but it was a good sign that they didn't capitulate like last year and instead fought it out.

Baby steps and time will tell if the team's headed in the right direction.

 

[VicBased]

" yet when the club attempts to address those exact complaints through the draft, the same people ignore this and continue to whinge.

Couldnt agree more. Everyone complaining about we dont have mids, club recruits mids, These mids are not any good crys the crowd. Nic Nat is to old and beat up, we get new young ruck stocks, these rucks are shit crys the crowd.
FMD it is like people expect an endless line of players waiting at the door and we burn through them one by one.
The price of our clubs success is low ball picks, that is how the AFL have engineered it and it is working.
I wish they would all **** off and support Freo.

 

[VicBased]

They might only realise when he does his lap of honour on Sunday

I honestly do not think you pay enough attention to what is going on around you.

 

[Chump Change]

The squad is full of players who do contested ball very well. Their want for the contest has not been coached out of them.

A big part of our game plan that won us a flag in 2018 was giving contested ball a low priority and zoning in a way to intercept the ball after opposition disposal. We didn't win a lot of contested ball stats. Now that has been a problem since 2019. It's 2023 and we still get smashed in contested ball.

Corral. Zone off. Bank credits etc etc.

We're stopped corraling and zoning off but we're still getting beaten in contested ball. I'm assuming Culley, Ginby, Hewitt etc will fix this once they get some games under belt.

I'm happy to wait until these guys step up.

 

[Goroyals22]

2 new coaches that didn't really get a crack at implementing anything due to well-known circumstances last year, plus our recruitment of players appears to be indicating bigger, faster, stronger mids, as well as one-touch players.

People complain about "Duh, what's the club doing?? We have no decent rucks, bigger bodied mids, etc..." yet when the club attempts to address those exact complaints through the draft, the same people ignore this and continue to whinge.

Good points but nothing about what was asked…

The players couldn’t even get themselves up to play round one against the only side worse than them last year…


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[RookiePick]

A big part of our game plan that won us a flag in 2018 was giving contested ball a low priority and zoning in a way to intercept the ball after opposition disposal. We didn't win a lot of contested ball stats. Now that has been a problem since 2019. It's 2023 and we still get smashed in contested ball.

Corral. Zone off. Bank credits etc etc.

We're stopped corraling and zoning off but we're still getting beaten in contested ball. I'm assuming Culley, Ginby, Hewitt etc will fix this once they get some games under belt.

I'm happy to wait until these guys step up.

Recollection is that in the 2018 finals we turned that stat on it's head and won contested possession. Maybe I am mis-remembering though...

 

[Chump Change]

Recollection is that in the 2018 finals we turned that stat on it's head and won contested possession. Maybe I am mis-remembering though...

We were regularly just losing, breaking even, or just winning contested ball.

Since the start of time, winning the contested ball has been the #1 metric. Clarkson changed this and found a different way. Simmo, a student of Clarko made his own twist on it. It was good, won us a flag, but then in the years following we couldn't keep that contested ball balance at about even. Simmo had taught our players that it wasn't a priority. From 2019 onwards, we got smashed in contested ball. Why? Because coralling and zoning off became the easy way to play footy and our players for whatever reason, not longer want to contest the ball to the level we needed (which was about break even).

Simmo pretty much talked about it week after week at post match pressers. While Richmond modelled their flags on contested ball, we were still faffing about corralling and zoning off and we constantly let opposition get to the ball first. The game had moved on from our 2018 gameplan and we spend the next 3 season with our dicks in our hands.

 

[bzparkes]

Good points but nothing about what was asked…

The players couldn’t even get themselves up to play round one against the only side worse than them last year…


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Highlighted a pretty important point for you.

 

[Goroyals22]

Highlighted a pretty important point for you.

So again we couldn’t get up for that game nor many others lately but you think Sunday the credits crew will be up for some magical reason

 

[bzparkes]

So again we couldn’t get up for that game nor many others lately but you think Sunday the credits crew will be up for some magical reason

I see you missed my point, as usual.

The point isn't about us but how North Melbourne may go this year. It's round 1, nobody knows. If they finish higher than us then the loss won't look nearly as bad.

Hope you don't do any trading, you'd exit on the first opposing candle.

Patience grasshopper.

 

[RookiePick]

I see you missed my point, as usual.

The point isn't about us but how North Melbourne may go this year. It's round 1, nobody knows. If they finish higher than us then the loss won't look nearly as bad.

Hope you don't do any trading, you'd exit on the first opposing candle.

Patience grasshopper.

Music to Simmo's ears

 

[bzparkes]

Music to Simmo's ears

So if North suddenly rise and finish in the 8 and we finish bottom 4 again, as most people expect, are you seriously saying that losing by less than a kick to a finalist is a godawful result like some on here are portraying it as?

 

[RookiePick]

I'm seriously saying that when we come dead last everyone will be above us on the ladder and thereby the losses "won't look nearly as bad"

 

[Royalbeagle]

Pathetic on so many fronts. Totally garbled and schizophrenic thought process.

"Rebuild" had been a dirty word that the club had banned. And they were publicly spruiking and predicting a top 8 finish a few months ago and scoffing at the rest of the industry who thought that that was totally off the cards. Now, after a very underwhelming Round 1 performance, they pivot to doing interviews where they freely throw the word "Rebuild" around and say we are going to have to go through some pain. This is a massive PR pivot. After Round 1 he is trying to take back all the happy talk crap he and the board spewed at us at the end of 2022 and avoid being hoisted by his own petard. This is a Full Reverse Ferret on their big talk post 2022 after just one round of 2023. He wants us to forget that he was totally, totally wrong with his view and the direction he pushed things in post 2022 and wants to now pretend he was always calling for a rebuild.

This on top of angrily denying there were any fitness issues with the playing group in 2022 and then admitting it and using it as an excuse for the results 6 months later.

Plus, he is rolling out excuses for more awful performances rather than talking about how they will generate improvement. Covid and injuries were the 2022 excuse. Post traumatic stress from the injuries and Covid in 2022 is now the official excuse for 2023 by the sounds of it.

Plus, it is not a particularly young team we put out as he claimed, as pointed out in the east coast media. It was the 5th most experienced 22 on the park in round 1.

Sorry Trevor, you are in a high performance environment. As is Simpson and as are the players. And you are very, very well compensated for it. No excuses matter and there is no sympathy vote in a high performance environment. Perform or get sacked. Those are your options. You are not a single Mom working in call centre who didn't fill her quota of call this month and deserves to be cut some slack. You are paid probably over a million a year as CEO. Simpson is probably close to a million a year. Don't try and play the sympathy card. Perform or GTFO.

Don't underestimate the significance of this. Nisbett very rarely does media. He would only do some impromptu media like this if he has a message he wants to get out pretty urgently. It is not accidental. And the message is that he waving the white flag after Round 1, trying to do a massive PR pivot and crab walk away from the "We will have a rapid rebound and make the 8" happy talk last year. He is trying to get in front of what he clearly thinks will be bad results.

If they had any clue they would have recruited a mature ruckman. Grundy??

 

[bzparkes]

I'm seriously saying that when we come dead last everyone will be above us on the ladder and thereby the losses "won't look nearly as bad"

Last year the team would've rolled over and lost by 40+.

It's an improvement.

 

[southcoast]

Last year the team would've rolled over and lost by 40+.

It's an improvement.

Keep it in perspective.

We lost to the 18th team from last year with a short injury list.


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[PremiershipNo4]

I'm prepared to give him a chance, now that they've admitted the rebuild and a change of style. It takes time. If it sucks and doesn't work, then I'll be happy to lay the boots in.

In my old career of being a restaurant manager, if I was tasked to completely change the style of a restaurant when migrating from old premises to new ones, it wasn't me that got the arse if it was difficult to implement, it was the employees who failed to do so.

If the plan itself sucked, then I was the one accountable. That's how management works.

And if you’re running a restaurant with 25 tables but only have 2 tables full then you go broke. The manager gets the arse!

 

[bzparkes]

Keep it in perspective.

We lost to the 18th team from last year with a short injury list.


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And? Would they have been 18th if their club hadn't been an utter rabble for 4 seasons?

 

[bzparkes]

And if you’re running a restaurant with 25 tables but only have 2 tables full then you go broke. The manager gets the arse!

Everyone gets the arse if they can't afford the bills actually.

And no, as someone who took on a job 3 years ago (worst I ever had)with 30 tables and only got 2-4 tables per night, in a hotel, I can tell you right now that the manager is the only one who keeps their job. That's because they end up doing everything themselves.