Was really bitterly disappointed with the skills watching the game. Upon reflection, though, I think it's going to take a little while for the players to get used to quick ball movement and 'play on' mentality. It's a stark contrast to the game style of the previous two seasons where the intent was to really keep the uncontested numbers up by possessing, then stopping to look for options.
I think the new approach to the game is a really big gear shift in game style and something the players are still getting used to.
From Saturday's game, it seemed to me that the either the player with the ball was one step ahead in his mind before dishing it off, or the receiver was one step ahead in his mind before receiving, where for each situation, the players really needed to be concentrating on what they were actually doing. I think that the 'polish' will come in time, no doubt.
It's probably been mentioned before, but despite the deplorable skills, we still had 67 entries into our f50 (it didn't seem like it though) on saturday. Albeit with a 32% scoring rate on i50 entry (league average is ~45% after two rounds), that means that the mids are getting their hands on the ball, but either delivery into i50 is bad (which it has been thus far) or forwards aren't used to positioning (young players, new fwd line coach, etc.), but probably a bit of both at this stage. It's also interesting to me that we had ~25% of hit-outs (clearly no ruckman) but ~45% of clearances (including 52% of centre clearances!) - it shows we adapted somewhat to the situation - but again, we weren't clean with the ball use. If we had been clean in and around the contest and scored at least the league average for i50 conversions, we'd be talking about a win now, not a loss.
If the players can effectively adapt between attacking style (our new game plan) when required and a defensive game when required (stuff we've seen in the past two seasons), then we can play games on our terms. But what this also means is that we need a strong, effective and efficient midfield, with typical KPP players being adaptable to play between the arcs as well (probably pointing out the obvious here). I believe we have the young cattle to do it.
I agree, though, with other posters here that tackling numbers are a bit of a concern (including Saturday) - we need to remember that we have a lot of young players out there that are either small (although Fisher bucks that trend) or are big (Weiters, H-Mac, JSOS, etc.) and don't know how to use their body yet - these guys are early 20's and have just finished growing (or are still growing!). A little concerning that some of our more senior players are registering lowish tackle counts - I hope this is addressed.
We'll see how we can respond on Friday - Bolts talked about drilling ball skills at training this week during Saturday's post-match presser, so hopefully we're cleaner in the contest and general play. If we are, we are in with a good chance of a win.
Good post.
May explain why imo Bolton seemed more calm and 'smiley' in his post match interview than a lot of the other times i have seen him after a loss...and he alluded to the fact he felt we were close and just needed to 'tweak' a few things to get the balance of offence/defence right.
The players are still adjusting to the new gamestyle, and seem a little confused as to their positioning and how offensive they should be vs defensive. When this happens, you get what you saw on Saturday with the obvious lack of cohesion that results in long bombs and fumbles. These things don't happen when a team is all on the same page and know exactly what they're doing and where they should position themselves.
Throw in the new positions players were playing due to injuries on top and it's not that surprising really with a young team.
No Krooz and Kennedy helping out midfield meant new centre square set ups.
Weitering playing forward and some ruck.
O'Shea playing his first game for us and Polson playing his second...Mullett also a newbie in our team. Cunningham playing off half back is new and we have no Docherty and of course Gibbs as leaders.
New gameplan + players out of position due to injuries + players in a team who haven't played many games together = lack of cohesion.