Blues players vote on Mick Malthouse's game plan

[kingkingston]

Carlton coach Mick Malthouse has taken the unusual step of asking his players whether they want to persist with his game plan, as the Blues attempt to resurrect their season in the wake of their shocking loss to Essendon.

Malthouse and his assistant coaches met with captain Marc Murphy and his leadership group this week, with the three-time premiership coach going as far as seeking direct input on a game plan that he had already tinkered with last season when the Blues also began poorly.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...mick-malthouses-game-plan-20140409-zqstw.html

 

[thylacine60]

ffs - now it's the tail wagging the dog again - what else are they going to say?

 

[Azul]

Jon Pierik, you're a poor journalist.

Content basically a transcript from this week's The Blue Print.

Nothing to see here, kids. Watch the footage on the club website.

 

[TommyMcG]

Wow. Not sure what to make of this. Very unusual.

 

[Stig O'Hara]

"I think a couple of things need to come into consideration. We need to be better at kicking goals. It sounds so basic and so fundamental but we haven't been able to do it," McKay said.

He gets paid to say that.

 

[Silvagnis]

Pierik barracks for Carlton. Not sure he's as insufferable as some of the people who post online.

Yet you can expect him to be taking that angle as a journalist. No one will read a positive article about Carlton.

 

[Stig O'Hara]

Pierik barracks for Carlton. Not sure he's as insufferable as some of the people who post online.

Yet you can expect him to be taking that angle as a journalist. No one will read a positive article about Carlton.

He's quoting the Vet directly...............you tell me.

 

[champorado]

ffs - now it's the tail wagging the dog again - what else are they going to say?

Exactly. Sounds like an express route to (staying in) the twos. Laidler's insistence on his best game being played down back didn't seem to do him any favours (which kinda peeves me given the merry-go-round the 3rd tall back position has been). I obviously don't know what happens behind the scenes, but Mick gives off a much more authoritarian vibe than Ratts ever did.

The plan should take advantage of the strengths of the list, and the plan has seemed to emphasise our weaknesses more than anything else. I agree with Maclure, the players vote with their feet. All well and good to present a united front, but unless I see that belief in the plan on the field, these words mean very little.

 

[Just Kreuzing]

Sounds like some concessions were being discussed and offered by the coaching group and the players thought better of it.

Maybe they did consult or seek advise from Laidler.

Not sure what to make of this to be honest, Is it empowerment, no clue, reverse psychology, wits end, desperation, behind the modern trends of the game......

 

[Big Sim]

AS Kerry Packer once famously told Ian Chappell: "This is not a democracy son."

And while I can imagine Mick asking players to buy in to his game plan, I can not imagine him giving them the option of buying out. Unless it was the highway option which I think some will take at the end of the season if the misery continues.

 

[Windhover]

The humiliation of MM continues. The game plan is the coach's responsibility, not the players. It is entirely a matter for the coach as to the way he believes the team should be structured (i) for the season; (ii) for any given game; or (iii) during the course of a game. A player's task is to execute his instructions as well as he can. MM has not instilled in the team any semblance of a game plan that heightens our strengths and minimises our weaknesses in the year and a half he has coached us.

If I were one of the players invited to vote I would say I am 100% behind the MM game plan, whatever it is, and will be so long as he is coach. I would add that deciding who should be coach of Carlton is also not a responsibility of the players.

 

[Quazza]

Kinda seems we play Micks game plan for a half, get thumped, then open the shackles in the 3rd.

Except last week. That was just unpleasant all round

One thing is for certain - our game plan/style differs vastly from the top sides right now

 

[etsal1]

Jamo said on the podcast last week that the way we played in the second half against Richmond was the original game plan.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Damned if you do and damned if you don't. They were never going to get anything but support for the game plan. Some will be scapegoats for team failure if we don't make this game plan work but all that stand up to the game plan will be gone sooner rather than later.

I'd be concerned if Malthouse was doing this because he was out of ideas rather than test who has the discipline to continue along the path.

It must be noted that we usually naturally return to a run and gun style when we get far enough behind and we wonder why we can't play that way for four quarters. Reason being that a defensive boundary line game plan is not a way to pull back a deficit. So it's only an effective game plan if we start well and have the discipline to suffocate the opposition and not let them back again.

I'm no football tactician so I have to admit I don't even know what the game plan is supposed to be. I know he avoid the corridor, I know we use the boundary, I know we kick long and back ourselves to win the contested ball, I know we try to press up on the opposition when they have the ball. We just don't seem to have the skill and reading of the game to know when and where to go and when not to.

Does anybody understand what the game plan is supposed to achieve and where the balance is between attack and defence?

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Jamo said on the podcast last week that the way we played in the second half against Richmond was the original game plan.

Original as in pre-Malthouse?

We did the same last year to try to mount comebacks. It does indicate the players are second guessing their role when they can naturally slide back into run and gun game plans despite not playing it very often.

 

[Stig O'Hara]

Does anybody understand what the game plan is supposed to achieve and where the balance is between attack and defence?

Keep possession with the mids, run wide, then get it into Travis, as Swanny and Pendles get inside the 50.

Honestly, you'd reckon outscore the opposition would be the go.

 

[etsal1]

Original as in pre-Malthouse?

We did the same last year to try to mount comebacks. It does indicate the players are second guessing their role when they can naturally slide back into run and gun game plans despite not playing it very often.

Original as in how they were meant to play from the first bounce. That was how Mick wanted them to play the whole game.

 

[Beer n Skittles]

For all the talk of boundary footy not working, it seems Essendon* play it pretty well. In the first two rounds they used the corridor less and the boundary more than Carlton.
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-04-04/getting-the-score-on-the-board

 

[HBF]

Jamo said on the podcast last week that the way we played in the second half against Richmond was the original game plan.

Well lets see what we can achieve on Saturday arvo. Don't worry about the opposition - I want a 4 quarter effort with intensity at the footy.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

For all the talk of boundary footy not working, it seems Essendon* play it pretty well. In the first two rounds they used the corridor less and the boundary more than Carlton.
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-04-04/getting-the-score-on-the-board

So it comes down to speed and execution. Carlton's average speed seems to have been reduced over the past couple of years and our execution has gone down as we get stuck between needing bigger mids and needing faster mids. The fact we don't have the talls to take advantage of the game plan also hurts us. Waite is far better when the ball comes in quickly as he has the space to get a run at it and he is decent one on one. Casboult can take a pack mark where he assumes front position and just clunks it but he really needs it deeper. I'm just not sure about the merits of needing to turn over an entire list hoping that the 2010 lightning can strike twice, when we had an exciting game plan we were good at but it needed a little bit of steel and defensive tweaking.

 

[Stig O'Hara]

........ Don't worry about the opposition.......

A fatal mistake in football, my milko friend.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Original as in how they were meant to play from the first bounce. That was how Mick wanted them to play the whole game.

I'd have to go watch the game again to see what the difference was between our old game plan and the second half. Not sure I want to watch a loss vs the Tigers again though.

 

[Beer n Skittles]

So it comes down to speed and execution. Carlton's average speed seems to have been reduced over the past couple of years and our execution has gone down as we get stuck between needing bigger mids and needing faster mids. The fact we don't have the talls to take advantage of the game plan also hurts us. Waite is far better when the ball comes in quickly as he has the space to get a run at it and he is decent one on one. Casboult can take a pack mark where he assumes front position and just clunks it but he really needs it deeper. I'm just not sure about the merits of needing to turn over an entire list hoping that the 2010 lightning can strike twice, when we had an exciting game plan we were good at but it needed a little bit of steel and defensive tweaking.

To me, poor execution comes from not being able to win clean possession. The first kick is always under pressure, which makes it sloppy, which puts the receiver under pressure, which makes his kick sloppy, and on it goes till they turn the ball over.

Carlton's skills looked a lot better a few years ago when they were always getting clean clearances. IMO Ratten had a lot to do with that, he certainly knew what he was doing around stoppages when he played. His record of 265 clearances in a season is insane, no-one will ever beat that.

 

[No1Suspect]

For all the talk of boundary footy not working, it seems Essendon* play it pretty well. In the first two rounds they used the corridor less and the boundary more than Carlton.
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-04-04/getting-the-score-on-the-board

Yes but their game style revolves around possession football whether it's boundary or corridor, ours is simply bomb down the line and hope we either mark it or we win the ball when it hits the deck, which is why we are dead last in 'time in possession'.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

To me, poor execution comes from not being able to win clean possession. The first kick is always under pressure, which makes it sloppy, which puts the receiver under pressure, which makes his kick sloppy, and on it goes till they turn the ball over.

Carlton's skills looked a lot better a few years ago when they were always getting clean clearances. IMO Ratten had a lot to do with that, he certainly knew what he was doing around stoppages when he played. His record of 265 clearances in a season is insane, no-one will ever beat that.

You are right. We get the clearances but they are not clean clearances. They are hacks forward for the most part.

Now Ratten was not a beast size wise but got the job done. Is it the big bodied mid trend that is hurting us? We have big bodies but they lack skill or vision and our Ratten types that had skill or vision now get smashed in close.

This is not something we can counter properly now, at least until Cripps comes on, but if we know we will win the clearance but are not winning them cleanly, then why are we not filling space about 30m forward? The opposition are marking our clearance kicks uncontested most of the time. We seem totally reactive to where our opponents run instead of reading the play ourselves. The likes of Ellard and Menzel are the forward flanker types who can read the play but it's not much good if opposition talls are also reading it. This is where a smart CHF might come in handy. They should be starting at a true CHF position at centre bounces and coming forward to meet the kicks that drop short, rather than having the CHF and FF leading out from deep in the forward line.