Review GBU vs Freo

[Redleg Crow]

Come one, don't judge Pyke on press conferences. How would you go having to answer Rucci over and over again knowing he is looking for one word or phrase to beat up into something big.

I'd be much like Pyke.

 

[Vhaluus]

Don is wealthy, very very wealthy.

Seen his tax returns have you?

If he is so wealthy why not work pro bono so we can afford to give him some decent assistants?

 

[feenix67]

If he wasnt ok with inconpetence he would have walked after we failed to give him decent assistants

I don't think that's a realistic view, but I will say that I'm always worried that the coach doesn't have a big say in compiling his team of support staff. It's either a sign of a coach who doesn't value the importance of his assistance or one who has been told he has to work with what he has.

Our group of assistants are one of the weakest in the comp.

 

[Elite Crow]

Seen his tax returns have you?

If he is so wealthy why not work pro bono so we can afford to give him some decent assistants?

Don’t be ridiculous

 

[Vhaluus]

Don’t be ridiculous

If the salary we are paying him isnt that insignificant he is not very very wealthy.

 

[footy4ever]

Come one, don't judge Pyke on press conferences. How would you go having to answer Rucci over and over again knowing he is looking for one word or phrase to beat up into something big.

I'd be much like Pyke.

Which is what sabotages a good presser. No one else can get a ****ing word in because that campaigner Rucci is always hunting for something to drive his hate filled ramblings.

 

[feenix67]

If the salary we are paying him isnt that insignificant he is not very very wealthy.

It's not his wealth, it's the fact that he has viable and lucrative business interests outside of football. He's not in football because he has to be but because he wants to be.

 

[Vhaluus]

It's not his wealth, it's the fact that he has viable and lucrative business interests outside of football. He's not in football because he has to be but because he wants to be.

So wanting to be would give him a fair incentive to cover his own ass dont you think?

 

[Elite Crow]

If the salary we are paying him isnt that insignificant he is not very very wealthy.

No one works for nothing, as I said you are being ridiculous

 

[pjcrows]

On Pyke - he doesn't employ the Head of Football. The Board does. He doesn't employ the Fitness Manager - the Head of Football does, with Board approval. Yes, Pyke works closely with all of these people but they don't report to him and aren't subservient to him. Pyke also came in at a difficult time in terms of circumstances. We don't know how much say he has in who works under him as assistants.

Has Pyke done everything right? No. But there are problems above him, and to the side of him, that need addressing before anything else. And he knows it.

 

[feenix67]

So wanting to be would give him a fair incentive to cover his own ass dont you think?

No, I don't think so. You're making a character assessment that I disagree with. That's ok, neither of us know.

 

[Betts are off]

Was Poholke playing Lynch’s high half forward role yesterday? I have to admit his game was one of very few positives

 

[CrowBloke]

Rory may look like a player when given time and space, but AFL football doesn't allow that very often, and certainly not in big games. He was beyond shit today, he was the fossiled remains of shit. And so was his benchmark, DMack.

Funny you should say, but you're incorrect.
*pedantic spoiler alert*
I happen to have some fossilised (opalised, in fact) dinosaur shit --- it's called coprolite --- and unlike Atkins and Mackay it doesn't stink, and it's as hard as granite.
No shit.

 

[jenny61_99]

I cannot be ungrateful for pick 12 for Cameron, but the highly-competent Noble moving to Brisbane at the encouragement of the AFL is yet another example of the league constantly interfering to unsettle our administration.

Oh for goodness sake... every man woman and child in here was blaming Noble for ALL of our problems.... rejoiced when he went ,and collectively thanked him for his ineptitude when we got pick 12 for Cameron. We can't have it both ways.

 

[jenny61_99]

On Pyke - he doesn't employ the Head of Football. The Board does. He doesn't employ the Fitness Manager - the Head of Football does, with Board approval. Yes, Pyke works closely with all of these people but they don't report to him and aren't subservient to him. Pyke also came in at a difficult time in terms of circumstances. We don't know how much say he has in who works under him as assistants.

Has Pyke done everything right? No. But there are problems above him, and to the side of him, that need addressing before anything else. And he knows it.

I think there is something to be said for the Coach being able to employ the assistants he wants though. The fact that our last two coaches inherited their assistants meant that they were pretty much lumped with what we had whether they like it or not.

 

[pjcrows]

I think there is something to be said for the Coach being able to employ the assistants he wants though. The fact that our last two coaches inherited their assistants meant that they were pretty much lumped with what we had whether they like it or not.

I agree.

However, there aren't many clubs where the Coach gets to just pick all of his assistants. With that being the case, you need a Board who is astute, and with their finger on the pulse. The fact that we have two Senior Assistants in our box that have been there since the middle of the Stephen Trigg/Neil Craig era, without a premiership, indicates that they are not anywhere ruthless enough.

 

[John Who]

Haven't been able to contribute to a GBU for a few weeks and so here are my thoughts from tonight and recent games..

We were unlucky again. Unfortuneately it is adding to our poor record in close games. One has to wonder if our game plan and /or coaching plan has something to do with this. More on that in a second.

It was a 3 pt loss, if we had decent umpiring we would've won. Even if we accept the umpiring as it was and we'd have kicked a bit straighter we would've won.

I thought last week against GWS we were extremely unlucky as well. Particularly with Douglas going off in the last quarter and Lynch already down, after we'd used a lot of rotations already. That could've been the difference. Thought we were unlucky in the port and ess games as well. Only really been badly towelled up by Melb and Coll this year.

Given the amount of injuries we've got and on top of that, discontinuity we've had, we could and should be forgiven for a bit poorer performance than usual and I think it's mostly pretty pointless to moan about individual players too much, especially the young ones, I think all the youth we've played this looks like they're a chance, no definite writeoffs that I can remember. Yes freo have some players out, but only about half the loss we had and the rest of their team hasn't gone as bad with continuity, so that was no easy game for us. I also think its a bit early and or incorrect to blame mind training, grandfinal mental weakness, player coach disunity or player -player disunity, as some are.

I have long had a theory about the crows. It's hard to explain and I don't know if I'll be able to but here goes. If we have a team that can play a gameplan level 100 really well, well then we'll ask them to play a gameplan level 120 and make life harder for ourselves than we need to. If we have a team that can play a gameplan level 120 well, we'll ask them to play a gameplan level 140. Lets say gameplan level 100 gets you top 8, level 120 gets top 4 and level 140 gets top 2. Then a normal club, that's been down the bottom will aim for say 110, accept 100 and growl at the players if it goes below that. Thing is, they will get a number of games at 80, but that is because they don't have the skill or experience yet. Adelaide with a bit better squad which should be able to get a 120 level, will still occaisionally get 80 games, but not purely because skill and experience, but because we ask them to deliver a 140 level and we come unstuck because of it.
An absurd example of how you could do this, self handicapping as I call it, was say if hawthorn in their peak years, came up with a gameplan to just have two people stand out on the wings as decoys, never getting a possession or disposal, just standing there. This would mean they'd have to play two down. No matter how good they are, that woulda been damn hard to pull off week in, week out. But you can see my point, why make things harder than you have to? The Adelaide example at the moment, is how we never put extra players back in defense, despite an inexperienced unit in the mids and forwards. Given the strength in the mid and forward last year, we were able to cope with not having extras back. Not so this year.

I can see why Adelaide acts the way they do in some respects. Its about instilling discipline. If you put extra defenders back, it is like putting up a white flag on what we've asked the playing group to deliver and / or signalling to them that we don't think they can deliver. But like seriously, could we not have a man conversation about it in a team meeting and just say "look guys, we don't want you to feel like we're undermining our confidence in you, but you are less experienced that the mids we've had in recent years, so we are going to on occaision put extra numbers back in defense to help the defenders out" and also "now, don't think we won't be watching to make sure that we don't see lazy or poor habits creeping in because you know there's the extra support back there, that's one thing that will now be right in the sights - make sure the contest and work rate is still there or we'll bring someone in who is willing to meet the standards". And then you follow thru on all that. You still train the mids to follow the program that we think makes good footy (and has worked over the last few years). You can even start the games or play patches of the games without the defenders back, as well, you're not forced to lock yourself into a particular situation for god's sake.

You can see what teams offensive tactics have been with us now. Use pace to work thru our zone and an especially good one is switch and go around our zone. Fremantle did this pretty well today. Melb did esp well and I think everyone's taken note. If you get through the zone to about the half forward area, you have a good chance of scoring because Adelaide lets you have either even numbers or a numbers advantage in your forward line and goals are relatively easily scored. This does make me wonder why Hampton isn't in the team. He's an experienced big body, with pace, that tackles and that can take a grab as well, exactly what we need. I woulda had him in infront of atkins prior to this week, definitely goes in front of him now, brain farts or not. On the defensive side, you can see that the oppositions about putting pressure on us, getting high kicks forward into our 50, where there numbers advantage often sets up a quick rebound or at worst causes us to have to fight and scrap through large numbers in our 50 and slows up our ability to score, hence our shite scores of late. It shit me that we didn't put numbers back during their last quarter with the wind today(3rd) and so they were able to get a few goals, yet, they had numbers packed in our forwardline in the last and that contributed to us only getting 3 goals in the last. At some point Pyke et al have to choose between discipline to the gameplan and actually getting enough wins to play finals. If wins for finals arent the objective, which they wouldn't be yet, but if later it becomes impossible, then we better start playing a heap of kids, not just going thru the motions. We could also do a few experiments, like practicing a gameplan with extra defenders back and another one I've been wondering about....

Running two ruckmen. Clarke's been there that long he would've been there when we used to insist on having two ruckmen when many clubs just had one. This worked far better for us. When the high rotations phase came in, we went to one because that was the best thing, but now we're back in lower rotations land, I wonder why we haven't experimented with running two!?!?

A comment on the fitness dramas. I'm a lot more forgiving than most on that one. We're always calling for the club to try something. They tried something, but it didn't work. That happens sometimes. One thing I have wondered about though, given the age where we should be really smart about things, is why when we try an innovation, did we do it with the whole squad. Shouldnt the practice be, to give it to say 50% of the squad one year, see if they perform noticeably better and if so, expand it? Sure you don't get the whole advantage in the first year, but hey, if it goes wrong, at least you don't lose everyone either.

A few comments on today's game
Betts getting back to form. The smile is back. Hitting the scoreboard plenty now. Has most of his zip back. Some nice goals coming too.

Greenwood's grab. A weird one, but a corker all the same.

Poholke's grabs. I remember him being a noted marker when we drafted him. Quite handy today playing the hit up out of half forward role.

Doedee's chase. Brilliant effort son, pity we couldn't get the win for that effort.

Great response! I think we are trying different things, just currently we don't have the right kind of cattle or having the cattle that is partially underdone. The spirit is still there, just got to turn the spirit into actual belief as we seem to have lost it in recent weeks.

 

[Redleg Crow]

Seen his tax returns have you?

If he is so wealthy why not work pro bono so we can afford to give him some decent assistants?

Come on, this is silly. For a start the AFL would not allow it - "oh we don't need to pay our coach because he gets money outside the league". Uhuh.

 

[CrowBloke]

For the rest, we know these players can play. Last year they were fit, cohesive and aggressive. This year, injuries have undermined us and now they're a group devoid of confidence, lacking the spirit required to run both ways, and confused about moving the ball.

Very, very good points.
Mids' defensive running is almost non-existent.
Last year, I think it was vs GWS (maybe the Suns), when we turned the ball over our blokes used to take off like hares to make open position and their mids jogged off (10-15m behind) not even watching the ball. Lazy, unaccountable --- just like us, now.

 

[douglyzia]

Oh for goodness sake... every man woman and child in here was blaming Noble for ALL of our problems.... rejoiced when he went ,and collectively thanked him for his ineptitude when we got pick 12 for Cameron. We can't have it both ways.

Eh? I think many people acknowledged he was way too easy to deal with during the trade period, but many also acknowledged he worked his arse of as operations manager and was the glue that held the club together off the field.

 

[John Who]

Very, very good points.
Mids' defensive running is almost non-existent.
Last year, I think it was vs GWS (maybe the Suns), when we turned the ball over our blokes used to take off like hares to make open position and their mids jogged off (10-15m behind) not even watching the ball. Lazy, unaccountable --- just like us, now.

The hunters have now become the hunted. Unfortunately, we're currently the hunted! Like duck season!

 

[GreyCrow]

The hunters have now become the hunted. Unfortunately, we're currently the hunted! Like duck season!

NTRabbit season

 

[CrowBloke]

But as much as we want Burton to go he ain’t going anywhere, for that will require Roo and Fagan to admit they ****** up.

Tim Watson and Michael Voss and others are proof that really good players don't always make good coaches. I doubt that Burton is angling for a coaching spot, but his footy brilliance on the field has not translated to off-field success.

We cannot let Brett Burton stay in charge of this club's footy operations. He's butchered the last opportunity this squad had, and he's now built a body of work full of failures. He brought Collective Minds to the club, he brought Kanga Tech to the club, he pushed Poulos out and brought Matt Haas to the club. All have been utter failures.

This.
Serious question: have the "Collective Minds" mob or KangaTech worked with any group and taken them to a Flag? For that matter, how well did Hass go at Brisbane?
Snake oil salesmen and New Age gimmicks do not win Premierships. A simple solution would be for the Club to identify the MO's of other Premiers since 2000 and build a coaching staff and footy team to emulate their successes.
Nepotism, jobs-for-the-boys, doesn't cut it. Look at the punt Hawthorn took with Clarkson.
If Pyke wants a Flag he's gotta get ruthless with assistant coaches and players who'll become ruthless about winning games.
I'm getting to the point where I'd like to see Roo step down and for Clark/Campo/Hart and Burton/Hass also to fall on their swords and leave. The people who create the problems are very, very rarely part of the solution.

 

[Vader]

Haha
How would we know if they arent given the chance. Do we need more data on those who are orange cones on the field.

We've seen plenty of Cheney in the past, and Hampton for that matter.

I'm all for giving games to Gallucci, Wilson & O'Brien, but I don't see any point in giving games to players who have already proven themselves to be worse than the "orange cones" we're currently selecting.

 

[hey shorty]

Seen his tax returns have you?

If he is so wealthy why not work pro bono so we can afford to give him some decent assistants?

You know what people are like in general. Once you have money you always seem to want more

I'm lead to believe he isn't one of the higher paid coaches, I mean it would make sense, we don't pay anyone what they're worth