Drugs Are Bad Mackay?
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- May 24, 2006
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Still amazed that we can seemingly be dominated in so many areas yet find ourselves close on the scoreboard. We've never been like this - have always been the opposite and relied on almost complete possession domination to scratch out a slim lead. And always been exasperated when a more efficient team plays "worse" and beats us.
Now we're the efficient team who can (sort of) absorb opposition possession. It's a good habit to be in I reckon even though it's not completely clicking at the moment.
Anyhow, for this Monday's Expert I went back to re-watch the game and focused on three areas:
1. Centre square set ups
2. Kick ins
3. Field kicking
1. Centre square set ups
I've felt for a while that our clearance numbers were misleading. That we got a decent amount in terms of raw numbers but not many that were constructive. Thought I'd have a closer look at Friday night.
There were 28 centre bounces. My breakdown is that Geelong got 14 clearances, we got 12 and 2 were won by no one. Within those figures, Geelong had 7 centre clearances that I would regard as "fluent" clearances where they controlled the football and were constructive. We had 6 fluent clearances. The other clearances were rushed and haphazard.
28 centre bounces
22 - Jacobs (we won 9/22 clearances when Jacobs was rucking)
6 - Jenkins (we won 3/6 clearances when Jenkins was rucking)
21 - Sloane
18 - Thompson
18 - B Crouch
17 - M Crouch
9- Douglas
1- Betts
Statistically our most effective combination was Sloane - M Crouch - B Crouch. What was notable was how effective Sloane was in the centre square, and how ineffective Thompson was when he was in there.
Geelong swept the ball away fluently 7 times - Sloane was only in the centre square for 2 of these 7 occasions. Thompson was in the centre square for all 7. In fact, for all 14 of Geelong's centre clearances Thompson was in the centre square.
Sloane was in the centre square for all of our 12 centre clearances. Thompson was only there for 4 out of our 12.
Conclusion
Just a poor night for Thommo maybe...? Or are we putting too much faith in him? He has been our #1 for a long time and has just lost our "other" #1 so it's not surprising that he's still a major part of our planning. However Geelong put a lot of work into him. One player to engage Thompson, two players to hunt the football. Purely to box him out and keep him away from the footy.
He's been a beast but can't do it forever. It reeks a little of us still trying to lean on Goodwin, Burton, McLeod and Edwards in 2010. Overall our centre clearances work was reasonable against a good midfield - a 14 to 12 deficit. However for the 18 centre bounces attended by Thompson we were 14 to 4 down.
Interestingly one centre clearance he did get was when he was late coming off the interchange bench and had to run in off the back of the square. Hopefully food for thought for the coaching staff.
2. Our kick ins
We had twenty opportunities to see our kick in strategy under pressure and it didn't fare very well.
Of the 20 kick ins:
- 8 resulted in repeat Inside 50's to Geelong including 5 shots at goal... yuck.
- Only 4 made it into our F50
- The rest didn't amount to anything but didn't hurt us
I don't know what the league-wide benchmarks are but I'd imagine giving up another shot at goal 25% of the time is on the south side of diabolical. Any option we take is done very slowly. We never chip and play on and generate a handball receive. We are very timid. Worryingly, our most fluent kick ins tended to come when Geelong had scored on a fast break and we kicked the ball out immediately - before Geelong was able to set up its zone.
The long kick to Jacobs on the left or right flank only worked once from 10 attempts - where it spilled over the back and McGovern kicked the ball to half forward. One other time we got a free kick. It failed every other occasion. We need to stop using Jacobs as a long target.
Up the middle to Walker needs to be an option more often, rather than just the last 5 minutes. Just to break it open a little earlier and give the defence something else to think about. At the moment they know we're either going long to Jacobs or chipping it into one of the pockets
8 - Henderson
4 - Brown
2 - Smith, Hartigan
1 - Seesdman, Talia, Cheney, (one unknown)
We were struggling to get Smith and Seedsman into the game. Surely they could be taking more kick outs? Both of Hartigans kick outs ended up in a Repeat I50 entry. Thanks but no thanks, Kyle.
Henderson was best value for us. Of the 4 times we made it into our F50, he'd done the kick out on 3 occasions. However, each time that he bombed to Jacobs on the flank it resulted in a repeat I50 entry conceded. We absolutely must scrap this plan from our playbook. It is a guaranteed fail.
- Henderson, Smith and Seedsman should be doing all of our kick ins.
- Don't kick long to Jacobs
- Occasionally kick long up the middle to Tex
- Using short kicks to generate a play on situation where possible
The issues we have with our kick ins are just as prevalent in other stop ball situations in the D50 - marks, free kicks, out on fulls. It's not just the defensive action of our midfield that is causing the problem with the huge number of I50's we're conceding.
3. Our field kicking
Watching through the game I didn't feel quite as depressed as I did on Friday night. A lot of the trouble we found ourselves in was largely our own doing. Credit Geelong's pressure and the defensive structure they were able to set up to a degree but a lot of the errors were under zero pressure.
No one means to make mistakes and there are always going to be errors in a game of footy. What you need to get rid of though are the Gargantuan Zero Pressure Errors - the Smith pass to Seedsman vs Hawthorn for instance. These absolutely cripple your momentum and change the course of the game. We had a bunch of them on Friday night. Eight in just the 2nd and 3rd quarters that were just as bad as Smith's shocker:
1. Sloane marks just outside 50, kicks inside 50 for Lang to take an uncontested mark
2. M Crouch at half back looks for Tex on the lead in the centre square. At his ankles, turnover, goal to Motlop
3. Hartigan marks at half back, kicks in-board to Milera. Misses by a mile, shot at goal for Geelong.
4. Cameron marks on wing, kicks in-board, intercepted by Bartel
5. Cameron great mark vs Danger, kicks across ground to Henderson, spoiled, goal to Motlop
6. Atkins has the ball on the wing, looks for McGovern, overcooks it, I50 for Geelong
7. Seedsman has the ball in the back pocket, tries a chip pass to Lever, turnover. Geelong goal from ensuing bounce.
8. Hartigan has the ball in the back pocket, Lynch is free. Terrible kick, turnover, I50 for Geelong
These were all under no pressure. We were in complete control of the ball. The other common thread though is that on almost all of these occasions we were taking attacking options into the corridor, trying to open up the game. Which is good. These killed us on Friday night but I don't think are a pattern - just a team slightly down on confidence after a couple of average weeks.
However, there are a couple of issues with our ball movement:
1. The long kick up the line for us is largely ineffective. We don't have many players who can take a contested mark and are woeful when the ball hits the ground from a marking contest anywhere between the arcs.
2. The switch doesn't work for us. We have some slow players and average kicks in the back half - Talia, Lever, Hartigan, Cheney, Brown - none of whom are dynamic, long-kicking rebounders. It takes us half an hour to switch from one side of the ground to the other.
These two factors mean that if we get the ball anywhere between the arcs in a stop ball situation (mark, free kick, out on full) we are basically stuffed. Can't go long, can't go sideways and their zone is set up so we can't go short.
Solving this with our current personnel is difficult however the switch can be improved. At the moment when we find ourselves blocked in on a wing and choose to go backwards, all that happens is that we string 3-4 slow kicks across to the other side of the ground and find ourselves blocked in there.
Going back to the centre is fine - it opens up the field. Once it's back in the corridor though then there needs to be some change of direction. Something unexpected. Some unpredictability.
*If* we are going to continue with the switch all the way to the other wing then for Christ's sake dummy a kick the other way or something. Feign a long kick down the middle. Pretend you're going to give off a handball then don't. Take on the man on the mark. Occasionally kick the ball straight back from where it's come. And do it quickly. Do something so that all 18 opposition players don't know to the centimetre where the ball is going to end up.
Now we're the efficient team who can (sort of) absorb opposition possession. It's a good habit to be in I reckon even though it's not completely clicking at the moment.
Anyhow, for this Monday's Expert I went back to re-watch the game and focused on three areas:
1. Centre square set ups
2. Kick ins
3. Field kicking
1. Centre square set ups
I've felt for a while that our clearance numbers were misleading. That we got a decent amount in terms of raw numbers but not many that were constructive. Thought I'd have a closer look at Friday night.
There were 28 centre bounces. My breakdown is that Geelong got 14 clearances, we got 12 and 2 were won by no one. Within those figures, Geelong had 7 centre clearances that I would regard as "fluent" clearances where they controlled the football and were constructive. We had 6 fluent clearances. The other clearances were rushed and haphazard.
28 centre bounces
22 - Jacobs (we won 9/22 clearances when Jacobs was rucking)
6 - Jenkins (we won 3/6 clearances when Jenkins was rucking)
21 - Sloane
18 - Thompson
18 - B Crouch
17 - M Crouch
9- Douglas
1- Betts
Statistically our most effective combination was Sloane - M Crouch - B Crouch. What was notable was how effective Sloane was in the centre square, and how ineffective Thompson was when he was in there.
Geelong swept the ball away fluently 7 times - Sloane was only in the centre square for 2 of these 7 occasions. Thompson was in the centre square for all 7. In fact, for all 14 of Geelong's centre clearances Thompson was in the centre square.
Sloane was in the centre square for all of our 12 centre clearances. Thompson was only there for 4 out of our 12.
Conclusion
Just a poor night for Thommo maybe...? Or are we putting too much faith in him? He has been our #1 for a long time and has just lost our "other" #1 so it's not surprising that he's still a major part of our planning. However Geelong put a lot of work into him. One player to engage Thompson, two players to hunt the football. Purely to box him out and keep him away from the footy.
He's been a beast but can't do it forever. It reeks a little of us still trying to lean on Goodwin, Burton, McLeod and Edwards in 2010. Overall our centre clearances work was reasonable against a good midfield - a 14 to 12 deficit. However for the 18 centre bounces attended by Thompson we were 14 to 4 down.
Interestingly one centre clearance he did get was when he was late coming off the interchange bench and had to run in off the back of the square. Hopefully food for thought for the coaching staff.
2. Our kick ins
We had twenty opportunities to see our kick in strategy under pressure and it didn't fare very well.
Of the 20 kick ins:
- 8 resulted in repeat Inside 50's to Geelong including 5 shots at goal... yuck.
- Only 4 made it into our F50
- The rest didn't amount to anything but didn't hurt us
I don't know what the league-wide benchmarks are but I'd imagine giving up another shot at goal 25% of the time is on the south side of diabolical. Any option we take is done very slowly. We never chip and play on and generate a handball receive. We are very timid. Worryingly, our most fluent kick ins tended to come when Geelong had scored on a fast break and we kicked the ball out immediately - before Geelong was able to set up its zone.
The long kick to Jacobs on the left or right flank only worked once from 10 attempts - where it spilled over the back and McGovern kicked the ball to half forward. One other time we got a free kick. It failed every other occasion. We need to stop using Jacobs as a long target.
Up the middle to Walker needs to be an option more often, rather than just the last 5 minutes. Just to break it open a little earlier and give the defence something else to think about. At the moment they know we're either going long to Jacobs or chipping it into one of the pockets
8 - Henderson
4 - Brown
2 - Smith, Hartigan
1 - Seesdman, Talia, Cheney, (one unknown)
We were struggling to get Smith and Seedsman into the game. Surely they could be taking more kick outs? Both of Hartigans kick outs ended up in a Repeat I50 entry. Thanks but no thanks, Kyle.
Henderson was best value for us. Of the 4 times we made it into our F50, he'd done the kick out on 3 occasions. However, each time that he bombed to Jacobs on the flank it resulted in a repeat I50 entry conceded. We absolutely must scrap this plan from our playbook. It is a guaranteed fail.
- Henderson, Smith and Seedsman should be doing all of our kick ins.
- Don't kick long to Jacobs
- Occasionally kick long up the middle to Tex
- Using short kicks to generate a play on situation where possible
The issues we have with our kick ins are just as prevalent in other stop ball situations in the D50 - marks, free kicks, out on fulls. It's not just the defensive action of our midfield that is causing the problem with the huge number of I50's we're conceding.
3. Our field kicking
Watching through the game I didn't feel quite as depressed as I did on Friday night. A lot of the trouble we found ourselves in was largely our own doing. Credit Geelong's pressure and the defensive structure they were able to set up to a degree but a lot of the errors were under zero pressure.
No one means to make mistakes and there are always going to be errors in a game of footy. What you need to get rid of though are the Gargantuan Zero Pressure Errors - the Smith pass to Seedsman vs Hawthorn for instance. These absolutely cripple your momentum and change the course of the game. We had a bunch of them on Friday night. Eight in just the 2nd and 3rd quarters that were just as bad as Smith's shocker:
1. Sloane marks just outside 50, kicks inside 50 for Lang to take an uncontested mark
2. M Crouch at half back looks for Tex on the lead in the centre square. At his ankles, turnover, goal to Motlop
3. Hartigan marks at half back, kicks in-board to Milera. Misses by a mile, shot at goal for Geelong.
4. Cameron marks on wing, kicks in-board, intercepted by Bartel
5. Cameron great mark vs Danger, kicks across ground to Henderson, spoiled, goal to Motlop
6. Atkins has the ball on the wing, looks for McGovern, overcooks it, I50 for Geelong
7. Seedsman has the ball in the back pocket, tries a chip pass to Lever, turnover. Geelong goal from ensuing bounce.
8. Hartigan has the ball in the back pocket, Lynch is free. Terrible kick, turnover, I50 for Geelong
These were all under no pressure. We were in complete control of the ball. The other common thread though is that on almost all of these occasions we were taking attacking options into the corridor, trying to open up the game. Which is good. These killed us on Friday night but I don't think are a pattern - just a team slightly down on confidence after a couple of average weeks.
However, there are a couple of issues with our ball movement:
1. The long kick up the line for us is largely ineffective. We don't have many players who can take a contested mark and are woeful when the ball hits the ground from a marking contest anywhere between the arcs.
2. The switch doesn't work for us. We have some slow players and average kicks in the back half - Talia, Lever, Hartigan, Cheney, Brown - none of whom are dynamic, long-kicking rebounders. It takes us half an hour to switch from one side of the ground to the other.
These two factors mean that if we get the ball anywhere between the arcs in a stop ball situation (mark, free kick, out on full) we are basically stuffed. Can't go long, can't go sideways and their zone is set up so we can't go short.
Solving this with our current personnel is difficult however the switch can be improved. At the moment when we find ourselves blocked in on a wing and choose to go backwards, all that happens is that we string 3-4 slow kicks across to the other side of the ground and find ourselves blocked in there.
Going back to the centre is fine - it opens up the field. Once it's back in the corridor though then there needs to be some change of direction. Something unexpected. Some unpredictability.
*If* we are going to continue with the switch all the way to the other wing then for Christ's sake dummy a kick the other way or something. Feign a long kick down the middle. Pretend you're going to give off a handball then don't. Take on the man on the mark. Occasionally kick the ball straight back from where it's come. And do it quickly. Do something so that all 18 opposition players don't know to the centimetre where the ball is going to end up.
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