Offseason Changes + Road to the 2021 Premiership

[woosha24]

Seeing as the season's over and all.....

1. For the love of baby Jesus, hire a f*cking tackling coach! We would have to be about the worst team in the league for tackles.

2. Midfield needs to be re-jigged. We have the cattle to be an A+ attacking midfield team, but we concede too many opposition F50 forays. Need someone with a harder edge to coach the boys.

3. I think we need a genuine ruck/ forward to give Nic a chop-out. Oscar doesnt cut it as a ruck and it pulls him out of his natural position.

4. Would like to see Hurn and Kennedy gradually rotated out of the side. They are absolute greats, but they will retire at approx. the same time and will leave gaping holes in both the forward and backline.

5. Gameplan rejig. It works against sides that let us play our way, but against teams who are willing to run we get exposed so, so badly. Need to innovate for another flag, because I dont think we can win another one playing the way we are.

 

[HoneyBadger35]

Think we’re onto something with the Cole/Duggan/Nelson trio. A rotating cast of two playing back and one pushing up to a wing, they’re all capable runners and usually very tidy with the ball (despite the reputation Nelson has for footy that he played five years ago).

Rotham involved more, Hurn phased out as you say. Necessary due to age.

More Bailey Williams.

Need another small forward at least. Whether it’s developing JJ, Petch taking a jump forward (lol) or bringing someone in, we need two creative options down there and can’t have all the goalsneak shit fall on Ryan. Ah Chee phased out if there’s capability to bring someone in which there surely has to be.

Hard to talk game plan changes without a specific example in mind, just things like “go more direct” doesn’t really help. I think our gameplan at it’s best is still one of the best in footy, but unlocking how to return to week in week out performance is the key. I don’t have those answers but whatever they are...yeah do that.

I’ve defended it over the years because it has runs on the board but I don’t believe in the defensive wing role. Can’t come in basically saying you’ll play with 17 on the field because you want to cover the back side of the ground. We have too many startable mids to hide people in a low volume, low damage role.

 

[ChampRevesby]

I fear that without a vaccine or the like for COVID we might have another lock down type season, I just cant do it again. I fear this thing is going to be with us for a while. Oh and the prospect of no or little cricket is making me sad.

In terms of teams, we just need to focus on contested football, we have too many ball watchers. Its been problem at the Eagles for ages but when we string it together we are pretty good.

 

[CursoryMercenary]

Definitely need a new midfield coach, Van Berlo was obviously a massive step down from Mitchell. Need some innovation as mentioned above, we've been passed by teams now in that department. I think we need be active and pursue players at Free agency. The likes of Hickey, Brander have some value to get us a better pick in the draft.

 

[ausbacker]

Line breaking speed in the midfield. Whether it comes from internal development or from outside, Collingwood exposed our lack of midfield foot speed (I'm looking at you Gaff).

 

[barnabyjones]

The channel that covers football

 

[Dale Doback]

It's always about the midfield with this group. Key Backs and forwards are good. Collingwood got us on the spread after a turnover tonight over and over. Mids that give a shit about gut running and winning the ball back is our problem. No different to the NBA in that transition defence is massive

 

[GrumpyGoron]

**** Petrucelle right off

 

[The wily weagle]

Seeing as the season's over and all.....

1. For the love of baby Jesus, hire a f*cking tackling coach! We would have to be about the worst team in the league for tackles.

This. So, so much this.

 

[ChampRevesby]

It's always about the midfield with this group. Key Backs and forwards are good. Collingwood got us on the spread after a turnover tonight over and over. Mids that give a sh*t about gut running and winning the ball back is our problem

The gut run, tackle, chase and chastise just isn't there like it is with say Richmond. We need some serious work and hunger back into the team.

 

[Dale Doback]

The gut run, tackle, chase and chastise just isn't there like it is with say Richmond. We need some serious work and hunger back into the team.

Where do you find the players who are talented enough to play in the middle and have an impact, but not not too proud to shirk the grunt work required? How do we dodge the downhill skiers that put up big numbers?

 

[Gwaihir]

Where do you find the players who are talented enough to play in the middle and have an impact, but not not too proud to shirk the grunt work required? How do we dodge the downhill skiers that put up big numbers?

Warner?

 

[dinnaz]

Players fielded tonight that dont cut it- Ah Chee, Ainsworth & sadly Petruccelle. Its our bottom few that we are carrying week to week.

 

[kaiserchief13]

Where do you find the players who are talented enough to play in the middle and have an impact, but not not too proud to shirk the grunt work required? How do we dodge the downhill skiers that put up big numbers?

Get coaching staff that drop them if they don't do it and build a culture that it is a non negotiable by all players?

 

[ChampRevesby]

Players fielded tonight that dont cut it- Ah Chee, Ainsworth & sadly Petruccelle. Its our bottom few that we are carrying week to week.

The differential between our best and worst needs to be closed in the offseason. You cant carry these players into an AFL game without them having some track record that demand selection.

 

[footballfreak]

Get Rioli Back or recruit a small forward.

Delist the WAFL standard Midfielders- I'm looking at ainsworth, Hutchings, Brayshaw- We need more quality depth.

JK returning and playing a different role in the forward line and handing the keys to Darling or Allen.

 

[Dale Doback]

Players fielded tonight that dont cut it- Ah Chee, Ainsworth & sadly Petruccelle. Its our bottom few that we are carrying week to week.

I'm still holding Petrucelli stock but it's speculative at best. Ah Chee just doesn't have it. Ainsworth is trash

 

[Bleedblueandgold]

Won't happen, but there needs to be a review of the commentating.
Tonight was possibly the worst it's ever been.
They really took it to the next level with their narrative about the Pies trying to achieve an impossible victory with all the odds that was stacked against them, and how brave they would be able to win.
They gave us absolutely no credit at all for being able to come back from the deficit.
We won the right to host the game and the AFL approved it, if it was "too unfair" against the Pie, then just play it in QLD ffs.

 

[FreeTK]

Won't happen, but there needs to be a review of the commentating.
Tonight was possibly the worst it's ever been.
They really took it to the next level with their narrative about the Pies trying to achieve an impossible victory with all the odds that was stacked against them, and how brave they would be able to win.
We won the right to host the game and the AFL approved it, if it was "too unfair" against the Pie, then just play it in QLD ffs.

So we just lost an Elimination Final and trying to put forward ideas on how to improve our position on the field, and your contribution is the commentators?

 

[dinnaz]

We need grunt in the middle and fwd line.
Nelson at times seems out of place in the backline when he fends off etc & I think we could unleash him into the guts where he can play a crash and bash style he is suited for.
Hopefully Venables can come back after his horrible concussion & Rioli too- into the fwd line.

 

[Bleedblueandgold]

So we just lost an Elimination Final and trying to put forward ideas on how to improve our position on the field, and your contribution is the commentators?

I'm not the only one that posted something non-team related lol.

 

[WCE_phil]

We need another half forward and another small defender. If need be with a full squad i'd have shuey slim down a bit and play half forward more in a Gray type role. My god we miss Willie.

Duggan to midfield for his hardness and intensity.

We need more midfield depth thats ready to go, ainsworth isn't it, exxon is still two years away and the rest of the youngsters on the list aren't up to scratch imo. There's a couple of delisted and fringe players from other clubs that would be cheap stop gaps and happy for another chance and still better that what we have. They only need to be hard bodies who can play a role.

We really, really missed yeo's hardness and tackling and need a rejig of the midfield. Play Redden, Yeo and Sheed in the centre. Kelly and Gaff on the wings. Yeo head to head with the oppositions best mid, Redden defensive side and Sheed going to ball drop.

We need to hire a tackling coach. A high quality, articulate (hard to find) ex union player preferred. Preferably one who was undersized and not the greatest athletically but still got the job done. We get stepped way too easily. Players need to learn to tackle in the direction that the opponents hips are leaning as that is their direction of movement. Leading arm lower chest height with the elbow half way around the body.

With our key forwards someone needs to play deep and i genuinely believe with the players on our list we should play twin CHF's.

Rotham to have a breakout 2021.

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

1. New midfield coach. Our weakest position all year. We're good at centre clearances largely because of NN's work, but the rest of the time we get soundly beaten by everyone.
2. Sort out our tackling. Definitely cost us today.
3. Trade aggressively. We've always been too timid to move on players, but sometimes we need to cash in on our depth. We have so many capable talls with currency that could be used to bring in the next generation of mids.

I think our game plan is fine. Our defenders work brilliantly together and our forwards are very dangerous when we get the ball in there.
Where we fall down is the midfield, which is baffling considering who we have in there.

 

[The wily weagle]

Its hardly new, but there are 2 fundamental things we need to fix:

1) groundball
2) tackling

Doing that will take us a long way

 

[KaaL]

we need to clone a few Liam Ryan. 1 for midfield and another for the half back flank. He’s so good, he makes things happen.