Offseason Changes + Road to the 2021 Premiership

[MaxHunt]

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.

Agree with pretty much everything.

Also need to understand why it takes so long to arrest back control. Some comments have been that they don't put in 4 quarter efforts but it's more to do with stopping and gaining back momentum when lost.

 

[ChampRevesby]

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.

We have been so blessed with 2 of the greatest ruckmen the game has ever seen over the last 20 years, that have carried the middle so much that we have lost sight of the development immediately around it. If we are stuck with say a Hicky in a couple of years we will have no choice but to harden up the mids.

 

[Matera92]

- Midfield Stoppage Coach that can actually implement an effective strategy beyond "NN will put it on your ****". Our midfield bar Gaff have gotten so lazy and tend to run one way.

- Tackling Coach that can teach some of these clowns how to effect a basic tackle, despite it being something they should have learned in bloody juniors. An extension to this is, if you can't tackle effectively, GTFO you don't play.

- Proper small forwards. Petch and Ah Chee dead set liabilities and offer absolutely nothing.

 

[FreeTK]

We have been so blessed with 2 of the greatest ruckmen the game has ever seen over the last 20 years, that have carried the middle so much that we have lost sight of the development immediately around it. If we are stuck with say a Hicky in a couple of years we will have no choice but to harden up the mids.

What's incredible is we we won the Premiership with a very decent ruck (Lycett) backed up by a forward/ruck (Vardy).

For whatever reason, our mids in 2018 played out of their skins that finals series, and haven't really been the same since without Nic feeding it down their throat.

One of our biggest issues is the lack of depth on our list. The drop off after our best 15 is absolutely huge. Our bottom few players lost that game for us tonight.

It will be an interesting off season.

 

[West Coast 06]

New midfield coach pls. We have the cattle for one last throw of the dice next year. Throw money and pay the ****ing AFL their rich tax.

Tackling coach while we are at it.

Our game plan needs rejigging, we are too predictable. Can we pls leave a forward in the square, to lead straight out, not into the ****ing pockets for the impossible shot. Play on quickly, not stop and go back and wait until the leads are covered.

 

[The wily weagle]

My intense dislike of the general ineptitude of our medical/high performance team is well documented, but, before i inevitably say what i normally say (which is fire and replace the whole lot), i will reserve my judgement for after i see what happens with Yeo.

Ideally, he should have already had surgery and is partaking rehabilitation. If he actually hits 2021 cherry ripe, I will tip my hat to them.

If however we get any of our standard lines:
"Taking longer then expected"
"Complications"
"Long then expected recovery period"
"Heavily modified pre season"
"He didn't quite come up....."
"We had a setback"

Then yes, fire and replace the lot.

 

[Monocle]

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.

Oh yes so much this.

Does my head in watching us miss so many tackles ... has done for five seasons now.

Lay just half of the tackles that we should have nailed tonight and we win the game.

 

[ep2018]

No more hubs. But by the looks of it us and freo will be the only teams in one come next season.

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

I'd like to add to my list:
- Be more creative with kick-ins. The "Hurn down the right hand side along to the boundary" is predictable and I don't recall us having a single foray forward as a result.
What happened to the creative kick-ins we did in previous years that often ended with a clean entry into our F50?

 

[Bleedblueandgold]

Look, we weren't far off winning tonight, and who knows how far we could've gotten if we had won.
There doesn't necessarily needs to be wholesale changes.

One big problem is our midfield depth quite clearly. Losing Yeo was huge for us, and other various injuries to other mids haven't helped.
Getting Kelly should've helped with that, but unfortunately he only shows up once every 3 or 4 games.
When we aren't doing well in the middle, guys like Redden, Sheed and Gaff simply just aren't capable of driving us to a victory unlike the way Shuey, Yeo and Kelly (on occasion) are able to. We need more guys like this, but not sure who we can target and if can afford them (inc from the draft). Shuey isn't getting any younger and apparently Kelly is still getting used to the Eagles structure(?).

We need at least another small forward option who can crumb goals but also cover some ground but also like Ryan (and Rioli). Cameron getting back to his best/full fitness will hopefully help. Haven't seen enough of Jones to know how good he is. Regardless of whether Petch can improve he certainly isn't a small forward in the traditional sense and neither is Ah Chee.

We need a genuine one on one KPD with enough height to defend the taller forwards to compliment Gov & TB so they can play more of an intercepting role.
On another note about defence is I'd like to see us double teaming dangerous forwards more, most teams seem to do against us, but TB & Gov often just compete 1 on 1 without any additional help.

 

[Barrybran]

I'd like to add to my list:
- Be more creative with kick-ins. The "Hurn down the right hand side along to the boundary" is predictable and I don't recall us having a single foray forward as a result.
What happened to the creative kick-ins we did in previous years that often ended with a clean entry into our F50?

Hurn kicked it to the left tonight. It caught me off guard.

 

[insidious]

Kelly was better with Geelong because the Midfield gel was better there.

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[FreeTK]

Look, we weren't far off winning tonight, and who knows how far we could've gotten if we had won.
There doesn't necessarily needs to be wholesale changes.

One big problem is our midfield depth quite clearly. Losing Yeo was huge for us, and other various injuries to other mids haven't helped.
Getting Kelly should've helped with that, but unfortunately he only shows up once every 3 or 4 games.
When we aren't doing well in the middle, guys like Redden, Sheed and Gaff simply just aren't capable of driving us to a victory unlike the way Shuey, Yeo and Kelly (on occasion) are able to. We need more guys like this, but not sure who can target and if can afford them (inc from the draft). Shuey isn't getting any younger and apparently Kelly is still getting used to the Eagles structure(?).

We need at least another small forward option who can crumb goals but also cover some ground but also like Ryan (and Rioli). Cameron getting back to his best/full fitness will hopefully help. Haven't seen enough of Jones to know how good he is.

We need a genuine KPD with enough height to defend the taller forwards to compliment Gov & TB so they can play more of an intercepting role.
On another note about defence is I'd like to see us double teaming dangerous forwards more, most teams seem to do against us, but TB & Gov often just compete 1 on 1 without any additional help.

I think that is a bit rough on Gaffy. He has been very good all year and really stood up in the second hub in QLD when we needed him to, and has done so more consistently than Kelly.

Hopefully for Kelly it's just about figuring out what his best role is in our system.

 

[campaigner___]

I’d like to see us sell everything we have for a 20 goal midfield superstar that’ll take us 1 step fur...

...oh wait

 

[ChampRevesby]

Kelly was better with Geelong because the Midfield gel was better there.

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More spread of contributors too, their depth was way better. AS soon as the heat goes on the mids, there isnt anyone there to pick up the slack.

 

[Carbine Chaos]

Maybe not for next year, but if/when Rioli is back I’d be rotating he and Kelly through the midfield and forward pocket. Basically 60/40 probably in favour of Kelly mid/Rioli fwd.

Kelly is more than capable of playing up front and Simpson hasn’t utilised this anywhere near enough given the small forward issues we had. For a coach that preaches versatility he very rarely employs it.

Two poor seasons in a row. No excuses for a third.

 

[woosha24]

Two poor seasons in a row. No excuses for a third.

I said it elsewhere that, as much as I like Simmo, if we miss out on Top 4 again next year he'll start getting leaned on by the executive. Simply making the finals is not a pass mark around these parts. He's got credits in the bank from getting us to 2 GFs and a Premiership, but so did favourite son Worsfold and he was gone 4 years after a flag. If the board dont think Simmo can adapt the list and legitimately challenge then his papers will get stamped.

 

[Bleedblueandgold]

I think that is a bit rough on Gaffy. He has been very good all year and really stood up in the second hub in QLD when we needed him to, and has done so more consistently than Kelly.

Gaff has definitely stood up in the absence of other inside mids, playing a very important in the middle and overall has been better than Kelly, but he's not a creative/explosive/quick midfielder like the others. That's why we miss Shuey & Yeo so much when they're missing.

 

[insidious]

If we can't make top 4 next season the papers may be stamped for the coach.

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[jod23]

Two years straight we have shat the bed late in the season to end up 5th. The loss at home Hawthorn two years ago ruined our premiership defense then the inexcusable loss to the Dogs a few weeks ago again cost us top four and we are bundled out.

It's hard to put your finger on what exactly is wrong as we have the cattle. At our best we should be competing for Premiership, not getting bundled out in an Elimination Final.

We probably carry a few too many players. Still dont understand why Ainsworth and Petch get games, they are both not good enough. We need Rioli back as he is a huge player for us and can run through the middle.

We only probably have one more year with our window open here as I think Hurn and JK's last year is next year.

 

[FKASC]

For a coach that preaches versatility he very rarely employs it.

100%. He hardly even preaches it anymore - it was just one of his ex-Hawthorn marketing slogans when he first started with us.

 

[Ben88]

1. New Midfield coache(s)
2. Drop Puketreculle, delete all records of him.
3. Tackling coach, maybe force the boys to do some ju jitsu.
4. If Yeo isn't in the midfield, Duggan is. Need a brute that will go at the ball.
5. Keep developing medium sized O
6. Invest in some strong built mature player's to fill out the bottom end.
7. Young players (ainsworth, Cameron) need to be showing more maturity and leadership, if this doesn't come to fruition next year, delist.
8. Ahchee should not be starting 22, schoey was better by a mile.
9. Kennedy and Hurn to go one more year, finish on a high note.

Bonus: Club should start throwing their weight at AFL over heavily biased aspects.

 

[KERRPOW]

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

The players were tackling except they were really shit tackles, either the players broke free or they were able to get the handball out.

 

[FreeTK]

I said it elsewhere that, as much as I like Simmo, if we miss out on Top 4 again next year he'll start getting leaned on by the executive. Simply making the finals is not a pass mark around these parts. He's got credits in the bank from getting us to 2 GFs and a Premiership, but so did favourite son Worsfold and he was gone 4 years after a flag. If the board dont think Simmo can adapt the list and legitimately challenge then his papers will get stamped.

If we can't make top 4 next season the papers may be stamped for the coach.

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Do you guys know how stupid these posts read?

Simmo is signed until 2022 and won't be going anywhere unless he chooses to.

 

[kaiserchief13]

If I was in charge I'd trade McGovern for Angus Brayshaw and a draft pick. Have Barrass take his role and recruit a KPD who can't get a game at their team to play full back. Or alternatively keep Schofield and don't recruit a fb.