Analysis Player Reviews vs WCE

[tesselate_]

I got around to watching the replay and I noticed nobody has done one of these yet. When I realised we were going to have to tangle with the much vaunted "Weagles Web" without Cloke, I thought we'd be blown off the park, and I was pleasantly surprised. It was a real tactical armwrestle between the coaches to 3QT; the first quarter was all about the rebounds. The game was played in their forward half, and you have to marvel at how well West Coast structure up.

I'll come back to the above a few times. I've noticed that in the past few weeks, our default kick-in option is the short pass to the right hand side (RHS) of the D50, where Frost currently has the ball. This was the set up WCE were using that stymied a lot of forward momentum in the first quarter. The 'easy option' is the short kick to that Pies player on the RHS, but that kick needs to be perfect; there's no margin of error: too left will be intercepted by Masten on the left, too right is out on the full. So we tended to leapfrog that link the chain and bombed long to a 50-50 contest, but the man (Masten) who creates the need for that bomb is in prime position to crumb the contest, which is what happened in this case and our first few kick-ins.

We didn't really get anything going in the way of kick-in rebounds at all in the first quarter, the only time we looked dangerous going forward was when we won the contested ball. We're very good at keeping our heads in those situations, dealing with pressure, and getting the ball to an outside man within two handpasses. We then get overlap run all the way up the ground because we've split their zone apart: all the players defending space have converged to lay pressure. The contested ball was key: it's no coincidence that in 15 of West Coast's matches, 14 of them have been decided by who wins the contested ball: nobody in the league is that reliant upon winning the contests. Although we certainly missed Adams, we did well enough in that aspect. Marley Williams in particular was immense in the contests.

It wasn't really until the second quarter that we started to look dangerous outside of general play, we started the quarter well, we had just about our best transitions for the match within a minute or two of each other, both times White pushed up to be that link out of defence and immediately got the handball off to outside run. You have to move the ball quickly and spread hard before they can set up, and that's what we did. We also started to look better from the kickins, countering that set up I mentioned earlier. Twice we made that characteristic short RHS pass to the pocket and let the web develop, then we'd quickly cross to the other side and expose them on the transition, both times should have been goals but our untidyness let us down. We didn't just cross either, we stayed unpredictable by letting Masten's man lead forward, creating space for the next link in the chain to push up. I feel we could've done this to greater effect if we had better marking options up field.

Contrary to what some seem to be saying, Buckley had many answers for West Coast's press; he was far from outcoached. It was the kicking, poor decision making (I'll touch on this in a second) and the lack of a genuine marking target that gave West Coast such territorial domination.

The game was over when Naitanui started to nail his taps in the second half. Even though NicNat was getting a heap of taps, they weren't getting those clearances in separation that such a feature of West Coast's typical performance, their centre clearances were hacks forward for that first half, nobody really dominated that area until the second half when West Coast started to get menacing F50 entries from the centre. At that point, I think the combined effects of a young team running, crossing, switching etc for so long, combined with the month we had saw us run out legs and the ball hardly left West Coast's forward 50 in the fourth quarter. I wouldn't know if we are more or less fit than West Coast, it just doesn't help that we were the ones constantly working hard to get it out of their forward half, and that was NicNat's doing.

It's easy to look at another loss and blame our team, but I think you have to give credit to West Coast. They're a very cohesive, well-drilled team.

Player Reviews

Steele Sidebottom
What I love about Sidey is that he's such a good reader of the player and he works so hard; when the heat was on, it was Sidey getting into the damaging positions, be it overlap run, marking positions, etc. There was a great effort from him in the 3rd, when he missed a pass to Varcoe, but ran hard to be clean up and was a link in the chain of our overlap run about 3 times, which resulted in a goal. But you get that most weeks from him, what I noticed today was how he had that Pendlebury-esque sidestep, how he'd dance around an opponent and get some real separation in a contested possession. You need those clean, effective kicks against a side like West Coast with so many good intercept markers.

Alex Fasolo
I thought he stepped up today. He was untidy at times, but he was the one I noticed that was working hard to provide a marking option on the wing. Good marking inside 50, should've had a few more goals than he did. For a guy that had a big question mark over his work-rate/effort at the start of the year, it's been a huge turnaround.

Jack Frost/Nathan Brown/Alan Toovey
West Coast are one of the most efficient sides in the competition when it comes to converting inside 50s to goals. I think at some point around HT, they were 3 goals from 21 entries, literally half of their season average goals to I50 entries. Darling went unsighted, Kennedy got a couple of goals over the top (can't do anything about those), we did very well to stymie such a potent attack. Yes, they're less than reliable with ball in hand, but defensively, that was some effort.

Jarrod Witts/Brodie Grundy
I never expected them to win the taps, but Kappa's right, they were embarrassed around the ground today. In that first quarter, Callum Sinclair was standing on his own in the forward 50 on two occasions, both times should've been goals (one was, one missed from directly in front). Unaccountable football. Witts' marking performance was a huge step back from last week. How often did he fail to outmark a player 20cm shorter? He got beaten by Brad Sheppard 1v1 on the F50 line ffs. There were about half a dozen instances on the goal-line where one of Witts/Grundy should've taken a mark and it literally slips through their hands. I don't care young you are, you need to take those.

Hell, Grundy deserves a roast just for putting it out on the full and butchering the below play, the first time where he had players in position for an effective cross (see all our free players far left of screen):

Marley Williams
I mentioned before how important those contested situations are, and Marley was superb in these. Had some very good efforts that should've been goals that weren't including winning a one on one on the D50 line, kicking long to Varcoe where we use free players to kick it long to White 1v1, who unfortunately puts it down. One of those players that are good at winning the groundball and getting that handpass out. D50 kicking lets him down though; put it out on the full, kicked to a disadvantage, etc, too many times.

Ben Kennedy
He impressed me with his ability to win the hardball, I'll give him that. What concerns me is the decision making. There were times he burnt us going forward that have been well-documented on this board, particular the one where he played on and missed from that Fasolo free kick.

Kennedy has the ball here, and I think his decision here cost us a shot on goal. It might be hard to see, but you'll notice Varcoe is free in the centre circle, he should've put it out in front of him. If Varcoe takes it, that deep WCE player gets sucked away from the ball and we've got a free man inside 50, or that man can push forward to the goal and Varcoe can hit him up. BK just bombs it into the big mass of players.

Jack Crisp
Did a great job keeping Shuey quiet while getting some good clearances himself. Ran hard all day to feature in our overlap run and he presented well as a marking target.

Travis Varcoe
Superb. I don't really need to say more, but I will. Ferocious tackler, runs all day, always gets into dangerous positions, never gets sucked in, moves to those dangerous positions to capitalise on our ball winning ability. Another fantastic game from him.

Paul Seedsman
He was a genuine liability last night. Between his fumbling and putting it out on the full, he mangled about three rebounds. For a side that was grappling for every successful rebound it could get, that just kills you. He was asleep out there at times, I want to put him on blast for one stoppage:

In the above screenshot, Crisp is blocking Shuey from getting a run at the ball, Seedsman is standing with LeCras.

Now this is a little tough to see, but LeCras has just blocked Crisp and Seedsman is totally oblivious. Shuey has a free run to shark the tap, you can see him starting to run towards the rucks; he gets the clearance that gets the goal. There was another point where LeCras had run forward of play and was completely on his own running into the forward fifty, although I'm not sure whether Seedsman was on the ground. I don't know if he was just rusty, but he'd want a big improvement on this performance.

In summary, I don't think this game is cause for alarm. You can lament poor kicking, and rightfully so, but we really lacked options up field which no doubt contributed to a lot of it. There were a lot of times when a player would be out and they'd look up and there'd be nothing to kick to, which is what you'd expect when you lose your two best forwards. Fasolo stepped up admirably, as did De Goey and Crisp at providing a marking target forward of the play, but they're no substitute for Travis Cloke.

 

[TradeDraft]

You go into Great Detail Which makes for good reading

 

[TradeDraft]

So IF You are Bucks you Blast both Witts and Grundy and say they where Bloody Shithouse. There games where not even close to AFL Standerd. At the Game Recap they do with whole team

 

[tesselate_]

You go into Great Detail Which makes for good reading

Thanks!

I think they both just had a poor marking game. Grundy made a couple of good leads, one that got him a goal directly in front, and he still got in the position to mark a few more in dangerous spots; ditto Witts, they just need to pull them off. Witts was marking well against Port, so I'd put it down to a poor game. Definitely give whoever was on Sinclair in that first quarter a blast, though.

 

[Trickster]

It's an interesting read, and I like the detail you've gone into, with video evidence to back it up to. I agree with pretty much everything you've said other than Ben Kens kick to Varcoe which I think may have been a bit too long for him to pull off especially if some if those WCE players pulled back. Similar to Greenwood, my expectations of him were a bit lower given he hasn't played many AFL games. Hopefully his overall decision-making comes with confidence.

 

[LukeH10]

I got around to watching the replay and I noticed nobody has done one of these yet. When I realised we were going to have to tangle with the much vaunted "Weagles Web" without Cloke, I thought we'd be blown off the park, and I was pleasantly surprised. It was a real tactical armwrestle between the coaches to 3QT; the first quarter was all about the rebounds. The game was played in their forward half, and you have to marvel at how well West Coast structure up.

I'll come back to the above a few times. I've noticed that in the past few weeks, our default kick-in option is the short pass to the right hand side (RHS) of the D50, where Frost currently has the ball. This was the set up WCE were using that stymied a lot of forward momentum in the first quarter. The 'easy option' is the short kick to that Pies player on the RHS, but that kick needs to be perfect; there's no margin of error: too left will be intercepted by Masten on the left, too right is out on the full. So we tended to leapfrog that link the chain and bombed long to a 50-50 contest, but the man (Masten) who creates the need for that bomb is in prime position to crumb the contest, which is what happened in this case and our first few kick-ins.

We didn't really get anything going in the way of kick-in rebounds at all in the first quarter, the only time we looked dangerous going forward was when we won the contested ball. We're very good at keeping our heads in those situations, dealing with pressure, and getting the ball to an outside man within two handpasses. We then get overlap run all the way up the ground because we've split their zone apart: all the players defending space have converged to lay pressure. The contested ball was key: it's no coincidence that in 15 of West Coast's matches, 14 of them have been decided by who wins the contested ball: nobody in the league is that reliant upon winning the contests. Although we certainly missed Adams, we did well enough in that aspect. Marley Williams in particular was immense in the contests.

It wasn't really until the second quarter that we started to look dangerous outside of general play, we started the quarter well, we had just about our best transitions for the match within a minute or two of each other, both times White pushed up to be that link out of defence and immediately got the handball off to outside run. You have to move the ball quickly and spread hard before they can set up, and that's what we did. We also started to look better from the kickins, countering that set up I mentioned earlier. Twice we made that characteristic short RHS pass to the pocket and let the web develop, then we'd quickly cross to the other side and expose them on the transition, both times should have been goals but our untidyness let us down. We didn't just cross either, we stayed unpredictable by letting Masten's man lead forward, creating space for the next link in the chain to push up. I feel we could've done this to greater effect if we had better marking options up field.

Contrary to what some seem to be saying, Buckley had many answers for West Coast's press; he was far from outcoached. It was the kicking, poor decision making (I'll touch on this in a second) and the lack of a genuine marking target that gave West Coast such territorial domination.

The game was over when Naitanui started to nail his taps in the second half. Even though NicNat was getting a heap of taps, they weren't getting those clearances in separation that such a feature of West Coast's typical performance, their centre clearances were hacks forward for that first half, nobody really dominated that area until the second half when West Coast started to get menacing F50 entries from the centre. At that point, I think the combined effects of a young team running, crossing, switching etc for so long, combined with the month we had saw us run out legs and the ball hardly left West Coast's forward 50 in the fourth quarter. I wouldn't know if we are more or less fit than West Coast, it just doesn't help that we were the ones constantly working hard to get it out of their forward half, and that was NicNat's doing.

It's easy to look at another loss and blame our team, but I think you have to give credit to West Coast. They're a very cohesive, well-drilled team.

Player Reviews

Steele Sidebottom
What I love about Sidey is that he's such a good reader of the player and he works so hard; when the heat was on, it was Sidey getting into the damaging positions, be it overlap run, marking positions, etc. There was a great effort from him in the 3rd, when he missed a pass to Varcoe, but ran hard to be clean up and was a link in the chain of our overlap run about 3 times, which resulted in a goal. But you get that most weeks from him, what I noticed today was how he had that Pendlebury-esque sidestep, how he'd dance around an opponent and get some real separation in a contested possession. You need those clean, effective kicks against a side like West Coast with so many good intercept markers.

Alex Fasolo
I thought he stepped up today. He was untidy at times, but he was the one I noticed that was working hard to provide a marking option on the wing. Good marking inside 50, should've had a few more goals than he did. For a guy that had a big question mark over his work-rate/effort at the start of the year, it's been a huge turnaround.

Jack Frost/Nathan Brown/Alan Toovey
West Coast are one of the most efficient sides in the competition when it comes to converting inside 50s to goals. I think at some point around HT, they were 3 goals from 21 entries, literally half of their season average goals to I50 entries. Darling went unsighted, Kennedy got a couple of goals over the top (can't do anything about those), we did very well to stymie such a potent attack. Yes, they're less than reliable with ball in hand, but defensively, that was some effort.

Jarrod Witts/Brodie Grundy
I never expected them to win the taps, but Kappa's right, they were embarrassed around the ground today. In that first quarter, Callum Sinclair was standing on his own in the forward 50 on two occasions, both times should've been goals (one was, one missed from directly in front). Unaccountable football. Witts' marking performance was a huge step back from last week. How often did he fail to outmark a player 20cm shorter? He got beaten by Brad Sheppard 1v1 on the F50 line ffs. There were about half a dozen instances on the goal-line where one of Witts/Grundy should've taken a mark and it literally slips through their hands. I don't care young you are, you need to take those.

Hell, Grundy deserves a roast just for putting it out on the full and butchering the below play, the first time where he had players in position for an effective cross (see all our free players far left of screen):

Marley Williams
I mentioned before how important those contested situations are, and Marley was superb in these. Had some very good efforts that should've been goals that weren't including winning a one on one on the D50 line, kicking long to Varcoe where we use free players to kick it long to White 1v1, who unfortunately puts it down. One of those players that are good at winning the groundball and getting that handpass out. D50 kicking lets him down though; put it out on the full, kicked to a disadvantage, etc, too many times.

Ben Kennedy
He impressed me with his ability to win the hardball, I'll give him that. What concerns me is the decision making. There were times he burnt us going forward that have been well-documented on this board, particular the one where he played on and missed from that Fasolo free kick.

Kennedy has the ball here, and I think his decision here cost us a shot on goal. It might be hard to see, but you'll notice Varcoe is free in the centre circle, he should've put it out in front of him. If Varcoe takes it, that deep WCE player gets sucked away from the ball and we've got a free man inside 50, or that man can push forward to the goal and Varcoe can hit him up. BK just bombs it into the big mass of players.

Jack Crisp
Did a great job keeping Shuey quiet while getting some good clearances himself. Ran hard all day to feature in our overlap run and he presented well as a marking target.

Travis Varcoe
Superb. I don't really need to say more, but I will. Ferocious tackler, runs all day, always gets into dangerous positions, never gets sucked in, moves to those dangerous positions to capitalise on our ball winning ability. Another fantastic game from him.

Paul Seedsman
He was a genuine liability last night. Between his fumbling and putting it out on the full, he mangled about three rebounds. For a side that was grappling for every successful rebound it could get, that just kills you. He was asleep out there at times, I want to put him on blast for one stoppage:

In the above screenshot, Crisp is blocking Shuey from getting a run at the ball, Seedsman is standing with LeCras.

Now this is a little tough to see, but LeCras has just blocked Crisp and Seedsman is totally oblivious. Shuey has a free run to shark the tap, you can see him starting to run towards the rucks; he gets the clearance that gets the goal. There was another point where LeCras had run forward of play and was completely on his own running into the forward fifty, although I'm not sure whether Seedsman was on the ground. I don't know if he was just rusty, but he'd want a big improvement on this performance.

In summary, I don't think this game is cause for alarm. You can lament poor kicking, and rightfully so, but we really lacked options up field which no doubt contributed to a lot of it. There were a lot of times when a player would be out and they'd look up and there'd be nothing to kick to, which is what you'd expect when you lose your two best forwards. Fasolo stepped up admirably, as did De Goey and Crisp at providing a marking target forward of the play, but they're no substitute for Travis Cloke.

Very in depth. A good read. Seeds was worst on ground. Just looked disinterested. Shame cause his Anzac performance led many to believe he was on his way to great things. Let's hope he stil can.

 

[jathanas]

Lovely work mate, thanks for the good read.

This game confirmed that WC is a well drilled side, deservedly in the top 4.

We were up against it after Cloke went off, and I have doubts that we'd beat them even if we are playing at full strength.

The Seed was disturbingly poor but Varcoe's awesomeness was duly noted.

 

[Robroy22]

It's an interesting read, and I like the detail you've gone into, with video evidence to back it up to. I agree with pretty much everything you've said other than Ben Kens kick to Varcoe which I think may have been a bit too long for him to pull off especially if some if those WCE players pulled back. Similar to Greenwood, my expectations of him were a bit lower given he hasn't played many AFL games. Hopefully his overall decision-making comes with confidence.

Also...you have the benefit of "a view from above the action". Kennedy was at ground level and may not have been able to see Varcoe amongst the crowd. It would have been a very brave kick anyway...and a guy that's finding it hard to get a game mightn't have wanted a turnover goal on his stat sheet?

 

[tesselate_]

It's an interesting read, and I like the detail you've gone into, with video evidence to back it up to. I agree with pretty much everything you've said other than Ben Kens kick to Varcoe which I think may have been a bit too long for him to pull off especially if some if those WCE players pulled back. Similar to Greenwood, my expectations of him were a bit lower given he hasn't played many AFL games. Hopefully his overall decision-making comes with confidence.

Also...you have the benefit of "a view from above the action". Kennedy was at ground level and may not have been able to see Varcoe amongst the crowd. It would have been a very brave kick anyway...and a guy that's finding it hard to get a game mightn't have wanted a turnover goal on his stat sheet?

Yeah, that's fair enough, I haven't seen enough of him to have a good handle on how far he can kick. Maybe I'm a bit premature on the decision-making call, I'll keep a keen eye on him in the next few weeks.

 

[Trickster]

Looking at this closer again, a few more things stand out.

1) jack Darling minding the mark at 45 degrees making the in board kick harder

2) the WCE player at the back of the square so anything other than a low bullet he may have picked off

3) how good their structure is relative to where our players are. We seem in positions where we can't easily get the ball.

As mentioned great read and really enjoyed the player reviews so don't want to focus on that comment at the expense of the rest which IMO is great!

 

[Ketchup]

This was a fantastic review, hope to see more of it in the future.

Im assuming you collected those pics by watching the live pass?

 

[tesselate_]

Looking at this closer again, a few more things stand out.

1) jack Darling minding the mark at 45 degrees making the in board kick harder

2) the WCE player at the back of the square so anything other than a low bullet he may have picked off

3) how good their structure is relative to where our players are. We seem in positions where we can't easily get the ball.

As mentioned great read and really enjoyed the player reviews so don't want to focus on that comment at the expense of the rest which IMO is great!

Yeah, good pickup. What makes them so, so hard to beat is that they dominate the centre clearances so you have to negotiate their press just about every time you want to make an attack, it's easy to see why they score so much because they'd get so many turnovers in dangerous territory. For what it's worth, I was impressed with our set up too:

From WCE perspective, it's a low percentage pass going along the boundary: there's a big chance the kicker will put too much on it and put it out on the full, most likely it's cut off or spoiled anyway. We force them to bomb long to a contest, clear to see why there was quite a period in the second where we had it locked in.

This was a fantastic review, hope to see more of it in the future.

Im assuming you collected those pics by watching the live pass?

Glad you enjoyed it! I used smart-replay, I think live pass is only for mobile devices.
http://www.afl.com.au/video/smart-replay

 

[BoxMatrix]

This was a fantastic review, hope to see more of it in the future.

Im assuming you collected those pics by watching the live pass?

Smart replay if you're in Australia
http://www.afl.com.au/video/smart-replay

 

[76woodenspooners]

Kennedy has the ball here, and I think his decision here cost us a shot on goal. It might be hard to see, but you'll notice Varcoe is free in the centre circle, he should've put it out in front of him. If Varcoe takes it, that deep WCE player gets sucked away from the ball and we've got a free man inside 50, or that man can push forward to the goal and Varcoe can hit him up. BK just bombs it into the big mass of players.

This shot highlights why I get annoyed by the TV coverage.

This is as good a shot as you'll get on the coverage, and yet you can only see 12 Collingwood players in that shot. Where are the other 6? It makes it difficult to follow the strategic game.

ps. Fantastic analysis by the way. I've been crying out for this for years!! 'Monday's with Maxy' followed by 'Tuesday's with tesselate_'

 

[tesselate_]

This shot highlights why I get annoyed by the TV coverage.

This is as good a shot as you'll get on the coverage, and yet you can only see 12 Collingwood players in that shot. Where are the other 6? It makes it difficult to follow the strategic game.

ps. Fantastic analysis by the way. I've been crying out for this for years!! Monday's with Maxy followed by Tuesday's with Tesselate_

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Try when BT is commentating and the camera focuses on something entirely irrelevant because BT keeps banging on about it while the play is going on! I'd love to be able to choose my own camera angles.

 

[76woodenspooners]

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Try when BT is commentating and the camera focuses on something entirely irrelevant because BT keeps banging on about it while the play is going on! I'd love to be able to choose my own camera angles.

Completely agreed

It's a travesty that in 2015 the broadcasters don't offer this. Europe had multi-channel camera angles for F1 coverage more than 15 years ago.

Having a camera chase around a pigskin with a bunch of middle age blokes blabber on the soundtrack really doesn't do our game justice.

 

[76woodenspooners]

3) how good their structure is relative to where our players are. We seem in positions where we can't easily get the ball.

This is a great point.

We have the ball in our hands at this stoppage.

You'd think that every one of our players should work at being being one of the following ...

- (BIH) Player with ball in hand
- (T) Target
- (A) Attack (being the next target)
- (D) Defence (in case of a turnover)
- (B) Bench (returning to / from)

If you try and label each one of the 12 Collingwood players in that frame with which function they're serving (eg: Kennedy: BIH, Varcoe: B, etc, etc) - it seems that their organisation is a lot more chaotic than West Coast's.

 

[Lefthanded]

This shot highlights why I get annoyed by the TV coverage.

This is as good a shot as you'll get on the coverage, and yet you can only see 12 Collingwood players in that shot. Where are the other 6? It makes it difficult to follow the strategic game.

ps. Fantastic analysis by the way. I've been crying out for this for years!! 'Monday's with Maxy' followed by 'Tuesday's with tesselate_'

I wouldn't want to wait until Tuesday for Tesselate's analysis - that would be too stereotypical (for someone with late in their username)

Maybe timely with Tesselate (I'm open to better suggestions)

Well done OP! tesselate_ - I'd also be interested on your thoughts on the following who have had no / little mention:
Blair, Greenwood (beyond Trickster's mention), Maynard, Oxley, Pendles and Swan

 

[Bard]

Awesome review!

 

[tesselate_]

I wouldn't want to wait until Tuesday for Tesselate's analysis - that would be too stereotypical (for someone with late in their username)

Maybe timely with Tesselate (I'm open to better suggestions)

Well done OP! tesselate_ - I'd also be interested on your thoughts on the following who have had no / little mention:
Blair, Greenwood (beyond Trickster's mention), Maynard, Oxley, Pendles and Swan

Most of these guys I didn't notice a great deal, or they had their usual output, but I'll give it a crack.

Blair was fairly solid, it was usual game, really. I enjoyed his physicality and hardness, but he just doesn't find enough of the ball. I could see him being the way making way of Adams.

I like Greenwood. I've always got a soft spot for players that take tacklers on and burst their way through, and Levi did that a few times, so I can see him becoming one of my favourites. He was a good deal quieter than his 2014 standard, but you can't be too harsh in his first game back. Strong tackler if nothing else, equal most tackles on the field.

Maynard. Quiet game, was disappointed we didn't see that piercing boot he showed us he has against Port: some of those kicks from half back were fantastic.

I liked Oxley actually, I should've given him a mention. He provided a lot of run and carry; it's just a shame Seeds was as poor as he was because I thought we had a really good balance judging by how well we seemed to get run and carry and I'd like for us to stick with it. He's a smart player, Ox, he's often in position for a handball receive.

Swan. He was solid without being spectacular. Missed a couple of gettable shots that a senior player should've, and I questioned his decision making, or at least vision at times (he had the ball at the back of the centre square, De Goey free in space at CHF and didn't pass to him). I would've liked to have seen him using his marking power a bit more and get up forward, he's a very good overhead mark for his size, and I didn't think he did enough in the midfield (23 touches) to say he played well in there.

I thought it was an average game for the skipper, 29 touches and got some damaging forward entries, we just lacked him as someone who can manufacture his own separation in a clearance situation, I didn't really notice him doing that yesterday like he does most weeks.

It'd be interesting to see what we do with the forward line this week; can we count on Darcy Moore for structure? I wouldn't mind us seeing us persist with Grundy/Witts deep, they did drop a lot of marks, sure, but they got it into the positions. We've been crying out on this forum to see them develop a forward game and this might be an opportunity.

 

[Lefthanded]

Most of these guys I didn't notice a great deal, or they had their usual output, but I'll give it a crack.

Blair was fairly solid, it was usual game, really. I enjoyed his physicality and hardness, but he just doesn't find enough of the ball. I could see him being the way making way of Adams.

I like Greenwood. I've always got a soft spot for players that take tacklers on and burst their way through, and Levi did that a few times, so I can see him becoming one of my favourites. He was a good deal quieter than his 2014 standard, but you can't be too harsh in his first game back. Strong tackler if nothing else, equal most tackles on the field.

Maynard. Quiet game, was disappointed we didn't see that piercing boot he showed us he has against Port: some of those kicks from half back were fantastic.

I liked Oxley actually, I should've given him a mention. He provided a lot of run and carry; it's just a shame Seeds was as poor as he was because I thought we had a really good balance judging by how well we seemed to get run and carry and I'd like for us to stick with it. He's a smart player, Ox, he's often in position for a handball receive.

Swan. He was solid without being spectacular. Missed a couple of gettable shots that a senior player should've, and I questioned his decision making, or at least vision at times (he had the ball at the back of the centre square, De Goey free in space at CHF and didn't pass to him). I would've liked to have seen him using his marking power a bit more and get up forward, he's a very good overhead mark for his size, and I didn't think he did enough in the midfield (23 touches) to say he played well in there.

I thought it was an average game for the skipper, 29 touches and got some damaging forward entries, we just lacked him as someone who can manufacture his own separation in a clearance situation, I didn't really notice him doing that yesterday like he does most weeks.

It'd be interesting to see what we do with the forward line this week; can we count on Darcy Moore for structure? I wouldn't mind us seeing us persist with Grundy/Witts deep, they did drop a lot of marks, sure, but they got it into the positions. We've been crying out on this forum to see them develop a forward game and this might be an opportunity.

Shows how high our expectations of Pendles are that 29 is an 'average' game!

Sucks that Adams' is another game away, would love his hardness to help ease load on Greenwood (especially whilst he presumably gets back to his best)

Witts & Grundy did well against likes of Sandilands but stats say Nic Nat destroyed them. Dogs lack of star power / experience in this department (assume no Minson again?) won't do them any harm and could be telling

 

[peatease]

Great read and great analysis.

I like the behind the ball carrier views when players have the ball in the defensive half. It shows how daunting it is to kick forward, and shows why players often chip sideways/backwards.

 

[tesselate_]

Shows how high our expectations of Pendles are that 29 is an 'average' game!

Sucks that Adams' is another game away, would love his hardness to help ease load on Greenwood (especially whilst he presumably gets back to his best)

Witts & Grundy did well against likes of Sandilands but stats say Nic Nat destroyed them. Dogs lack of star power / experience in this department (assume no Minson again?) won't do them any harm and could be telling

Agree re: Dogs rucks. Neither side is better than average at the centre clearances, but we have a very good strike rate at turning centre clearance ascendancy to match wins. I don't rate Campbell at all, Witts should give us every chance to win the centre clearances and the match. The stats say we're a better contested ball winning side, and they're another team that more dependent upon that (huge disparity in their average CP differential in a win and their average CP differential in a loss) than most. They aren't a very efficient side going forward, either, they're bottom 6 for converting I50s to goals and dead last for turning I50s to Marks Inside 50. It's a match we should win, I don't see an awful lot of the Dogs, but the stats show them to be a side worse than their ladder position suggests.

 

[cleomenes]

Pretty good stuff. The pass from Kennedy was too long for him though. Good understanding of the achievements in the back half.

 

[morelli89]

I really like your analysis, great work.

I don't agree with the kennedy kick though, that's almost a 70 metre kick through the corridor, which is fraught with danger and would most likely hurt us coming back the other way.