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Xerri had little of the pill and watching ar the game couldn't get to a lot of contests. Talking to other supporters at the game they also said the same thing. Were you at the game?
Game Day Pre-season Game v Bulldogs Saturday 1:10pm at Ikon Park
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He was awesome on Buddy but Buddy plays more like a small forward than a hulking tall forward/contested mark. Agree we did get well beaten in the middle, and reckon most teams will by that midfield. Good learning experience for the kids, cunners looked a bit rusty. Wonder how it would look with Greenwood in there to add some defensive pressure
I think some of the onip, sorry onus has to go on the players. Comben I can understand, but Larkey has to lead to different positions, not just straight up the ground. That's why Jones was killing them, it was too predictable. He needs to have a chat with Petrie and Waite. Jones rarely ever beat those guys. I think a lot of it is they need to back themselves a bit more.
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Obviously selection has to be made with round 1 in front of mind. But it is not everyhing in a practice game.
Every game we run out against an opposition club, in my view it is important to be as competitive as possible. We lost by 58 points and maybe that doesn't matter, but then also being competitive/winning games of football is important. I didn't expect us to win, but also I didn't expect us to be so uncompetitive in the second and third quarters. That breeds doubt and in my opinion we don't need doubt to arise at this stage of the year.
We could have had extra height on the bench. Both Coleman-Jones and Greenwood were, if my memory serves me correctly, named in the 8 interchange. Why not use them and Coleman-Jones in particular? Surely he is in the mix for round 1?
Why not let Goldy and Xerri, rest up forward for some of the game, to give Larkey and Comben a hand and help build some confidence in the case of Comben?
Unfortunately that has been major issue, senior players not good enough. McDonald and Ziebel wouldn't play for majority of other teams. McDonald has never got himself strong/fit enough and both ordinary ball users. Also both have been paid extremely well to underperform. Only one in team and that is McDonald only because he is captain and can defend quicker players better than Jack.
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We need one of McDonald or Zurhaar to rotate through the middle every so often to provide some of that presence for sure.
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I had a more critical post written, but instead I thought I'd point out two areas where I think we have improved the most.
The first was our defensive press. In open space, our defensive work was poor. We didn't pressure the Dogs enough and allowed them to move the ball too easily. That's often a sign of being outworked, which for a practice match isn't a reason for major panic. When allowed to set up, I thought our defensive work outside of our defensive 50 was great. All day the Dogs struggled moving the ball past us when we were allowed to set up. In typical Clarko fashion, early in the game we saw a lot of focus on slowing down the play to facilitate this. I noticed a lot more occasions of knocking down an opponent after they marked the ball. These little annoying things were a big part of the Hawk's identity under Clarko and it looks like we'll be doing the same.
Anyway, I'm a huge fan of the defensive structure. While I don't think we'll be a great defensive team due to our young midfield and a below average group of defenders, I do think that these structures should hopefully create a lot of repeat entries and opportunities to score from turnovers as we saw yesterday.
The second is that our end to end transition was great. We struggled mightily on that final kick inside 50, but the transition from end to end was really encouraging. In all three practice games this has been my biggest takeway. 57 inside 50s was a great result yesterday. If we keep creating that many opportunities we should find ourselves in a lot of games.
Last year it was us and the Eagles who both looked completely unable to move the ball forward. The Eagles had 37 inside 50s yesterday. For a practice match where defensive intensity is prone to drop off, I think that's a huge concern and would likely have been the position that we'd find ourselves in if Clarkson's gameplan wasn't working.
The inside 50 discrepancy gives me hope that we'll have a great chance to knock off the Eagles in two weeks. Basically we learned two things. The first is that we have a respectable defensive press and the Eagles are still struggling to move the ball. The second is that our ball movement forward works after seeing it in action against an experienced Dogs outfit, who allowed the third least inside 50s last year. There's more to the game than inside 50s of course, but that should be a major reason for optimism as we head into round one.
The first was our defensive press. In open space, our defensive work was poor. We didn't pressure the Dogs enough and allowed them to move the ball too easily. That's often a sign of being outworked, which for a practice match isn't a reason for major panic. When allowed to set up, I thought our defensive work outside of our defensive 50 was great. All day the Dogs struggled moving the ball past us when we were allowed to set up. In typical Clarko fashion, early in the game we saw a lot of focus on slowing down the play to facilitate this. I noticed a lot more occasions of knocking down an opponent after they marked the ball. These little annoying things were a big part of the Hawk's identity under Clarko and it looks like we'll be doing the same.
Anyway, I'm a huge fan of the defensive structure. While I don't think we'll be a great defensive team due to our young midfield and a below average group of defenders, I do think that these structures should hopefully create a lot of repeat entries and opportunities to score from turnovers as we saw yesterday.
The second is that our end to end transition was great. We struggled mightily on that final kick inside 50, but the transition from end to end was really encouraging. In all three practice games this has been my biggest takeway. 57 inside 50s was a great result yesterday. If we keep creating that many opportunities we should find ourselves in a lot of games.
Last year it was us and the Eagles who both looked completely unable to move the ball forward. The Eagles had 37 inside 50s yesterday. For a practice match where defensive intensity is prone to drop off, I think that's a huge concern and would likely have been the position that we'd find ourselves in if Clarkson's gameplan wasn't working.
The inside 50 discrepancy gives me hope that we'll have a great chance to knock off the Eagles in two weeks. Basically we learned two things. The first is that we have a respectable defensive press and the Eagles are still struggling to move the ball. The second is that our ball movement forward works after seeing it in action against an experienced Dogs outfit, who allowed the third least inside 50s last year. There's more to the game than inside 50s of course, but that should be a major reason for optimism as we head into round one.
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Maybe it was more about giving Larkey and Comben get max gell time?
Not aimed at you in particular, but im surprised by the amount of questioning over Clarkson's decisions. We know he's coaching with one thing in mind and thats winning flags and he's been the best in the business at doing just that.
I wouldn’t mind Luke playing up the ground as a defensive wing or tagger. He can’t play creatively. But when he has played well is when he has had specific roles to play.
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His role is already pretty simple. Lmac just isn’t very good, despite being brave and hard at it.
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I don't even want to think about the day he retires. He will be a massive loss.
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I think the biggest issue we had was in the middle and that is something we have to wear to some degree, Dogs have one of the better midfield's in the comp and their mid has played a lot of football with each other. Cunners is still a bit rusty, he has missed a lot of football, he will get better.
We have a bit of an issue with the midfield structure at stoppages, we can't have Cunners, Jy and LDU all go for the ball, lose the contested possession to one opposition midfield and then allow the ball to get flicked out to one of two guys loose on the outside. It is something we need to tighten up, that lead to a lot of easy and uncontested inside 50s against us.
Second issue, when we win a stoppage and just hack it forward instead of looking to hit up some mids, we have to get better at demanding the wings or half forwards pushing into the square to become better options and we must demand the mids to look for a team mate, the vast majority of our inside 50 entries were too shallow and were picked off. Because of that Larkey stopped leading because he had no time to make a lead, the ball gets dumped onto boot before we give forwards the opportunity to lead. We need to hold on to the ball and move it with handpass until we get into a favourable position to launch an inside 50. We had 57 vs 64 or something like that but there was a massive quality difference of inside 50s. That is something we need to get better with.
I don't know who was smoking crack but that "gameplan" to not contest a defensive 50 stoppage with a ruckman cost us 4 goals, at least. That better not be a feature of the H&A season, if i saw Hawks doing that i would be thinking that they are tanking, to do it against a side that has 2 ruckmen who play forwards was insanity.
Playing loose defenders in the D50 is not a huge benefit if the loose players can't get to and impact any contests, against a team like the dogs that can move it with accuracy if given time and space it is the wrong strategy. You have to bring numbers from the forward line to congest the half forward line and be able to put pressure on the ball carrier and the intended target. This was the model to beat Hawthorn when they were good, you had to starve them of uncontested marks and had to be able to stop the loose ball possessions and stick tackles. Defensively we were poor, couldn't stick tackles, couldn't put pressure on the ball carrier, this is a big limitation of undersized players. Small players can be effective tacklers with momentum but if you are flat footed you are just going to be pushed off.
We STILL do not have a great system of moving the ball from D50 to the middle, just look how congested our half back line is to the opposition every week, we have too many people who don't transition quick enough and just stand around and they are either not a good option and are flat footed so by the time the ball gets to them they will be under the pump as soon as they get it. We need space for someone to run into it, it is such a basic part of the game and it is something we are hopeless at and it just puts us under a lot more pressure than we need to be, there is a lack of natural movement on a turnover or rebound. How many times was Bonar or McDonald or Ziebell involved in a play where they were rebounding and were part of any kind of fluent movement of the ball to someone in the middle of the ground? Zero times? Shezel was more proactive in defensive transition during stints in the backline. Guys, you can't have less of a clue than someone fresh out of the juniors...
The stuff we were shit at is easy to address, the problem is that we have been saying it for years and we aren't seeing enough improvement. Dogs are able to exploit our deficiencies, it will be different with other clubs, most don't have the same kind of firepower in the midfield and the forward line.
Curtis was really great, he looks dangerous, he gets the ball outside forward 50 as well. He is great. Died of frostbite with a lack of quality entries.
Zurhaar is trying, but he hasn't had a lot of impact
Comben and Larkey need to be able to compete better and bring the ball to ground when they are not in the favourable position, they allow their opponents to get too many marks, many of them uncontested.
Stevo did some nice things, but goes missing for too long.
Perez made too many mistakes
I was pretty disappointed in the Cunners/Simpkin/LDU combo, not enough accountability, too many people going for the ball. You need to be way more defensive against the Dogs in the middle.
I thought Powell was pretty good, he was probably the most effective midfielder we had in terms of running through the middle and making better decisions, he gave more time for the forwards to make a lead and he had better quality inside 50 delivery because of it. Just picking the ball up and booting it is a bit timid, it is Polec footy. The U in LDU is starting to mean U-turn, he just gets the ball and does a circle and just fries the options he would have had if he went forward. I think he is paranoid about being rundown as often as he was last year and is a symptom of the midfield not working hard for each other to protect space, a lack of repeat efforts. I am not sure how much Clarkson has looked at this but we need to get Ratten off of the part-time roster and into full-time midfield coach because we have a lot of talented mids coming through and they need to be educated in the right way to structure and play the game.
I think if you get rid of the no-rucking goals and we get better at the defensive pressure, we would significantly cut that amount we lost by, we tried, we just have to work smarter so we get more bang from the energy we expend. I am still pretty optimistic that we will improve this year if we don't get murdered with injuries. We need to raise the bar because too many players atm are not what I would call AFL standard at present and we need to get a better outcome from the minimum impact someone has in a game.
We have a bit of an issue with the midfield structure at stoppages, we can't have Cunners, Jy and LDU all go for the ball, lose the contested possession to one opposition midfield and then allow the ball to get flicked out to one of two guys loose on the outside. It is something we need to tighten up, that lead to a lot of easy and uncontested inside 50s against us.
Second issue, when we win a stoppage and just hack it forward instead of looking to hit up some mids, we have to get better at demanding the wings or half forwards pushing into the square to become better options and we must demand the mids to look for a team mate, the vast majority of our inside 50 entries were too shallow and were picked off. Because of that Larkey stopped leading because he had no time to make a lead, the ball gets dumped onto boot before we give forwards the opportunity to lead. We need to hold on to the ball and move it with handpass until we get into a favourable position to launch an inside 50. We had 57 vs 64 or something like that but there was a massive quality difference of inside 50s. That is something we need to get better with.
I don't know who was smoking crack but that "gameplan" to not contest a defensive 50 stoppage with a ruckman cost us 4 goals, at least. That better not be a feature of the H&A season, if i saw Hawks doing that i would be thinking that they are tanking, to do it against a side that has 2 ruckmen who play forwards was insanity.
Playing loose defenders in the D50 is not a huge benefit if the loose players can't get to and impact any contests, against a team like the dogs that can move it with accuracy if given time and space it is the wrong strategy. You have to bring numbers from the forward line to congest the half forward line and be able to put pressure on the ball carrier and the intended target. This was the model to beat Hawthorn when they were good, you had to starve them of uncontested marks and had to be able to stop the loose ball possessions and stick tackles. Defensively we were poor, couldn't stick tackles, couldn't put pressure on the ball carrier, this is a big limitation of undersized players. Small players can be effective tacklers with momentum but if you are flat footed you are just going to be pushed off.
We STILL do not have a great system of moving the ball from D50 to the middle, just look how congested our half back line is to the opposition every week, we have too many people who don't transition quick enough and just stand around and they are either not a good option and are flat footed so by the time the ball gets to them they will be under the pump as soon as they get it. We need space for someone to run into it, it is such a basic part of the game and it is something we are hopeless at and it just puts us under a lot more pressure than we need to be, there is a lack of natural movement on a turnover or rebound. How many times was Bonar or McDonald or Ziebell involved in a play where they were rebounding and were part of any kind of fluent movement of the ball to someone in the middle of the ground? Zero times? Shezel was more proactive in defensive transition during stints in the backline. Guys, you can't have less of a clue than someone fresh out of the juniors...
The stuff we were shit at is easy to address, the problem is that we have been saying it for years and we aren't seeing enough improvement. Dogs are able to exploit our deficiencies, it will be different with other clubs, most don't have the same kind of firepower in the midfield and the forward line.
Curtis was really great, he looks dangerous, he gets the ball outside forward 50 as well. He is great. Died of frostbite with a lack of quality entries.
Zurhaar is trying, but he hasn't had a lot of impact
Comben and Larkey need to be able to compete better and bring the ball to ground when they are not in the favourable position, they allow their opponents to get too many marks, many of them uncontested.
Stevo did some nice things, but goes missing for too long.
Perez made too many mistakes
I was pretty disappointed in the Cunners/Simpkin/LDU combo, not enough accountability, too many people going for the ball. You need to be way more defensive against the Dogs in the middle.
I thought Powell was pretty good, he was probably the most effective midfielder we had in terms of running through the middle and making better decisions, he gave more time for the forwards to make a lead and he had better quality inside 50 delivery because of it. Just picking the ball up and booting it is a bit timid, it is Polec footy. The U in LDU is starting to mean U-turn, he just gets the ball and does a circle and just fries the options he would have had if he went forward. I think he is paranoid about being rundown as often as he was last year and is a symptom of the midfield not working hard for each other to protect space, a lack of repeat efforts. I am not sure how much Clarkson has looked at this but we need to get Ratten off of the part-time roster and into full-time midfield coach because we have a lot of talented mids coming through and they need to be educated in the right way to structure and play the game.
I think if you get rid of the no-rucking goals and we get better at the defensive pressure, we would significantly cut that amount we lost by, we tried, we just have to work smarter so we get more bang from the energy we expend. I am still pretty optimistic that we will improve this year if we don't get murdered with injuries. We need to raise the bar because too many players atm are not what I would call AFL standard at present and we need to get a better outcome from the minimum impact someone has in a game.
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Agree with everything you've said Tas
Re: the midfield I think blokes like Phillips, Powell and Wardlaw to come are just going to need a bulk of games. But yeah Ratten needs to sort out their spread. LDU running forward and just blazing away for it to be marked by defenders just kills you inside. People need to make more options in the midfield and up forward.
Re: the midfield I think blokes like Phillips, Powell and Wardlaw to come are just going to need a bulk of games. But yeah Ratten needs to sort out their spread. LDU running forward and just blazing away for it to be marked by defenders just kills you inside. People need to make more options in the midfield and up forward.
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Stickler four properer ingriss
To use a spoonerism; I've never heard of anything more relifulous, in all my dick!
P.S. I love it. Lol.
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I thought Jones would be WB best recruit when they picked him up. Transforms their backline. Larkey has not worked out that you stick your arse out when marking to keep your opponent away. Tell him to watch some Duck footage. Leading patterns are non existent. It’s straight up and straight back. Comben needs to lead on a diagonal. Some things are so basic you shake your head.
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Cos the umpiring was pus?How was the free kick paid against Comben, when after being pushed over the boundary line towards the fence, as you would, got up and shoved the perpetrator in the side, who duly collapsed like a house of cards.
Leading patterns.
Is it still a thing?
Gee Drew, BBB and W80 had it all figured out.
Their’s were awesome to watch from the last row, top of the Northern end when it was a * Home Game
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As Ding mentioned, Greenwood would help as well.
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So we hate bmac/lmac and Chom now **** me we are a fickle bunch
Love all of them
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Ditto
