Pt2: Adrian Dodoro: Football’s Biggest Fraud IMO

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Power Raid said:
I'm not sure what happened to the dons this season

They were flying and many of the games they dropped early, they could have won. Two losses to port by under a goal and then the wheels fell off against GWS.
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The wheels were being held on by one nut (not a euphemism) for last few weeks, two just wins over north and west coast.
 
Thread can’t go by without the obligatory sheedy mention. Those two are joined at the hip.
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Gavin Excell said:
Fitness?
They seem to struggle to run out the season
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It’s a ****ing mystery, but for 15 straight seasons now we’ve struggled from July onwards. Even when we had Dank at the club we fell away in the second half of the year. The only exception was 2018 when we were flying coming into finals but didn’t make it.

We have two teams. Essendon and ‘Essington’. The latter is an embarrassment to the 130 odd years of the club’s proud history.
 
Power Raid said:
I'm not sure what happened to the dons this season

They were flying and many of the games they dropped early, they could have won. Two losses to port by under a goal and then the wheels fell off against GWS.
Click to expand...

If you want a proper answer:

Likely a mixture of having no real plan B gameplan due to a lack of genuine marking targets through the midfield and forward meaning once you force a man-on-man or high press zone not allowing players to handball chain it out of defence, it's easy to force a turnover.

Injuries to some key players without any real depth to replace them (e.g. Draper, Ridley, Stringer, Wright, Setterfield, Shiel have all missed substantial games as mature bodies) that provide a POD to the side. Ridley is probably our most important player in the defensive half of the ground and it looks like a straw that broke the camel's back situation where it was one player too many out / down on form.

Relying heavily on younger and less experienced players to carry a heavy load this year due to a lack of good senior players that could run out a season, and they're likely worn out.

We're also simply not a great side, they finished bottom 4 last year and have improved this year and will probably finish with a few more wins than last year despite falling off a cliff in the second half of the season.

From memory we rolled out the 2nd or 3rd least experienced side against North the other week (less experienced than North's) so that we were ever really inside the Top-8 was pretty deceptive of where the team should have been.

The longer a season wears on, the more likely teams are to regress to the mean of where their performance is at.
 
owen87 said:
If you want a proper answer:

Likely a mixture of having no real plan B gameplan due to a lack of genuine marking targets through the midfield and forward meaning once you force a man-on-man or high press zone not allowing players to handball chain it out of defence, it's easy to force a turnover.

Injuries to some key players without any real depth to replace them (e.g. Draper, Ridley, Stringer, Wright, Setterfield, Shiel have all missed substantial games as mature bodies) that provide a POD to the side. Ridley is probably our most important player in the defensive half of the ground and it looks like a straw that broke the camel's back situation where it was one player too many out / down on form.

Relying heavily on younger and less experienced players to carry a heavy load this year due to a lack of good senior players that could run out a season, and they're likely worn out.

We're also simply not a great side, they finished bottom 4 last year and have improved this year and will probably finish with a few more wins than last year despite falling off a cliff in the second half of the season.

From memory we rolled out the 2nd or 3rd least experienced side against North the other week (less experienced than North's) so that we were ever really inside the Top-8 was pretty deceptive of where the team should have been.

The longer a season wears on, the more likely teams are to regress to the mean of where their performance is at.
Click to expand...

It is a long season for youth
 
Essendon players, on the whole, over the last 20 years have had no substance about them(no ASADA joke). They have degrees of talent, sure, but they have mainly lacked substance. The will to work with, and for others. The internal differentiation between leaders and followers. The internal differentiation between the driven and the easy pathers.

And is it any wonder when the guy who picked ALL of them is Adrian Dodoro. The man with the gift of the gab, the networker, the man with no credentials, the man who never had to be driven to earn anything. The man with no substance.

The man who ingratiated himself to Kevin Sheedy, the one and only EFC immortal. The man who ingratiated himself to the linament sniffing coterie bigwigs like Mark Casey and his white-shoe brigade.

20+ years of talent without substance, because the guy selecting all of them wouldn't know substance if he fell over it.

That latest clutch game performance on Saturday had Josh Mahoney written all over it didn't it. Luckily the Bombers have moved him on. Next year will surely be their year now.
 
TerryWallet said:
Essendon players, on the whole, over the last 20 years have had no substance about them(no ASADA joke). They have degrees of talent, sure, but they have mainly lacked substance. The will to work with, and for others. The internal differentiation between leaders and followers. The internal differentiation between the driven and the easy pathers.

And is it any wonder when the guy who picked ALL of them is Adrian Dodoro. The man with the gift of the gab, the networker, the man with no credentials, the man who never had to be driven to earn anything. The man with no substance.

The man who ingratiated himself to Kevin Sheedy, the one and only EFC immortal. The man who ingratiated himself to the linament sniffing coterie bigwigs like Mark Casey and his white-shoe brigade.

20+ years of talent without substance, because the guy selecting all of them wouldn't know substance if he fell over it.

That latest clutch game performance on Saturday had Josh Mahoney written all over it didn't it. Luckily the Bombers have moved him on. Next year will surely be their year now.
Click to expand...

IMG_0802.jpeg

That’s a bit rough …
Can’t really blame Adrian for taking McGrath with pick 1 after Robert Shaw assured him he was a beauty …
 

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owen87 said:
If you want a proper answer:

Likely a mixture of having no real plan B gameplan due to a lack of genuine marking targets through the midfield and forward meaning once you force a man-on-man or high press zone not allowing players to handball chain it out of defence, it's easy to force a turnover.

Injuries to some key players without any real depth to replace them (e.g. Draper, Ridley, Stringer, Wright, Setterfield, Shiel have all missed substantial games as mature bodies) that provide a POD to the side. Ridley is probably our most important player in the defensive half of the ground and it looks like a straw that broke the camel's back situation where it was one player too many out / down on form.

Relying heavily on younger and less experienced players to carry a heavy load this year due to a lack of good senior players that could run out a season, and they're likely worn out.

We're also simply not a great side, they finished bottom 4 last year and have improved this year and will probably finish with a few more wins than last year despite falling off a cliff in the second half of the season.

From memory we rolled out the 2nd or 3rd least experienced side against North the other week (less experienced than North's) so that we were ever really inside the Top-8 was pretty deceptive of where the team should have been.

The longer a season wears on, the more likely teams are to regress to the mean of where their performance is at.
Click to expand...

Also surely a lack of defensive pressure - would be worse than North at having teams cut you up via foot I reckon. Just bank on winning the ball back via intercept marks.

I think it’s partly the reason why guys like Tom Hawkins have a field day. Yes it’s a good match up v BZT, but Hawkins often has a good match up - he’s nearly always stronger and bigger than his direct opponent. But against Essendon, he can isolate that match up as Geelong have excellent foot skills and can deliver the ball to Hawkins advantage.

Obviously the GWS game was something else - but all year I’ve watched Essendon try to win the ball back in D50 rather than being one of those immense pressure sides. A lot of guys don’t defend anywhere near hard enough in my opinion - Guelfi would be the only one that springs to mind as a “higher than average pressure” player.

McGrath, Heppell, Shiel, Wright, Martin and Parish are all below average pressure players in terms of intensity I reckon and largely make up a large proportion of the best 22 (hell, there’s probably 4 of your top 8). Playing 2 ruckmen doesn’t help matters. And then the likes of Caldwell, Setterfield and Hobbs are good tackling mids but again I don’t see them ensuring that multiple disposals in a row are under pressure (unless direct from a stoppage).

I don’t reckon the pressure is purely a fitness thing as it has been there all year. The attacking issues is definitely fitness - night and day from start of the season yep. Incidentally also looked more difficult to stop the run and game game when Wright was out, forcing the Bombers hand to cut lines and get the ball marked inside 50 in different ways. Wright may have changed the decision making for the runnees, or it may have coincided with legs running out, or both.

I find it odd as one thing Scott’s North teams often had was multiple offensive spuds that applied pressure well enough to be at a top 8 standard, absolute elite kicking teams (Hawthorn, West Coast) would get a hold of us but they did most teams in that era and you can’t do much about Birchall, Mitchell, Hurn, Jetta types nailing targets.

And this Essendon side has a lot of head down pretenders (acting like they’re trying but not doing much) when it comes to pressure and space closing.

Is that a fair assessment?
 
HTPunter said:
Also surely a lack of defensive pressure - would be worse than North at having teams cut you up via foot I reckon. Just bank on winning the ball back via intercept marks.

I think it’s partly the reason why guys like Tom Hawkins have a field day. Yes it’s a good match up v BZT, but Hawkins often has a good match up - he’s nearly always stronger and bigger than his direct opponent. But against Essendon, he can isolate that match up as Geelong have excellent foot skills and can deliver the ball to Hawkins advantage.

Obviously the GWS game was something else - but all year I’ve watched Essendon try to win the ball back in D50 rather than being one of those immense pressure sides. A lot of guys don’t defend anywhere near hard enough in my opinion - Guelfi would be the only one that springs to mind as a “higher than average pressure” player.

McGrath, Heppell, Shiel, Wright, Martin and Parish are all below average pressure players in terms of intensity I reckon and largely make up a large proportion of the best 22 (hell, there’s probably 4 of your top 8). Playing 2 ruckmen doesn’t help matters. And then the likes of Caldwell, Setterfield and Hobbs are good tackling mids but again I don’t see them ensuring that multiple disposals in a row are under pressure (unless direct from a stoppage).

I don’t reckon the pressure is purely a fitness thing as it has been there all year. The attacking issues is definitely fitness - night and day from start of the season yep. Incidentally also looked more difficult to stop the run and game game when Wright was out, forcing the Bombers hand to cut lines and get the ball marked inside 50 in different ways. Wright may have changed the decision making for the runnees, or it may have coincided with legs running out, or both.

I find it odd as one thing Scott’s North teams often had was multiple offensive spuds that applied pressure well enough to be at a top 8 standard, absolute elite kicking teams (Hawthorn, West Coast) would get a hold of us but they did most teams in that era and you can’t do much about Birchall, Mitchell, Hurn, Jetta types nailing targets.

And this Essendon side has a lot of head down pretenders (acting like they’re trying but not doing much) when it comes to pressure and space closing.

Is that a fair assessment?
Click to expand...

Fair ish.

One of the biggest issues with the defensive side is points from turnover and that’s linked to ball usage out of the back half and the inability to take a mark up the wing.

They gave up over 100 points from turnovers this game. There was no one reliably able to move the ball out of the back half with Merrett tagged and Ridley injured. Massimo was an option there at the start of the season but is also injured.

That’s really hurt them as much as anything.

Another part is how Geelong, The Bulldogs and most good teams just bulldozed through tacklers when they actually tried. Few Essendon players were strong enough to win a 1 on 1 contest so that made pressure applied in effective when teams would realise that two players would often have to go to the player with that ball to complete a tackle and that would create space elsewhere.


Letting teams go the long way around and setting up in the D50 with numbers to force a turnover was early season smoke and mirrors to try and hide the teams flaws. As the season progressed teams realised this and just went up the middle
 
HTPunter said:
Also surely a lack of defensive pressure - would be worse than North at having teams cut you up via foot I reckon. Just bank on winning the ball back via intercept marks.

I think it’s partly the reason why guys like Tom Hawkins have a field day. Yes it’s a good match up v BZT, but Hawkins often has a good match up - he’s nearly always stronger and bigger than his direct opponent. But against Essendon, he can isolate that match up as Geelong have excellent foot skills and can deliver the ball to Hawkins advantage.

Obviously the GWS game was something else - but all year I’ve watched Essendon try to win the ball back in D50 rather than being one of those immense pressure sides. A lot of guys don’t defend anywhere near hard enough in my opinion - Guelfi would be the only one that springs to mind as a “higher than average pressure” player.

McGrath, Heppell, Shiel, Wright, Martin and Parish are all below average pressure players in terms of intensity I reckon and largely make up a large proportion of the best 22 (hell, there’s probably 4 of your top 8). Playing 2 ruckmen doesn’t help matters. And then the likes of Caldwell, Setterfield and Hobbs are good tackling mids but again I don’t see them ensuring that multiple disposals in a row are under pressure (unless direct from a stoppage).

I don’t reckon the pressure is purely a fitness thing as it has been there all year. The attacking issues is definitely fitness - night and day from start of the season yep. Incidentally also looked more difficult to stop the run and game game when Wright was out, forcing the Bombers hand to cut lines and get the ball marked inside 50 in different ways. Wright may have changed the decision making for the runnees, or it may have coincided with legs running out, or both.

I find it odd as one thing Scott’s North teams often had was multiple offensive spuds that applied pressure well enough to be at a top 8 standard, absolute elite kicking teams (Hawthorn, West Coast) would get a hold of us but they did most teams in that era and you can’t do much about Birchall, Mitchell, Hurn, Jetta types nailing targets.

And this Essendon side has a lot of head down pretenders (acting like they’re trying but not doing much) when it comes to pressure and space closing.

Is that a fair assessment?
Click to expand...

We definitely are not a good (consistently anyway) pressure side, you see that they can do it from time to time, but it's not a four quarter every week type thing.

If you're an elite offensive player (e.g. Dusty) you can get away with not applying a heap of pressure because the damage you can do with the ball is enough to force teams to defend you, but if you're not a great offensive player you need to work your tail off defensively.

That's why a player like Guelfi or Jake Kelly plays most weeks, they're the ones going out and putting in 100% to pressure the opposition. There's a misconception in football that you need 22 stars on the park each week, when what you need is a good balance of hard-working players doing the ugly stuff and some genuine class that can hurt the opposition. I don't mind Parish as a player but given he's not a brute that can impose himself on a game, and he's not elite by foot, his lack of defensive pressure is a real problem for a midfield that already lacks balance.

We also don't have enough good users by foot out of the backline and marking targets further up the field to reliably move the ball out of defence without turnovers. Once you make that turnover it's significantly harder to stop the opposition scoring to begin with, then you add a midfield group that doesn't apply elite pressure and you get Hawkins type outcomes where the defenders have little chance.

I do think Wright being out forced the players to look for options kicking i50, whereas when he's there they just dump it on his head repeatedly and hope for the best. A hard-leading and marking CHF player would change that dynamic as well, but too many players make poor decisions with their i50 entries when Wright is around that they need to be smarter about. Intercept players like Aliir, Stewart and McGovern usually clean up against Essendon's i50 entries.

I'm very interested to see how they manage the list this offseason now that Scott has had a season of the full Essendon experience to assess the playing group.
 
Gavin Excell said:
Fitness?
They seem to struggle to run out the season
Click to expand...
My memory isn't great, but i reckon this happens at Essendon almost every season. They start the year on fire and then fall away drastically in the back half of the season. Gold Coast have the same fitness program i suspect.
 
I don't understand why these opposition supporters want Dodo sacked or Essendon to confront the White Ant in the room.
Dodo is the best thing that's happened to Hawthorn, Carlton, Richmond and the remainder forteen teams in the league.
Personnaly I support Dodoro to have a lifetime tenure at Essendon.
 
irel said:
I don't understand why these opposition supporters want Dodo sacked or Essendon to confront the White Ant in the room.
Dodo is the best thing that's happened to Hawthorn, Carlton, Richmond and the remainder forteen teams in the league.
Personnaly I support Dodoro to have a lifetime tenure at Essendon.
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A version of this post is probably on every single page of this thread.
 

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Pt2: Adrian Dodoro: Football’s Biggest Fraud IMO

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