No Oppo Supporters Ross Lyon will NEVER win a premiership

[SHill Shall]

When Weller had a 1/4 playing in the A's he had 8 touches, made about 80M twice & kicked one of the best inside 50 balls I saw all year that resulted in a goal. You can't tell me that wouldn't have been handy last night. The mistake you are making on that side of the argument is judging how well these guys play in an inferior slower game. The hacks in our side kill at WAFL but up a grade all their flaws are magnified. Weller showed he could be very effective in small doses. He should have played more.

Agree Weller's going to be something special with more development. In recent times I've watched his sub appearance, his game against PA and the Peel/EP game.

In his debut "quarter in the A's" he did kick a magnificent I50. He also muffed a handball under only inferred pressure in the middle of the ground (causing a turnover) and kicked an I50 to the advantage of the opposition defender, while under no immediate pressure. No-one referenced those in the excitement of his debut, but I recall them vividly. In both the other two full games he was relatively quiet and also mixed some very good with some quite bad.

We also saw Blakely give only a middling to fair performance in both the PA and EP games. I would actually have Langdon ahead of Weller based on their respective outputs in those games.

Just be more patient. Ross will have them in his side as soon as they're ready to deliver. Recall the gradual initiation's of first Neale and Sutcliffe and then Sheridan. The same is going to happen with Weller, Blakely and Langdon. AP is even more advanced than this given our back-line injuries.

 

[DudleyDocker]

Yeah, I see what you're saying and I agree.

However, I don't agree that this year is an example of that being an actual problem.

We did rest players. We didn't play Luke for 2 weeks earlier in the year after he reported calf tightness but no actual injury. We persisted with Sheridan and Crozier while Mzungu and DeBoer played a significant amount of WAFL time.

As with all things there is a balance here, and while I am happy with the argument about more rotation of your Weller/Blakely/Langdon/Grey through the team, i'm not buying the implication that doing so would have made a material difference to our flag chance this year or the game yesterday.

You may well be right TheMcManusNose, I'm not pretending to have answers, just think something needs to change if we are to win one. I just felt this year progressed like a slow motion train wreck and all we could do was watch and hope it did not end in the inevitable disaster.

I actually got more pleasure from watching the young kids grow and develop at Peel this year than I did watching (most of) the Dockers games in the second half of the year. I think we just have to put this one behind us and learn from it, and with luck we will see improvement from our younger brigade. I think we saw this year there is not a lot going to come from the likes of Mzungu, Suban, Mayne, Dawson, Clarke et al.

Cheers for the response.

 

[DudleyDocker]

Agree Weller's going to be something special with more development. In recent times I've watched his sub appearance, his game against PA and the Peel/EP game.

In his debut "quarter in the A's" he did kick a magnificent I50. He also muffed a handball under only inferred pressure in the middle of the ground (causing a turnover) and kicked an I50 to the advantage of the opposition defender, while under no immediate pressure. No-one referenced those in the excitement of his debut, but I recall them vividly. In both the other two full games he was relatively quiet and also mixed some very good with some quite bad.

We also saw Blakely give only a middling to fair performance in both the PA and EP games. I would actually have Langdon ahead of Weller based on their respective outputs in those games.

Just be more patient. Ross will have them in his side as soon as they're ready to deliver. Recall the gradual initiation's of first Neale and Sutcliffe and then Sheridan. The same is going to happen with Weller, Blakely and Langdon. AP is even more advanced than this given our back-line injuries.

Therein lies the counter to your argument SHill Shall - AP is more advanced because he was given more opportunity. Granted it was due to injuries and he probably would not hve played otherwise, but look at what he has given us because of it. We now have another option in the backline we would not have otherwise had.

He also made mistakes, but there is no way of bringing a young kid into the team and expecting them not to make them. What we should focus on instead is their upside. Weller did make some mistakes, but he also showed he can do things that Suban, DeBoer, Mzungu and others will NEVER be able to do.

Nobody wants to see the side flooded with inexperienced debutants, but some (most?) would like to see more of them given opportunities to shine and maybe that will allow us to rest the likes of Mundy, Fyfe, Neale, Hill and Pearce regularly through the season.

Just my two cents worth

 

[smokingjacket]

I'll put it this way. The first thing the Hawks did when they trained at Subi Oval was to practice ball movement up and back.

Now I would believe that we would be doing the same but too often we rely on winning stoppages so the ability to pick our way through a zone is deemed unnecessary. Against the poorer teams a stoppage on the wing is an almost guaranteed win for us with our ruck-mid dominance so it's not much of an issue hoicking it up the field and trapping it in.

I just don't think we're helping out the weakest part of our squad at the moment and it needs to be tinkered with dramatically.

The Eagles lets say, have a weakened defence at the moment. Two KPD gone down early in the season. So the team works back hard and clogs up space and but their forwards always stay on as an option.

We on the other hand get our whole team back and make it incredibly hard for our forwards to take advantage of their best attributes. Ballantyne-Walters sitting under long balls. Pavlich getting mauled in contests. Griffin getting isolated as a leading player. It's all wrong. If we want to score more goals we're going to have to take more risks defensively to help out our respectively poorer forward line in general play, rather than just concerning ourselves with goals from stoppages and stoppage dominance.

 

[smokingjacket]

Last frustration. The lack of tactical innovation or thinking outside the box. For me, in making the best use of our strengths.

We have arguably the best ruck duo in the comp. We're going to win a heap of taps. Sometimes almost unopposed. With those taps we 99/100 drop it at the floor and back our big bodies to win it.

For a while we tried getting it to Fyfe on the run and then we stopped for injury and form.

Why haven't we tried experimenting with other clearance options from the taps when we have such a strong ruck division?

Pointless to look at now but there's a few things to look at over the off season. Hopefully we get it right. Even without Pav and McPharlin we've still got the makings of a side that will be there abouts because of our mids.

 

[E Shed]

As with all things there is a balance here, and while I am happy with the argument about more rotation of your Weller/Blakely/Langdon/Grey through the team, i'm not buying the implication that doing so would have made a material difference to our flag chance this year or the game yesterday.

Fair enough & just by the by nor am I stating it definitely would have, I'm saying it was blindingly obvious half way through the year we weren't quite good enough to get past the Hawks so what did we have to lose to mix it up a bit? It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion by the end of the year.


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[TheMcManusNose]

You may well be right TheMcManusNose, I'm not pretending to have answers, just think something needs to change if we are to win one. I just felt this year progressed like a slow motion train wreck and all we could do was watch and hope it did not end in the inevitable disaster.

I actually got more pleasure from watching the young kids grow and develop at Peel this year than I did watching (most of) the Dockers games in the second half of the year. I think we just have to put this one behind us and learn from it, and with luck we will see improvement from our younger brigade. I think we saw this year there is not a lot going to come from the likes of Mzungu, Suban, Mayne, Dawson, Clarke et al.

Cheers for the response.

Yeah I understand the sentiment. Very similar to how I approached last year's NHL season - would rather be watching the kids develop on a farm team rather than watching the same old team grind out the regular season.

It's the price of sustained regular season success without having won the whole thing. There's no real investment in the games until the finals, because you know the team is going to make it, it's just a matter of waiting for the real games to begin. Personally I didn't feel that way with Freo this year, because I genuinely thought this was our year, but I can see how it comes about.

And I should make the point more generally that watch-ability is not a problem unique to 'Ross Lyon teams'. I typically watch all the Eagles games with my best mate who is a keen Eagles fan, and they played some genuinely un-watchable games this year as well. We turned off the TV for the Melbourne game.

 

[TheMcManusNose]

Fair enough & just by the by nor am I stating it definitely would have, I'm saying it was blindingly obvious half way through the year we weren't quite good enough to get past the Hawks so what did we have to lose to mix it up a bit? It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion by the end of the year.

Yeah it was to an extent. However we still had the #1 spot and the home qualifier to potentially lose. Only the Eagles' draw against GC and loss to Adelaide allowed us to really rest players in round 23 without consequence. If we'd adopted a 'what do we have to lose' attitude a few rounds earlier it could have been potentially costly.

But that's all speculation really.

And frankly if we'd held a couple more marks and made a couple of kicks when we were 9 points down in the 4th we wouldn't be talking about how we weren't quite good enough to get past the Hawks.

 

[sproketman]

What is the cost of dropping Suban or D Pearce (another shitful finals performance) for a game against Gold Coast the week after a poor effort against Richmond?

Suban was either subbed or started as sub six times this year. De Boer the same eight times. Hawthorn, West Coast etc gave these roles to first year players and those with less than 20 games experience. We did it with 100 gamers.

 

[Unique Name]

If we had given them more game time during 2015, we would not have been watching a home prelim last night. It was worth going for a flag. And further - they're still on the list. In the scheme of a whole career, an additional 15 games in 2015 is not going to matter.

Absolute rubbish.

So we were only able to win gimme games throughout the season against shit clubs like Melbourne, Gold Coast, Essendon, Carlton because we played De Boer and Suban instead of Weller and Blakely. Give me a ****ing break.

We had plenty of opportunities to improve our bottom 6 players and we took none of them. Giving Blakely 3 games in a row in place of a Suban wouldn't have cost us anything because Suban has offered next to nothing all year. It was our fringe players that cost us the game last night, we knew our fringe players weren't up to it from about round 10 when Super Fyfe could no longer lift them all and nothing was done to try and fix the issue bar from rotating them through the sub role.

What Damien Hardwick said is spot on correct. It's psychology 101, you adapt to the people in your surroundings. Oprah says if you want to be rich surround yourself with rich friends, personal trainers say if you want to be fit surround yourself with fit people. Why do you think people are worried about Bennell and his old friends? Because people generally fall in with the crowd. Look at your friends, I bet most are in similar age brackets, similar finanical brackets, similar positions in life. This is the same world over, we generally become the average of our social group.

Play a young kid in Peel all season and he'll become a good Peel player. We play them in the Freo side and we give them every chance to excel.

There are 21 players on field, 1 new kid is not going to compromise the whole team. Especially a talented kid like Weller.
Funny that Duggan who is younger than Weller looked more than capable at AFL level, why is that?

 

[Latro]

Never thought I would see an Oprah reference on Big Footy.

 

[Midnite65]

A big reason (besides the form of Fyfe and our midfield) of us playing so well in the first 8-9 weeks was because our spuds/ fringe players/those with dubious kicking skills and decision making, (Tabs, Clarke, C Pearce, Duffield (2015 version), Sheridan, Suban, Mdb) played out of their skins and over excelled, whether that was due to their fitness and pre-season who knows but even Zac Clarke took 10 marks in the derby in Round 4.

The most frustrating thing about this season is the constant weekly messages from Lyon, Pav and any other Dockers interviewed stating that the pleasing thing was even though we were not playing our best we were still winning which was a good sign and they knew there was still room for improvement yet it never came. I know we finished top but in hindsight it would have been better to lose a few more games and we may have addressed things earlier. Gradually the spuds all came back to earth from the middle part of the season, (was this fitness or attitude) and the worst thing is we gave them games so it is not likely that they want to go to any other club now, if they had been playing for Peel for a few weeks they might be demanding trades now.

I guess we will now wait for the next 2-3 weeks of headlines on how we are going to be recruiting aggressively, who will we be linked to , Hooker, Carlisle, Tippett, Cloke,. Each year it seems to be a PR exercise to try and keep the members happy but comes to nothing.

 

[dockshark]

I'm not saying that the OP is wrong, but I think we have list issues. We have too many spuds that have questionable skills and decision making.

Last night, our opponents had elite foot skills around the ground, and at the goalface. We did not. I don't think you can point the finger at Lyon for that.

We should absolutely go for Bennel and another elite ball user. People that think all we need is a key forward must be watching a different team to me.

 

[TheMcManusNose]

What is the cost of dropping Suban or D Pearce (another shitful finals performance) for a game against Gold Coast the week after a poor effort against Richmond?

Suban was either subbed or started as sub six times this year. De Boer the same eight times. Hawthorn, West Coast etc gave these roles to first year players and those with less than 20 games experience. We did it with 100 gamers.

You mean the game we very nearly lost to Gold Coast?

I agree with you about the sub usage. Although it's not like WCE did it every time. Rosa, Hutchings, McGinnity, Selwood all spent time as sub this year.

 

[DudleyDocker]

You mean the game we very nearly lost to Gold Coast?

I agree with you about the sub usage. Although it's not like WCE did it every time. Rosa, Hutchings, McGinnity, Selwood all spent time as sub this year.

If we had lost that game would our season have been less successful?

As I said earlier, only Sydney's inaccuracy saved us from a second straight sets exit.

You don't have to win every game in the home and away, just the finals. If playing one kid a week destroys our season we are nowhere near good enough.

 

[Square Peg]

the reason we've been close enough to just fall short is because he's a great coach.
the reason we've just fallen short despite being so close is because we don't have a complete set of talent.

This. Lyon is far from perfect but why is he copping it? It's a minor miracle that we were even contending this year
As I have said before in hindsight our best shot at the flag was 2012 not 2013, we got Lyon one year too late and he had to waste the first half of 2012 teaching the players his style.
The failure in the past four years has been the demented trading strategy of Bond failing to get players into the club to build on that because he doesn't want to "sacrifice the future". Well he's sacrificed the present so he future better be ****ing spectacular.

 

[SHill Shall]

Absolute rubbish.

Glad you think so. How about giving some arguments that support your position? What empirical evidence did you see to suggest that the cumulative output of Weller, Blakely and Langdon was superior to deBoer, Suban and Mzungu's?

The idea that player development happens primarily through playing matches also needs challenging. Lyon and the coaches watch them every day against their peers. They know who is getting the job done. Did Freo get any good under Lyon primarily through matches? No - they got better in the gym, on the running track and in match sims. When they prove themselves there, they get running time in AFL matches.

I'm with you that we can't win anything with our current bottom 6, but I'm not convinced that the next layer adds to the whole yet. It will, and probably from next year.

Also - I don't know why Weller gets all the attention. I'd rate him behind Langdon right now with what I've seen and also based on WAFL stats.

 

[TheMcManusNose]

If we had lost that game would our season have been less successful?

As I said earlier, only Sydney's inaccuracy saved us from a second straight sets exit.

You don't have to win every game in the home and away, just the finals. If playing one kid a week destroys our season we are nowhere near good enough.

I would say yes, it very well might have been. How would we have gone in a Qual against the Hawks given our struggles you mention against Sydney?

My point is that picking, say, the GC game and saying 'oh it's GC let's rest/play a kid or two' (as many of us did at the time) can be a lot more risky than people seem to think. How do you satisfy both objectives of getting enough youth through the team and simultaneously getting the point where we can assure a home final and be in a position to potentially rest players? It's a difficult question and the examples people give (of, say, West Coast or Hawthorn) of teams that they perceive as managing the youth well in fact do largely the same thing that we do in terms of playing depth players in the Sub role.

I think this year coming it's clear we'll take a different approach. But I don't see our approach this year as being an example of mismanagement.

 

[denham]

This. Lyon is far from perfect but why is he copping it? It's a minor miracle that we were even contending this year
As I have said before in hindsight our best shot at the flag was 2012 not 2013, we got Lyon one year too late and he had to waste the first half of 2012 teaching the players his style.
The failure in the past four years has been the demented trading strategy of Bond failing to get players into the club to build on that because he doesn't want to "sacrifice the future". Well he's sacrificed the present so he future better be ******* spectacular.

 

[denham]

So who are these players we missed out on because Bond refused to trade our first round pick. I can only think of Mitch Clark, and how did that work out. Are there any others.

 

[Frank J Moose]

Watch Ross' presser. He gives a list of the pkayers we tried to get. None wanted to come.

 

[DudleyDocker]

I would say yes, it very well might have been. How would we have gone in a Qual against the Hawks given our struggles you mention against Sydney?

My point is that picking, say, the GC game and saying 'oh it's GC let's rest/play a kid or two' (as many of us did at the time) can be a lot more risky than people seem to think. How do you satisfy both objectives of getting enough youth through the team and simultaneously getting the point where we can assure a home final and be in a position to potentially rest players? It's a difficult question and the examples people give (of, say, West Coast or Hawthorn) of teams that they perceive as managing the youth well in fact do largely the same thing that we do in terms of playing depth players in the Sub role.

I think this year coming it's clear we'll take a different approach. But I don't see our approach this year as being an example of mismanagement.

Don't want to labour the point TheMcManusNose, but if you think this was a successful season you have very low expectations. What were we actually risking? Did resting players do us any good in the end? Maybe resting players DURING the season (i.e. through rotations) is better than trying to get into a position to rest them at the end.

Who knows? But what we did was not successful.

 

[denham]

Watch Ross' presser. He gives a list of the pkayers we tried to get. None wanted to come.

But we didn't miss out on them because we refused to trade our first pick.

 

[Unique Name]

Glad you think so. How about giving some arguments that support your position? What empirical evidence did you see to suggest that the cumulative output of Weller, Blakely and Langdon was superior to deBoer, Suban and Mzungu's?

The idea that player development happens primarily through playing matches also needs challenging. Lyon and the coaches watch them every day against their peers. They know who is getting the job done. Did Freo get any good under Lyon primarily through matches? No - they got better in the gym, on the running track and in match sims. When they prove themselves there, they get running time in AFL matches.

I'm with you that we can't win anything with our current bottom 6, but I'm not convinced that the next layer adds to the whole yet. It will, and probably from next year.

Also - I don't know why Weller gets all the attention. I'd rate him behind Langdon right now with what I've seen and also based on WAFL stats.

Evidence?

I could pick 10 games where Subes, De Boer, D Pearce, Mayne had absolutely no impact. Go back through some of the gameday threads if you need evidence.

If a player offers nothing, then switching in one of the younger players can either offer the same output (nothing) or at least something. Mayne had 4 games in a row with 0 goals. De Boer and Suban had many poor games which Ross must have agreed with because they were made the sub the next week. At the time Blakely was in our best for Peel almost every week. You honestly don't think he could have performed against Carlton?

Ross Lyon is not infallible. You say they know best, how about when the MC brought Duffield back into the side after an atrocious showing for Peel (Peel watchers and Radio commentators all said he was terrible). He was selected because of our experience over youth policy. Langdon/Weller/Blakely who had been named best on numerous times were not chosen.

Question for you, do you think Alex Pearce would have gotten a game this year if Dawson, Silvagni and Johnson didn't have lengthy injuries? Does his performance not in some way prove my point? He got consistant AFL games and improved considerably. Read the Peel thread from last year, people were happy with Alex but nobody was saying that he was beating the door down for a game in the AFL, not like they have been with this years draftees. Brady Grey gets a chance in the AFL and stops Wingard from scoring a single goal.

I'm not saying Langdon would have got us over the line last night but I think we all knew 10 rounds ago we were going to struggle with our fringe players. Why not give it a shot at improving the side.

I'm sorry if I came off as an ass. Just upset at the moment and West Coasts umpire rainbow ride had soured me even more. And I agree Langdon looks the most promising out of the three.

 

[Rob]

Glad you think so. How about giving some arguments that support your position? What empirical evidence did you see to suggest that the cumulative output of Weller, Blakely and Langdon was superior to deBoer, Suban and Mzungu's?

I think the issue now is that it's clear that the current group of players will not be able to win a flag. And IMO it's those players in the 15-25th selected group that are signficantly worse than similar players at other clubs. In that list i'd put into 2 groups:

Players that will not, or are highly unlikely to get better:
Suban
Clarke
Mzungu
C Pearce
De Boer

Players that are likely to get better
Sheridan
Sutcliffe
A Pearce
Taberner
Crozier

It's the first group that need to have their futures examined. I'd be inclined to replace those guys with Weller, Grey, Blakely, Langdon and Smith and just hope the development within the club is good enough to make that group better players than the guys they're replacing, and combined with the natural improvement of the second group result in a better best 25 next year than we have this year.
That's not to say i'd delist the first group (i'd probably get rid of a couple of them), but I think it's time that Lyon starts rolling the dice with the kids when it comes to picking players in the 22. For example, the safe option is to play Suban - it might win you a game, but it won't win you a flag. Pick Blakely instead. By the end of the year, he may just end up a better player. Pick Grey instead of De Boer. Weller instead of Clancee. Might find an A-grader or 2.