Review Round 13, 2023 - Hawthorn vs. Brisbane Lions

Who were your five best players against Hawthorn?

  • Total voters
    81
  • Poll closed .

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Quested said:
I think the only way to redeem ourselves and have any hope of achieving what we should is to win round 18 against the Dee's at the MCG. If that doesn't happen then I think it's going to be another wasted season where we fall short. If it happens then I will finally agree that it's Fagan's time to move on, along with Rich, Zorko and Gunston.
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There's a few games before then that we need to win before that game has any consequence.
 
Viceregal said:
KissKiss wrote "I'm excited but also nervous. It'll be my 5 month olds first game and have somehow managed to also be taking my 5 and 7 year old nephews along for their first game as well"

FFB1 wrote "Taking my 5yo Lions member to his first ever game too (no chance taking him to night games, which we play 9 out of every 10 times down here). Me and him versus the better half, our 10yo, the father in law, the brother in law, and two mates (one over from Adelaide), who are all Hawthorn members."

How many new Hawks supporters did we create this weekend?
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Well the 5 month old fell asleep at the start of the third quarter when it all started going badly. So not sure if he is the bad luck charm and should never come to another game.

The nephews at least one of them loved it and can't wait to go again despite the loss
 

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Coaches' votes

Hawthorn v Brisbane​

9 Connor MacDonald (HAW)
7 Jai Newcombe (HAW)
5 James Sicily (HAW)
4 Josh Dunkley (BL)
3 Jarman Impey (HAW)
1 Dylan Moore (HAW)
1 Eric Hipwood (BL)
 
Nathan Barley said:
1 coach gave Sicily 5 and the other 0?
Click to expand...

Possibly. Fagan thought he played well, Mitchell is pissed at him getting himself suspended again?

I think it could also break down as:

  • 5/4 - MacDonald
  • 2/5 - Newcombe
  • 3/2 - Sicily
  • 4/0 - Dunkley
  • 0/3 - Impey
  • 1/0 - Hipwood
  • 0/1 - Moore
 
Wow, Jordan Lewis is hell bent on making sure Sicily doesn't get suspended. Has been very vocal with his opinion of why he shouldn't. Has been on AFL360 also heard him on with Daniel Harford (another Hawk) breakfast show on RSN..

Andy Maher is another one.

So is it the tribunal who decides or decided by popular media opinion.......we'll wait and see.

I'm tipping the later.

...I haven't seen anything about how Hughy is now. I know he's out for this week but was wondering if there is anything else. The way his neck bent made me absolutely shiver. Hope that gets checked out.
 
Kingy's gone after Daniel Rich again

 
Mr Ripper said:
Kingy's gone after Daniel Rich again

Click to expand...

Hard to disagree with Kingy, I'm no fan of his but what he is saying is right. I feel for Richy, it would be such a shame for him to have been with us through all the shit and then miss out on a premiership. But unless something drastically changes I don't see us winning a premiership with his current form, especially if coaches are playing to his weaknesses.
I think it can be applied to Gunston as well, though obviously he is a forward. But the trend lately seem to be put their best intercept/running tall defender on Gunston and make us pay going the other way. Gunston is a very very smart player, generally (aside from his goal kicking this year) when he has ball in hand I am very confident something good is going to come of it.
 
Boy oh boy wowee. So much to say and I have no idea where to start. This is gonna be a long one I think and I hardly expect anyone to read it. It's more so I have a record of my thoughts. The good thing is you guys are all so learned I don't have to go over and rehash all the stuff already covered here.

Staggered to learn we won clearances, by a mile. We lost in the centre 14-11 but I don't recall Hawthorn really doing anything with that ascendancy, and I certainly don't recall any of them being out the front with any real venom.

It's the 36-13 around the ground which struck me. Really? That much? It made me go looking for the definition of a clearance:

"Credited to the player who has the first effective disposal in a chain that clears the stoppage area, or an ineffective kick or clanger kick that clears the stoppage area."

So there's a couple of things here. What is "the stoppage area"? Are we talking a 5 metre radius? 10 metres? 25? Does this "radius" depend on things like where it is on the field or how many players congregate there?

Then there's the other parts of the definition. We can only assume (I will not be rewatching that absolute dog's breakfast of a game) that a truckload of those 36 clearances must have been "ineffective kicks" or "clanger kicks".

Anyway, even ignoring the disposal counts we've been pantsed 62-46 inside 50. So between the arcs we made an absolute meal of moving the footy, which we all saw: the slow, kicking up the lines to a contest, which then got turned over either on the ground or in the air. And this became more apparent as the game went on, which comes back to what I've been saying for ages... we are simply not fit enough. It's so graphic and so galling that a Queensland team struggles to run games out against southern counterparts. Sam Mitchell even said in his press conference (paraphrasing) that he thought they would run over the top of us.

The other aspect to dominating clearances, and how irrelevant that was, is that it emphasised something we discussed a couple of months ago, about how footy is now a turnover game. And on Saturday, we were awful at this. 77 turnovers by us, but we could only force 58 by Hawthorn. Basically we just couldn't get the ball off them once they got it, particularly after half time.

On this, there were real echoes of what happened to us in 2022 - not being able to win the ball back once it got out in the open. In the first half, it really looked like we had no discernible game plan at all. Whether Hawthorn went in with a clearly defined plan to completely prevent us playing our game, or whether we just lacked intensity and effort - I'd say it was a combination of both of those things.

Then after half time, we basically reverted to our 2022 strategy, consisting (but not limited to) of this marvellous trio of factors:

  • Multiple players getting sucked in to going for the same ball, or the same bloke with the ball. This was not helped by the amount of tackles we missed, essentially requiring this to happen. Missed tackles is now a publicised stat in NRL circles, but I believe its importance is criminally underrated in AFL... if you miss a tackle you are essentially a man down. And if you're a man down it forces one of two things. Either you see a guy like Charlie Cameron running 100 metres (seriously, live at the ground you could see him doing this, and it was so heartening to see at least one bloke gave a stuff), just to cover an opponent ahead of the play who had got loose and was about to become the link in the chain. OR, more regularly, we got...
  • A concertina effect from one end of the field to the other, where our blokes all have to come forward off their man to stop the bloke with the ball from being too damaging with it. The end result is (a) you get caught in no man's land, and then (b) you end up with situations like McKenna v Koschitzke in the goal square. That ain't ending well.
  • Not directly related to the above was our insistence on holding Charlie as the deepest forward, which we did more and more the longer the game went. It didn't work on Saturday, it rarely works, and it's never worked in big games, for any team, ever. We shouldn't be doing it, ever. And if we are doing it then it must be because...

We aren't getting enough out of Jack Gunston. We certainly aren't getting enough out of him in an attacking sense, and we're getting even less in a defensive sense. Watching Hawthorn pick us apart whilst they were in possession in our forward 50 was actually glorious to watch in a perverse way, as someone who enjoys watching the sport from a strategic point of view. They would simply chip it around until basically whoever was playing on Gunston got into space, then it was a handball and just like that they'd transitioned from slow play to fast play.

We did well to shut down Saad in Round 8, but basically every Hawthorn defender was happy to play this role. So it meant we only needed one weak link in the chain, even when the ball was in our forward 50, for our whole system to break down.

What we should have done was what I suggested a couple of weeks ago: give them the boundary. Don't bother to try and catch them and inhibit their ball movement out on the wings... charge down the outside of the corridor instead (near the logos) and pick up the next man. Make them stop and have to consider their next move, when they see all their team mates manned up, rather than allow them a simple handball over the top to the next loose man in the chain. This would also allow a forward time to track back defensively and pressure them from behind.

It was a bit of a surprise to see us go back to playing that way, after doing so well to NOT play that way basically every other game this season. And speaking of surprises, the best one came at the press conference! He was asked about their handball game and Fages said, and I quote: "Yeah, they haven't done that every time though, this is something sort of newer... there's been other games where they got us with kicking".

I mean are you for real? We really didn't see this coming? I'm linking back to the same post as above because even Joe Blow saw it on the radar. They did EXACTLY what it said on the tin, and we simply weren't ready for it. I've been pretty complimentary of our coaching group this year, with good reason I feel, but this basically says we didn't do any homework. None whatsoever. Which is just disgraceful really. Literally an amateur performance from our coaching group, and maybe this attitude filtered down to the playing group.

So we're at a bit of an inflexion point in our season now, a bit like where we were last year. We addressed our issues over summer, implemented the new game plan, and it looked a million dollars early in the season. But now we're getting figured out, as I suspected we would. Essendon made it hard for us to score, Gold Coast found their way through at stages by kick-marking, Adelaide got through by running the ball, and then Hawthorn combined the lot on Saturday.

So the ball is back in the court of our coaching group... mid-2021 and mid-2022 this happened, and we weren't really able to get things right at all for the rest of the year. To be honest, this is why I'm always an advocate for trying to put in place as simple a game plan as possible. There is great power in an opponent knowing exactly what you are going to do, yet going out and doing it anyway.

I have one more thing, and I'm surprised nobody else has picked up on this. Lachie Neale took FOURTEEN MARKS on Saturday, the most of any player. and I reckon he would have marked at least half of our kick-ins, if not more. Any other coach I'm saying it was a coincidence, but I'm not giving Sam Mitchell that out. Give Lachie Neale the ball, uncontested in our back half. He's not the greatest kick for a start, but if he's got the ball he can't handball receive, and more importantly he can't get the ball in chaos at the next contest. Our captain and Brownlow Medallist was essentially neutered. Brilliant coaching - I really don't think this was an accident and was by design.

What we should have done in response was completely eschew kicking short to the pockets inside defensive 50, instead taking our full measure from kick-ins (remember those guys are allowed to run a fair way now, unencumbered) and then kicking looooong to Oscar. With a decent run and kick that contest would probably be forward of half back. Neale and others could go to work there. Yes, it's predictable, but that comes back to what I wrote above, and hey, it works for Melbourne. And if you do it 5 times in a row, the opposition come to expect it, which will likely open up opportunities for uncontested play elsewhere on the field.

Gunston out. Fort in. No, Fort won't help our forward line defence much but he will pose more of an aerial threat, meaning we don't have to play Charlie one out as our deepest forward. And if we are worried about our forward line being too slow with Fort, bugger it, play Fullarton, who might not have the same aerial presence but at least is mobile. Or Lohmann, I don't care. Someone. Anyone.

twhowler said:
Honestly that was flag done stuff. The hawks were $9 at half time. Free money.
Click to expand...

I may have had a go at this. Paid for my flights. Only silver lining for the day... means I only wasted my time not my money.
 
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Grasshopper17 said:
Boy oh boy wowee. So much to say and I have no idea where to start. This is gonna be a long one I think and I hardly expect anyone to read it. It's more so I have a record of my thoughts. The good thing is you guys are all so learned I don't have to go over and rehash all the stuff already covered here.

Staggered to learn we won clearances, by a mile. We lost in the centre 14-11 but I don't recall Hawthorn really doing anything with that ascendancy, and I certainly don't recall any of them being out the front with any real venom.

It's the 36-13 around the ground which struck me. Really? That much? It made me go looking for the definition of a clearance:

"Credited to the player who has the first effective disposal in a chain that clears the stoppage area, or an ineffective kick or clanger kick that clears the stoppage area."

So there's a couple of things here. What is "the stoppage area"? Are we talking a 5 metre radius? 10 metres? 25? Does this "radius" depend on things like where it is on the field or how many players congregate there?

Then there's the other parts of the definition. We can only assume (I will not be rewatching that absolute dog's breakfast of a game) that a truckload of those 36 clearances must have been "ineffective kicks" or "clanger kicks".

Anyway, even ignoring the disposal counts we've been pantsed 62-46 inside 50. So between the arcs we made an absolute meal of moving the footy, which we all saw: the slow, kicking up the lines to a contest, which then got turned over either on the ground or in the air. And this became more apparent as the game went on, which comes back to what I've been saying for ages... we are simply not fit enough. It's so graphic and so galling that a Queensland team struggles to run games out against southern counterparts. Sam Mitchell even said in his press conference (paraphrasing) that he thought they would run over the top of us.

The other aspect to dominating clearances, and how irrelevant that was, is that it emphasised something we discussed a couple of months ago, about how footy is now a turnover game. And on Saturday, we were awful at this. 77 turnovers by us, but we could only force 58 by Hawthorn. Basically we just couldn't get the ball off them once they got it, particularly after half time.

On this, there were real echoes of what happened to us in 2022 - not being able to win the ball back once it got out in the open. In the first half, it really looked like we had no discernible game plan at all. Whether Hawthorn went in with a clearly defined plan to completely prevent us playing our game, or whether we just lacked intensity and effort - I'd say it was a combination of both of those things.

Then after half time, we basically reverted to our 2022 strategy, consisting (but not limited to) of this marvellous trio of factors:

  • Multiple players getting sucked in to going for the same ball, or the same bloke with the ball. This was not helped by the amount of tackles we missed, essentially requiring this to happen. Missed tackles is now a publicised stat in NRL circles, but I believe its importance is criminally underrated in AFL... if you miss a tackle you are essentially a man down. And if you're a man down it forces one of two things. Either you see a guy like Charlie Cameron running 100 metres (seriously, live at the ground you could see him doing this, and it was so heartening to see at least one bloke gave a stuff), just to cover an opponent ahead of the play who had got loose and was about to become the link in the chain. OR, more regularly, we got...
  • A concertina effect from one end of the field to the other, where our blokes all have to come forward off their man to stop the bloke with the ball from being too damaging with it. The end result is (a) you get caught in no man's land, and then (b) you end up with situations like McKenna v Koschitzke in the goal square. That ain't ending well.
  • Not directly related to the above was our insistence on holding Charlie as the deepest forward, which we did more and more the longer the game went. It didn't work on Saturday, it rarely works, and it's never worked in big games, for any team, ever. We shouldn't be doing it, ever. And if we are doing it then it must be because...

We aren't getting enough out of Jack Gunston. We certainly aren't getting enough out of him in an attacking sense, and we're getting even less in a defensive sense. Watching Hawthorn pick us apart whilst they were in possession in our forward 50 was actually glorious to watch in a perverse way, as someone who enjoys watching the sport from a strategic point of view. They would simply chip it around until basically whoever was playing on Gunston got into space, then it was a handball and just like that they'd transitioned from slow play to fast play.

We did well to shut down Saad in Round 8, but basically every Hawthorn defender was happy to play this role. So it meant we only needed one weak link in the chain, even when the ball was in our forward 50, for our whole system to break down.

What we should have done was what I suggested a couple of weeks ago: give them the boundary. Don't bother to try and catch them and inhibit their ball movement out on the wings... charge down the outside of the corridor instead (near the logos) and pick up the next man. Make them stop and have to consider their next move, when they see all their team mates manned up, rather than allow them a simple handball over the top to the next loose man in the chain. This would also allow a forward time to track back defensively and pressure them from behind.

It was a bit of a surprise to see us go back to playing that way, after doing so well to NOT play that way basically every other game this season. And speaking of surprises, the best one came at the press conference! He was asked about their handball game and Fages said, and I quote: "Yeah, they haven't done that every time though, this is something sort of newer... there's been other games where they got us with kicking".

I mean are you for real? We really didn't see this coming? I'm linking back to the same post as above because even Joe Blow saw it on the radar. They did EXACTLY what it said on the tin, and we simply weren't ready for it. I've been pretty complimentary of our coaching group this year, with good reason I feel, but this basically says we didn't do any homework. None whatsoever. Which is just disgraceful really. Literally an amateur performance from our coaching group, and maybe this attitude filtered down to the playing group.

So we're at a bit of an inflexion point in our season now, a bit like where we were last year. We addressed our issues over summer, implemented the new game plan, and it looked a million dollars early in the season. But now we're getting figured out, as I suspected we would. Essendon made it hard for us to score, Gold Coast found their way through at stages by kick-marking, Adelaide got through by running the ball, and then Hawthorn combined the lot on Saturday.

So the ball is back in the court of our coaching group... mid-2021 and mid-2022 this happened, and we weren't really able to get things right at all for the rest of the year. To be honest, this is why I'm always an advocate for trying to put in place as simple a game plan as possible. There is great power in an opponent knowing exactly what you are going to do, yet going out and doing it anyway.

I have one more thing, and I'm surprised nobody else has picked up on this. Lachie Neale took FOURTEEN MARKS on Saturday, the most of any player. and I reckon he would have marked at least half of our kick-ins, if not more. Any other coach I'm saying it was a coincidence, but I'm not giving Sam Mitchell that out. Give Lachie Neale the ball, uncontested in our back half. He's not the greatest kick for a start, but if he's got the ball he can't handball receive, and more importantly he can't get the ball in chaos at the next contest. Our captain and Brownlow Medallist was essentially neutered. Brilliant coaching - I really don't think this was an accident and was by design.

What we should have done in response was completely eschew kicking short to the pockets inside defensive 50, instead taking our full measure from kick-ins (remember those guys are allowed to run a fair way now, unencumbered) and then kicking looooong to Oscar. With a decent run and kick that contest would probably be forward of half back. Neale and others could go to work there. Yes, it's predictable, but that comes back to what I wrote above, and hey, it works for Melbourne. And if you do it 5 times in a row, the opposition come to expect it, which will likely open up opportunities for uncontested play elsewhere on the field.

Gunston out. Fort in. No, Fort won't help our forward line defence much but he will pose more of an aerial threat, meaning we don't have to play Charlie one out as our deepest forward. And if we are worried about our forward line being too slow with Fort, bugger it, play Fullarton, who might not have the same aerial presence but at least is mobile. Or Lohmann, I don't care. Someone. Anyone.



I may have had a go at this. Paid for my flights. Only silver lining for the day... means I only wasted my time not my money.
Click to expand...
Always love your analysis Grasshopper... just wondering have you ever coached a team of your own, even in junior footy?
 

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M Malice said:
Always love your analysis Grasshopper... just wondering have you ever coached a team of your own, even in junior footy?
Click to expand...

Nah, but did a fair bit with Gaelic footy and I feel like there are some parallels there. Was always hard to coach and play at the same time tho!

But when I hear about how we weren't ready for Hawthorn's handball game it really does make me wonder what actually goes in to preparation for a match, even at the highest level. I mean I'd have thought they'd have analysts picking up the kick:handball ratios I identified the other week, but who knows, maybe with the soft cap issues we can't afford them?
 
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Grasshopper17 said:
Boy oh boy wowee. So much to say and I have no idea where to start. This is gonna be a long one I think and I hardly expect anyone to read it. It's more so I have a record of my thoughts. The good thing is you guys are all so learned I don't have to go over and rehash all the stuff already covered here.

Staggered to learn we won clearances, by a mile. We lost in the centre 14-11 but I don't recall Hawthorn really doing anything with that ascendancy, and I certainly don't recall any of them being out the front with any real venom.

It's the 36-13 around the ground which struck me. Really? That much? It made me go looking for the definition of a clearance:

"Credited to the player who has the first effective disposal in a chain that clears the stoppage area, or an ineffective kick or clanger kick that clears the stoppage area."

So there's a couple of things here. What is "the stoppage area"? Are we talking a 5 metre radius? 10 metres? 25? Does this "radius" depend on things like where it is on the field or how many players congregate there?

Then there's the other parts of the definition. We can only assume (I will not be rewatching that absolute dog's breakfast of a game) that a truckload of those 36 clearances must have been "ineffective kicks" or "clanger kicks".

Anyway, even ignoring the disposal counts we've been pantsed 62-46 inside 50. So between the arcs we made an absolute meal of moving the footy, which we all saw: the slow, kicking up the lines to a contest, which then got turned over either on the ground or in the air. And this became more apparent as the game went on, which comes back to what I've been saying for ages... we are simply not fit enough. It's so graphic and so galling that a Queensland team struggles to run games out against southern counterparts. Sam Mitchell even said in his press conference (paraphrasing) that he thought they would run over the top of us.

The other aspect to dominating clearances, and how irrelevant that was, is that it emphasised something we discussed a couple of months ago, about how footy is now a turnover game. And on Saturday, we were awful at this. 77 turnovers by us, but we could only force 58 by Hawthorn. Basically we just couldn't get the ball off them once they got it, particularly after half time.

On this, there were real echoes of what happened to us in 2022 - not being able to win the ball back once it got out in the open. In the first half, it really looked like we had no discernible game plan at all. Whether Hawthorn went in with a clearly defined plan to completely prevent us playing our game, or whether we just lacked intensity and effort - I'd say it was a combination of both of those things.

Then after half time, we basically reverted to our 2022 strategy, consisting (but not limited to) of this marvellous trio of factors:

  • Multiple players getting sucked in to going for the same ball, or the same bloke with the ball. This was not helped by the amount of tackles we missed, essentially requiring this to happen. Missed tackles is now a publicised stat in NRL circles, but I believe its importance is criminally underrated in AFL... if you miss a tackle you are essentially a man down. And if you're a man down it forces one of two things. Either you see a guy like Charlie Cameron running 100 metres (seriously, live at the ground you could see him doing this, and it was so heartening to see at least one bloke gave a stuff), just to cover an opponent ahead of the play who had got loose and was about to become the link in the chain. OR, more regularly, we got...
  • A concertina effect from one end of the field to the other, where our blokes all have to come forward off their man to stop the bloke with the ball from being too damaging with it. The end result is (a) you get caught in no man's land, and then (b) you end up with situations like McKenna v Koschitzke in the goal square. That ain't ending well.
  • Not directly related to the above was our insistence on holding Charlie as the deepest forward, which we did more and more the longer the game went. It didn't work on Saturday, it rarely works, and it's never worked in big games, for any team, ever. We shouldn't be doing it, ever. And if we are doing it then it must be because...

We aren't getting enough out of Jack Gunston. We certainly aren't getting enough out of him in an attacking sense, and we're getting even less in a defensive sense. Watching Hawthorn pick us apart whilst they were in possession in our forward 50 was actually glorious to watch in a perverse way, as someone who enjoys watching the sport from a strategic point of view. They would simply chip it around until basically whoever was playing on Gunston got into space, then it was a handball and just like that they'd transitioned from slow play to fast play.

We did well to shut down Saad in Round 8, but basically every Hawthorn defender was happy to play this role. So it meant we only needed one weak link in the chain, even when the ball was in our forward 50, for our whole system to break down.

What we should have done was what I suggested a couple of weeks ago: give them the boundary. Don't bother to try and catch them and inhibit their ball movement out on the wings... charge down the outside of the corridor instead (near the logos) and pick up the next man. Make them stop and have to consider their next move, when they see all their team mates manned up, rather than allow them a simple handball over the top to the next loose man in the chain. This would also allow a forward time to track back defensively and pressure them from behind.

It was a bit of a surprise to see us go back to playing that way, after doing so well to NOT play that way basically every other game this season. And speaking of surprises, the best one came at the press conference! He was asked about their handball game and Fages said, and I quote: "Yeah, they haven't done that every time though, this is something sort of newer... there's been other games where they got us with kicking".

I mean are you for real? We really didn't see this coming? I'm linking back to the same post as above because even Joe Blow saw it on the radar. They did EXACTLY what it said on the tin, and we simply weren't ready for it. I've been pretty complimentary of our coaching group this year, with good reason I feel, but this basically says we didn't do any homework. None whatsoever. Which is just disgraceful really. Literally an amateur performance from our coaching group, and maybe this attitude filtered down to the playing group.

So we're at a bit of an inflexion point in our season now, a bit like where we were last year. We addressed our issues over summer, implemented the new game plan, and it looked a million dollars early in the season. But now we're getting figured out, as I suspected we would. Essendon made it hard for us to score, Gold Coast found their way through at stages by kick-marking, Adelaide got through by running the ball, and then Hawthorn combined the lot on Saturday.

So the ball is back in the court of our coaching group... mid-2021 and mid-2022 this happened, and we weren't really able to get things right at all for the rest of the year. To be honest, this is why I'm always an advocate for trying to put in place as simple a game plan as possible. There is great power in an opponent knowing exactly what you are going to do, yet going out and doing it anyway.

I have one more thing, and I'm surprised nobody else has picked up on this. Lachie Neale took FOURTEEN MARKS on Saturday, the most of any player. and I reckon he would have marked at least half of our kick-ins, if not more. Any other coach I'm saying it was a coincidence, but I'm not giving Sam Mitchell that out. Give Lachie Neale the ball, uncontested in our back half. He's not the greatest kick for a start, but if he's got the ball he can't handball receive, and more importantly he can't get the ball in chaos at the next contest. Our captain and Brownlow Medallist was essentially neutered. Brilliant coaching - I really don't think this was an accident and was by design.

What we should have done in response was completely eschew kicking short to the pockets inside defensive 50, instead taking our full measure from kick-ins (remember those guys are allowed to run a fair way now, unencumbered) and then kicking looooong to Oscar. With a decent run and kick that contest would probably be forward of half back. Neale and others could go to work there. Yes, it's predictable, but that comes back to what I wrote above, and hey, it works for Melbourne. And if you do it 5 times in a row, the opposition come to expect it, which will likely open up opportunities for uncontested play elsewhere on the field.

Gunston out. Fort in. No, Fort won't help our forward line defence much but he will pose more of an aerial threat, meaning we don't have to play Charlie one out as our deepest forward. And if we are worried about our forward line being too slow with Fort, bugger it, play Fullarton, who might not have the same aerial presence but at least is mobile. Or Lohmann, I don't care. Someone. Anyone.



I may have had a go at this. Paid for my flights. Only silver lining for the day... means I only wasted my time not my money.
Click to expand...

I think the clearance and turnover numbers show a very obvious story of us being able to clear the stoppage area, only to lose to 2nd and 3rd efforts that saw Hawthorn clearly overrun us with numbers and run off from there.

An interesting note from the start of the round five game against North after being 2-2, David King pointed out that we were one of the worst teams to lose out on the next contested ball after a clearance. If you rewatch the broadcast I’m the first quarter it should be brought up there when it was an even contest. I thought it was quite cherry picked but it’s clear we aren’t being smart with how we approach leaving the stoppage.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
 
Something Joe Daniher said when doing an interview on our website......when the talk turned to the Hawks game he said yeah, they turned up to play..o_O

..well hello, didn't you lot think they would? Was going to be easy peasy Joe? Job done.....er no it wasn't

That got up my nose tbh in light of the results and how we played.
 
Grasshopper17 said:
Boy oh boy wowee. So much to say and I have no idea where to start. This is gonna be a long one I think and I hardly expect anyone to read it. It's more so I have a record of my thoughts. The good thing is you guys are all so learned I don't have to go over and rehash all the stuff already covered here.

Staggered to learn we won clearances, by a mile. We lost in the centre 14-11 but I don't recall Hawthorn really doing anything with that ascendancy, and I certainly don't recall any of them being out the front with any real venom.

It's the 36-13 around the ground which struck me. Really? That much? It made me go looking for the definition of a clearance:

"Credited to the player who has the first effective disposal in a chain that clears the stoppage area, or an ineffective kick or clanger kick that clears the stoppage area."

So there's a couple of things here. What is "the stoppage area"? Are we talking a 5 metre radius? 10 metres? 25? Does this "radius" depend on things like where it is on the field or how many players congregate there?

Then there's the other parts of the definition. We can only assume (I will not be rewatching that absolute dog's breakfast of a game) that a truckload of those 36 clearances must have been "ineffective kicks" or "clanger kicks".

Anyway, even ignoring the disposal counts we've been pantsed 62-46 inside 50. So between the arcs we made an absolute meal of moving the footy, which we all saw: the slow, kicking up the lines to a contest, which then got turned over either on the ground or in the air. And this became more apparent as the game went on, which comes back to what I've been saying for ages... we are simply not fit enough. It's so graphic and so galling that a Queensland team struggles to run games out against southern counterparts. Sam Mitchell even said in his press conference (paraphrasing) that he thought they would run over the top of us.

The other aspect to dominating clearances, and how irrelevant that was, is that it emphasised something we discussed a couple of months ago, about how footy is now a turnover game. And on Saturday, we were awful at this. 77 turnovers by us, but we could only force 58 by Hawthorn. Basically we just couldn't get the ball off them once they got it, particularly after half time.

On this, there were real echoes of what happened to us in 2022 - not being able to win the ball back once it got out in the open. In the first half, it really looked like we had no discernible game plan at all. Whether Hawthorn went in with a clearly defined plan to completely prevent us playing our game, or whether we just lacked intensity and effort - I'd say it was a combination of both of those things.

Then after half time, we basically reverted to our 2022 strategy, consisting (but not limited to) of this marvellous trio of factors:

  • Multiple players getting sucked in to going for the same ball, or the same bloke with the ball. This was not helped by the amount of tackles we missed, essentially requiring this to happen. Missed tackles is now a publicised stat in NRL circles, but I believe its importance is criminally underrated in AFL... if you miss a tackle you are essentially a man down. And if you're a man down it forces one of two things. Either you see a guy like Charlie Cameron running 100 metres (seriously, live at the ground you could see him doing this, and it was so heartening to see at least one bloke gave a stuff), just to cover an opponent ahead of the play who had got loose and was about to become the link in the chain. OR, more regularly, we got...
  • A concertina effect from one end of the field to the other, where our blokes all have to come forward off their man to stop the bloke with the ball from being too damaging with it. The end result is (a) you get caught in no man's land, and then (b) you end up with situations like McKenna v Koschitzke in the goal square. That ain't ending well.
  • Not directly related to the above was our insistence on holding Charlie as the deepest forward, which we did more and more the longer the game went. It didn't work on Saturday, it rarely works, and it's never worked in big games, for any team, ever. We shouldn't be doing it, ever. And if we are doing it then it must be because...

We aren't getting enough out of Jack Gunston. We certainly aren't getting enough out of him in an attacking sense, and we're getting even less in a defensive sense. Watching Hawthorn pick us apart whilst they were in possession in our forward 50 was actually glorious to watch in a perverse way, as someone who enjoys watching the sport from a strategic point of view. They would simply chip it around until basically whoever was playing on Gunston got into space, then it was a handball and just like that they'd transitioned from slow play to fast play.

We did well to shut down Saad in Round 8, but basically every Hawthorn defender was happy to play this role. So it meant we only needed one weak link in the chain, even when the ball was in our forward 50, for our whole system to break down.

What we should have done was what I suggested a couple of weeks ago: give them the boundary. Don't bother to try and catch them and inhibit their ball movement out on the wings... charge down the outside of the corridor instead (near the logos) and pick up the next man. Make them stop and have to consider their next move, when they see all their team mates manned up, rather than allow them a simple handball over the top to the next loose man in the chain. This would also allow a forward time to track back defensively and pressure them from behind.

It was a bit of a surprise to see us go back to playing that way, after doing so well to NOT play that way basically every other game this season. And speaking of surprises, the best one came at the press conference! He was asked about their handball game and Fages said, and I quote: "Yeah, they haven't done that every time though, this is something sort of newer... there's been other games where they got us with kicking".

I mean are you for real? We really didn't see this coming? I'm linking back to the same post as above because even Joe Blow saw it on the radar. They did EXACTLY what it said on the tin, and we simply weren't ready for it. I've been pretty complimentary of our coaching group this year, with good reason I feel, but this basically says we didn't do any homework. None whatsoever. Which is just disgraceful really. Literally an amateur performance from our coaching group, and maybe this attitude filtered down to the playing group.

So we're at a bit of an inflexion point in our season now, a bit like where we were last year. We addressed our issues over summer, implemented the new game plan, and it looked a million dollars early in the season. But now we're getting figured out, as I suspected we would. Essendon made it hard for us to score, Gold Coast found their way through at stages by kick-marking, Adelaide got through by running the ball, and then Hawthorn combined the lot on Saturday.

So the ball is back in the court of our coaching group... mid-2021 and mid-2022 this happened, and we weren't really able to get things right at all for the rest of the year. To be honest, this is why I'm always an advocate for trying to put in place as simple a game plan as possible. There is great power in an opponent knowing exactly what you are going to do, yet going out and doing it anyway.

I have one more thing, and I'm surprised nobody else has picked up on this. Lachie Neale took FOURTEEN MARKS on Saturday, the most of any player. and I reckon he would have marked at least half of our kick-ins, if not more. Any other coach I'm saying it was a coincidence, but I'm not giving Sam Mitchell that out. Give Lachie Neale the ball, uncontested in our back half. He's not the greatest kick for a start, but if he's got the ball he can't handball receive, and more importantly he can't get the ball in chaos at the next contest. Our captain and Brownlow Medallist was essentially neutered. Brilliant coaching - I really don't think this was an accident and was by design.

What we should have done in response was completely eschew kicking short to the pockets inside defensive 50, instead taking our full measure from kick-ins (remember those guys are allowed to run a fair way now, unencumbered) and then kicking looooong to Oscar. With a decent run and kick that contest would probably be forward of half back. Neale and others could go to work there. Yes, it's predictable, but that comes back to what I wrote above, and hey, it works for Melbourne. And if you do it 5 times in a row, the opposition come to expect it, which will likely open up opportunities for uncontested play elsewhere on the field.

Gunston out. Fort in. No, Fort won't help our forward line defence much but he will pose more of an aerial threat, meaning we don't have to play Charlie one out as our deepest forward. And if we are worried about our forward line being too slow with Fort, bugger it, play Fullarton, who might not have the same aerial presence but at least is mobile. Or Lohmann, I don't care. Someone. Anyone.



I may have had a go at this. Paid for my flights. Only silver lining for the day... means I only wasted my time not my money.
Click to expand...
Fort one out near the goal square is the biggest no brainer in this team and it worked a treat the one time we tried it. Then we just threw it away.

Because it worked ??

I haven't criticised the coaching from a footy aspect per se ever since I've been on here but some of the things Fagan has said lately and the way we've applied our gameplan makes me wonder whether in reality they have any more idea than you or I.

So many wasted talents in this team wandering around with no defined role. But they have turned Charlie around and he's running his guts out every week. Some of the others who knows what they're meant to be doing. Rayner looks completely lost but bobs up 3 times a game and we all go yay.
 
buttermuffs said:
I think the clearance and turnover numbers show a very obvious story of us being able to clear the stoppage area, only to lose to 2nd and 3rd efforts that saw Hawthorn clearly overrun us with numbers and run off from there.

An interesting note from the start of the round five game against North after being 2-2, David King pointed out that we were one of the worst teams to lose out on the next contested ball after a clearance. If you rewatch the broadcast I’m the first quarter it should be brought up there when it was an even contest. I thought it was quite cherry picked but it’s clear we aren’t being smart with how we approach leaving the stoppage.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
Click to expand...
I have nothing to back this comment up just my thoughts.

I think we tend to win more stoppage clearances because we appear to have more players around those stoppages. So, usually the numbers win out.
This may very well be a wing as our wings seem to be more defensive than a combination of offense & defense. Result less disposals for wings.
Then when we clear that ball from the stoppage the opposition will have at least 1 more player in the area we rush kick the ball to. Numbers win out again.
Result more turnovers.
Lately even if our players kick from the stoppage is not under much pressure, we have still been turning the ball over more than we should have.
 
Grasshopper17 said:
Boy oh boy wowee. So much to say and I have no idea where to start. This is gonna be a long one I think and I hardly expect anyone to read it. It's more so I have a record of my thoughts. The good thing is you guys are all so learned I don't have to go over and rehash all the stuff already covered here.

Staggered to learn we won clearances, by a mile. We lost in the centre 14-11 but I don't recall Hawthorn really doing anything with that ascendancy, and I certainly don't recall any of them being out the front with any real venom.

It's the 36-13 around the ground which struck me. Really? That much? It made me go looking for the definition of a clearance:

"Credited to the player who has the first effective disposal in a chain that clears the stoppage area, or an ineffective kick or clanger kick that clears the stoppage area."

So there's a couple of things here. What is "the stoppage area"? Are we talking a 5 metre radius? 10 metres? 25? Does this "radius" depend on things like where it is on the field or how many players congregate there?

Then there's the other parts of the definition. We can only assume (I will not be rewatching that absolute dog's breakfast of a game) that a truckload of those 36 clearances must have been "ineffective kicks" or "clanger kicks".

Anyway, even ignoring the disposal counts we've been pantsed 62-46 inside 50. So between the arcs we made an absolute meal of moving the footy, which we all saw: the slow, kicking up the lines to a contest, which then got turned over either on the ground or in the air. And this became more apparent as the game went on, which comes back to what I've been saying for ages... we are simply not fit enough. It's so graphic and so galling that a Queensland team struggles to run games out against southern counterparts. Sam Mitchell even said in his press conference (paraphrasing) that he thought they would run over the top of us.

The other aspect to dominating clearances, and how irrelevant that was, is that it emphasised something we discussed a couple of months ago, about how footy is now a turnover game. And on Saturday, we were awful at this. 77 turnovers by us, but we could only force 58 by Hawthorn. Basically we just couldn't get the ball off them once they got it, particularly after half time.

On this, there were real echoes of what happened to us in 2022 - not being able to win the ball back once it got out in the open. In the first half, it really looked like we had no discernible game plan at all. Whether Hawthorn went in with a clearly defined plan to completely prevent us playing our game, or whether we just lacked intensity and effort - I'd say it was a combination of both of those things.

Then after half time, we basically reverted to our 2022 strategy, consisting (but not limited to) of this marvellous trio of factors:

  • Multiple players getting sucked in to going for the same ball, or the same bloke with the ball. This was not helped by the amount of tackles we missed, essentially requiring this to happen. Missed tackles is now a publicised stat in NRL circles, but I believe its importance is criminally underrated in AFL... if you miss a tackle you are essentially a man down. And if you're a man down it forces one of two things. Either you see a guy like Charlie Cameron running 100 metres (seriously, live at the ground you could see him doing this, and it was so heartening to see at least one bloke gave a stuff), just to cover an opponent ahead of the play who had got loose and was about to become the link in the chain. OR, more regularly, we got...
  • A concertina effect from one end of the field to the other, where our blokes all have to come forward off their man to stop the bloke with the ball from being too damaging with it. The end result is (a) you get caught in no man's land, and then (b) you end up with situations like McKenna v Koschitzke in the goal square. That ain't ending well.
  • Not directly related to the above was our insistence on holding Charlie as the deepest forward, which we did more and more the longer the game went. It didn't work on Saturday, it rarely works, and it's never worked in big games, for any team, ever. We shouldn't be doing it, ever. And if we are doing it then it must be because...

We aren't getting enough out of Jack Gunston. We certainly aren't getting enough out of him in an attacking sense, and we're getting even less in a defensive sense. Watching Hawthorn pick us apart whilst they were in possession in our forward 50 was actually glorious to watch in a perverse way, as someone who enjoys watching the sport from a strategic point of view. They would simply chip it around until basically whoever was playing on Gunston got into space, then it was a handball and just like that they'd transitioned from slow play to fast play.

We did well to shut down Saad in Round 8, but basically every Hawthorn defender was happy to play this role. So it meant we only needed one weak link in the chain, even when the ball was in our forward 50, for our whole system to break down.

What we should have done was what I suggested a couple of weeks ago: give them the boundary. Don't bother to try and catch them and inhibit their ball movement out on the wings... charge down the outside of the corridor instead (near the logos) and pick up the next man. Make them stop and have to consider their next move, when they see all their team mates manned up, rather than allow them a simple handball over the top to the next loose man in the chain. This would also allow a forward time to track back defensively and pressure them from behind.

It was a bit of a surprise to see us go back to playing that way, after doing so well to NOT play that way basically every other game this season. And speaking of surprises, the best one came at the press conference! He was asked about their handball game and Fages said, and I quote: "Yeah, they haven't done that every time though, this is something sort of newer... there's been other games where they got us with kicking".

I mean are you for real? We really didn't see this coming? I'm linking back to the same post as above because even Joe Blow saw it on the radar. They did EXACTLY what it said on the tin, and we simply weren't ready for it. I've been pretty complimentary of our coaching group this year, with good reason I feel, but this basically says we didn't do any homework. None whatsoever. Which is just disgraceful really. Literally an amateur performance from our coaching group, and maybe this attitude filtered down to the playing group.

So we're at a bit of an inflexion point in our season now, a bit like where we were last year. We addressed our issues over summer, implemented the new game plan, and it looked a million dollars early in the season. But now we're getting figured out, as I suspected we would. Essendon made it hard for us to score, Gold Coast found their way through at stages by kick-marking, Adelaide got through by running the ball, and then Hawthorn combined the lot on Saturday.

So the ball is back in the court of our coaching group... mid-2021 and mid-2022 this happened, and we weren't really able to get things right at all for the rest of the year. To be honest, this is why I'm always an advocate for trying to put in place as simple a game plan as possible. There is great power in an opponent knowing exactly what you are going to do, yet going out and doing it anyway.

I have one more thing, and I'm surprised nobody else has picked up on this. Lachie Neale took FOURTEEN MARKS on Saturday, the most of any player. and I reckon he would have marked at least half of our kick-ins, if not more. Any other coach I'm saying it was a coincidence, but I'm not giving Sam Mitchell that out. Give Lachie Neale the ball, uncontested in our back half. He's not the greatest kick for a start, but if he's got the ball he can't handball receive, and more importantly he can't get the ball in chaos at the next contest. Our captain and Brownlow Medallist was essentially neutered. Brilliant coaching - I really don't think this was an accident and was by design.

What we should have done in response was completely eschew kicking short to the pockets inside defensive 50, instead taking our full measure from kick-ins (remember those guys are allowed to run a fair way now, unencumbered) and then kicking looooong to Oscar. With a decent run and kick that contest would probably be forward of half back. Neale and others could go to work there. Yes, it's predictable, but that comes back to what I wrote above, and hey, it works for Melbourne. And if you do it 5 times in a row, the opposition come to expect it, which will likely open up opportunities for uncontested play elsewhere on the field.

Gunston out. Fort in. No, Fort won't help our forward line defence much but he will pose more of an aerial threat, meaning we don't have to play Charlie one out as our deepest forward. And if we are worried about our forward line being too slow with Fort, bugger it, play Fullarton, who might not have the same aerial presence but at least is mobile. Or Lohmann, I don't care. Someone. Anyone.



I may have had a go at this. Paid for my flights. Only silver lining for the day... means I only wasted my time not my money.
Click to expand...
Ha well done i went way to small as had a $20 bonus bet sitting there. Last year v richmond half time went $50 at mcg. It’s such dirty money but gives me something at least, take the family to the pub after they put up with my yelling!
 
As far as Bailey goes everyone thinks his role is as a small forward. Ever seen him try to tackle ? .

Give me Ah Chee any day.

Bailey is a talent but he's withering on the vine. Get him to toughen up and give him a proper role or get rid of him. Right now he just wanders round picking up the odd possession and looking good when he goals ,the rest of the time he turns it over with silly attempts . Looks awesome when he has the room to move and dodge. Otherwise a liability.

We just presumed he'd be really good but haven't instilled any discipline into his game.
 
martinson said:
As far as Bailey goes everyone thinks his role is as a small forward. Ever seen him try to tackle ? .

Give me Ah Chee any day.

Bailey is a talent but he's withering on the vine. Get him to toughen up and give him a proper role or get rid of him. Right now he just wanders round picking up the odd possession and looking good when he goals ,the rest of the time he turns it over with silly attempts . Looks awesome when he has the room to move and dodge. Otherwise a liability.

We just presumed he'd be really good but haven't instilled any discipline into his game.
Click to expand...

His tackling has improved recently. Albeit from a low base
 
Nathan Barley said:
His tackling has improved recently. Albeit from a low base
Click to expand...
It actually has. But not to an acceptable level for someone who's been in the game 5 or 6 years and plays as a small attacking ? player who needs a strong defensive side to be considered really valuable.

You'd have to agree his career has regressed and if he's not doing show pony things is offering very little otherwise.

I'm frustrated watching him because he has the capacity to be so much better but someone needs to take him in hand and get him doing the hard things that he doesn't do and then the easier things will come easier.

If we think he's a small forward then first off we need to retrain him in defensive pressure. And play him there instead of giving him wing/m/f minutes where he pretty much offers little.
 
martinson said:
It actually has. But not to an acceptable level for someone who's been in the game 5 or 6 years and plays as a small attacking ? player who needs a strong defensive side to be considered really valuable.

You'd have to agree his career has regressed and if he's not doing show pony things is offering very little otherwise.

I'm frustrated watching him because he has the capacity to be so much better but someone needs to take him in hand and get him doing the hard things that he doesn't do and then the easier things will come easier.

If we think he's a small forward then first off we need to retrain him in defensive pressure. And play him there instead of giving him wing/m/f minutes where he pretty much offers little.
Click to expand...
As Tim Lane once said... "Plenty of sizzle... Pity about the sausage."
 

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