Autopsy Round 16, 2024: Positives and Negatives vs Hawthorn

[Deepthroat]

I would have thought one statistical category we would be leading clearly at present is "dump kicks".

We are gifted at that ability.

 

[Trouto]

I would be staggered if the club pulled the pin now or even before his contract is up, even though they probably should, one thing this club likes more than anything is money, and with the pay out required, i cannot see them pulling the trigger.

this.

West Coast is a corporation, as long as they are maximizing profits and the crowds are still turning up week in week out, they will stick with Simmo as it will cost them to let him go. If they do the maths and his job becomes a worst financial burden (through members leaving) than the pay out cost, they will sack him.

 

[Cuzz09]

100% it's too late in the year also for crowd drop off's to impact anything.

Unless we drop to Port, footy Park, tarp levels overnight.. as in under 10k



Sent from my SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[FKASC]

this.

West Coast is a corporation, as long as they are maximizing profits and the crowds are still turning up week in week out, they will stick with Simmo as it will cost them to let him go. If they do the maths and his job becomes a worst financial burden (through members leaving) than the pay out cost, they will sack him.

Once the media noise really arcs up about Reid wanting out of this shambles, then they’ll pull the trigger.

Until then, they don’t seem to mind losing

 

[Trouto]

100% it's too late in the year also for crowd drop off's to impact anything.

Unless we drop to Port, footy Park, tarp levels overnight.. as in under 10k



Sent from my SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

it will send a message.

as much as i hate it, footy is now run by the bean counters. the people pulling the strings at WC and most other clubs dont give a crap about flags. they care about $.

 

[KERRPOW]

this.

West Coast is a corporation, as long as they are maximizing profits and the crowds are still turning up week in week out, they will stick with Simmo as it will cost them to let him go. If they do the maths and his job becomes a worst financial burden (through members leaving) than the pay out cost, they will sack him.

Maybe the fans should start boycotting games.

I for one would not be paying for a seated membership if there was not such a huge wait list.

I'd happily keep my $865 in my pocket or use that for 2 sessions of swimming and ****.

 

[random260]

There's nothing wrong with maximising profits as long as we balance it with onfield success.

One of our drawing card is we are rich and we should keep it that way.

 

[Ghossein]

this.

West Coast is a corporation, as long as they are maximizing profits and the crowds are still turning up week in week out, they will stick with Simmo as it will cost them to let him go. If they do the maths and his job becomes a worst financial burden (through members leaving) than the pay out cost, they will sack him.

There's a bit more complexity than this

Take the sponsorship component as one, teams that aren't playing well and don't make finals don't attract hefty sponsorship funds

we make far more money as a club making finals

 

[Ghossein]

we aren't 'maximising profits'.

 

[PerthBoy86]

We need some pride and...strange as it may sound, a bit of arrogance in our attitude. The times we won if seemed we weren't conscious of how bad we were, and believed we could win. A lot of that was driven by Reid. If the coaches and players don't share that I can't blame Harley for jumping ship.

As I said I kind of saw this coming, but it doesn't make it easier to swallow. It's just our style particular struggles against sides that rely on fast running, play on at all costs, fast transitioning teams that score a lot on turnovers. What were our biggest defeats of the year? Giants, Bulldogs, Pies, Crows, Hawks who all play that style. Who did we beat? Freo and Melbourne who play the defensive territory style (still expect both to wreak revenge against us by a lot). And a Richmond in poor form. Our midfield just can't defend, even our wins paper over that, cos we're too attacking, we haven't instituted the defensive basics. Defence is still the foundation for a defensive side, and I don't see a real defensive mindset from our players bar our backline.

We lack talent atm but I'm still convinced tactical/strategic/systematic chances is at least 50%. Going back to the attitude, McRae imo makes a lot of average players look good through belief and system, and that's what we need. We won't be contending for a long time, but if we have a half decent system in place we'll start seeing real improvements.

 

[KERRPOW]

Usually im over a bad performance after a night sleep.

This morning im still pissed off with this piss weak midfield performance.

 

[Ghossein]

grand finals bring in about 1 million in prize money and 2 million in additional merchandise sales. we made an 11.4 million profit in 2018.

we made a 1.6 million profit in 2023

we 'maximise profits' by being competitive

 

[Cuzz09]

Wonder how much we lose if Harley jumps ship?



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[Ghossein]

Wonder how much we lose if Harley jumps ship?



Sent from my SM-S908E using BigFooty.com mobile app

was the same with Nic Nat, those types of players bring in more than they cost

 

[Bender_]

Little has changed which has led to a continuance of disappointment and underachievement in the on-field performance of the club.

So how does this team repeatedly end up with such an embarrassing output?

The unfortunate answer is that the club today has by far the worst tactical setup that I have ever seen from any team.

It is at once compromised in both defence and attack and tries to remediate that by running the midfield into the ground, hampering the ability of that group to impact significantly during the latter part of matches. The gameplan has overwhelmingly pruned back its offensive capability to maintain defensive cohesion in the face of opposing counterattacks.

Opponents have come to learn that creating an outnumber through the corridor and linking disposal to shorter targets, rather than kicking long, rips apart the defensive zone of West Coast, creating an easy avenue to goal.

With the benefit of hindsight, the reluctance to modify the system in both directions was a time bomb that was always going to explode eventually once individual brilliance was no longer sufficient to deliver on-field results.

So where are we now? The club has completely broken down in defensive structure; whilst at the same time is completely unable to transition from defence into attack.


We keep hearing about how the club apparently needs more energy – however it remains questionable whether that will do much to address the tactical problems currently faced by the club.

Let’s face it, allowing an opponent 129 uncontested marks goes beyond whatever level of energy that the team may have – it only happens when your tactical setup is utterly incapable of containing the opposition.

It has little to do with energy when the opposition is able to walk through defensive holes in the middle of the ground, because the zone prioritises marking space over players, to the point where once opposing ball gets to the centre square the defence is opened up so comprehensively that it all but guarantees a shot on goal from directly in front.

The Telstra Tracker figures for the aerobic performance of both teams in this match against Hawthorn are similar, which dispels the obvious myth that the loss was due to being comprehensively outrun or due to a lack of effort by the players.
One team ran effectively, engaging dangerous positions; the other ran wildly to guard redundant space.

View attachment 2035692​

Considering the club continues to obsessively select squads that are overly tall, such instruction to run when the team currently features a midfield full of players that clearly remain underdone in their conditioning, combined with less rotational support, is a recipe for a dropoff in midfield output (both offensively and defensively) to occur during matches.

Should it really be any surprise then when the club concedes so many easy points late in matches?

View attachment 2035693​

As you can see, opponents are able to burst out of the blocks against West Coast as the system allows them to dominate possession. In response, the Eagles invariably push additional numbers up the ground to fill in holes, chase space and rally briefly; but all the extra effort in chasing shadows wears the team down, leaving the opponent free to re-gain dominance of possession during later stages – this time however, with much lower pressure being applied against them, the opponent is able to convert that dominance into easy goals on the scoreboard.

Only Richmond have conceded more points during last quarters this season than West Coast.

View attachment 2035695


This is a team with a ruckman that averages less than 75% time on ground, combined with a playing squad that incorporates 6-7 other key talls, in addition to midfielders returning from injuries.

And yet the approach is to somehow out-work the opponent and close out space, primarily through aerobic effort, in order to pin them down and gain territorial superiority.

Running is simply not a strength of this West Coast team, especially so when selection keeps finding places for unnecessary numbers of key-sized players – so expecting it to cover more ground than the opponent as a means of maintaining defensive cohesion is utterly foolish – and unfortunately will more often than not, lead to disappointing outcomes of the type that we been seeing of late.

Having more “energy” won’t make B.Williams or Flynn into an 85% time on ground ruckman, much like getting Jones to run 13km+ up the ground chasing grass won’t help the team to win ground balls in attack.

It is one thing to work hard, gut run and show effort – but if that extra effort leads to little in outcome other than early fatigue which allows the opponent to take hold of the game – then it just becomes dumb football.


Hawthorn ended up scoring 14 goals:

• 8 came from West Coast turnovers
• 9 came from chains that began in the defensive half of the ground

All the flaws in the system were laid bare - the Eagles gave the ball away going forward and then simply could not prevent the Hawks from generating attack out of defence.

S.Mitchell simply instructed his team to perform the following:

• Run the lanes
• Look for the short option
• Generate extra numbers in the corridor
• Move the ball quickly at every opportunity

Really simple stuff. But that is all that is necessary to break the Eagles’ defence. There is nothing novel about what Hawthorn did; indeed, it now seems to happen every week.


With the offensive capability teams now have at their disposal due to the recent rule changes, the days of being able to zone space through the middle are gone – if an opposing player is there somebody must go to them and mark up.

The dominance of “space” zones that are analogous to those utilised in soccer and hockey and are based more towards containing or directing opposing ball use in a certain way, is over. In their place are basketball-style “track” or hybrid zones, where players will track man-on-man with an opposing counterpart when play is in certain areas of the ground.

The first hurdle the club must overcome on the road to redemption is the abandonment of the zone defence as it currently stands.

The second hurdle relates to the ease in which opponents are able to accumulate possession. West Coast are worst in the competition when it comes to opposition dominance of ball.

View attachment 2035696​

This Round 16 match was the fourth time in 2024 that the club found itself losing uncontested possessions by more than 100; that's now consecutive weeks and 3 of the past 5 matches. In just one match this season (Round 10) have the Eagles won in uncontested possession.

With the team struggling to break even in the middle, the go-to response by the Eagles post-2018 is to cannibalise the forward line and repurpose it as additional cover for the under-pressure defence. The result is West Coast forwards often end up spending significant periods away from where they would usually be expected to operate and forward half pressure unsurprisingly drops off a cliff. A prime example is the current use of Chesser, Jones and L.Edwards, who have become the latest re-tread versions of the redundant aerobic sweeping “Masten” role – occupying so much time in the defensive half of the ground that they are no longer facilitating any forward function at all.

Of course, limiting the attack in such a way creates its own set of problems that are arguably far worse than the problem it is setting out to address. It is here that opponents are able to reaffirm their transition game, counterattacking from defence and where the club’s own ball movement from the back half suffers a lonely, withering death.

Rather, one should work to prevent the opposition from creating those midfield extras in the first place.

The third piece that requires correction is offensive ball movement (or the lack thereof).

What is the point of trying to control possession if no ground is being gained? As we as fans are all too aware, much to our frustration, the West Coast will voluntarily lose territory not just once, but multiple times in a match, trying to manufacture a slow switch in play that will never open up the opposing defence and only results in additional pressure being placed upon the Eagles’ defence that was completely unnecessary.

But for what reason is the retreat in the first place? No other club in the entire competition exhibits such risky activity that is so lacking in reward. Perhaps that is because there is a lack of options to kick to as the West Coast forwards are spending so much time up the ground to cover space defensively that they are often unavailable as offensive targets up forward. Thus the current situation is brought about, typified by slow, predictable ball movement that does not pose a threat to the opposing defence, ranking dead last of all teams for generating scores from the defensive half.

Get players ahead of the ball, stretch the opposing defence and provide those defenders with something to be worried about that creates uncertainty in terms of their positioning – that is how you create the opportunity for swift and direct ball movement that can tear a team to pieces.





Now it should be noted that all of the above is a near exact copy simply updated for this match and season from a post I made here back in 2021.

That it can detail so much of what is wrong today should be suffice enough to sum it all really.

The same issues have been described in detail since 2019 and yet they keep on repeating.


Nothing will change until the coach does.

Imagine typing all this up then your Firefox crashes before you get to post it.

 

[flyinghi64]

Over the past 2-1/2 years of torture I have only ever turned off one game before the finish.
My thoughts are if I can enjoy the good times I have to bare through the bad as well.

Yesterday makes 2 games I turned off before the end.

Embarrassing, Deplorable, disinterested and weak.

I have been a staunch Simmo believer and backer but that game just showed he does not have the ability to fire the boys up or switch them on. They just seem so flat too often and have been relying on a 18yr old first year player to fire them up.

Gov and Barass the only ones who where switched on from the start.

 

[WeaponX]

We're Dog Shit with this list, Simmo can recognize a premiership winning team in the making and this aint it so why bother trying too hard ? going back to the draft with another high pick and offloading some of the list cloggers is his only option.

 

[Bender_]

Over the past 2-1/2 years of torture I have only ever turned off one game before the finish.
My thoughts are if I can enjoy the good times I have to bare through the bad as well.

Yesterday makes 2 games I turned off before the end.

Embarrassing, Deplorable, disinterested and weak.

I have been a staunch Simmo believer and backer but that game just showed he does not have the ability to fire the boys up or switch them on. They just seem so flat too often and have been relying on a 18yr old first year player to fire them up.

Gov and Barass the only ones who where switched on from the start.

Legit the only reason I keep watching Eagles games to the end at the moment is because I want to see what Reid does, otherwise I would've turned my TV off halfway through the second quarter yesterday.

 

[Godfather32]

We're Dog Shit with this list, Simmo can recognize a premiership winning team in the making and this aint it so why bother trying too hard ? going back to the draft with another high pick and offloading some of the list cloggers is his only option.

Because if you start to have this attitude it infects the whole club and instead of a winning culture you end up with the shit they put out yesterday

 

[WeaponX]

Because if you start to have this attitude it infects the whole club and instead of a winning culture you end up with the shit they put out yesterday

I'm not condoning it, but I suspect internally they all know there is very little to play for right now and "please don't any of you get injured" leads t a very poor effort like what we are seeing.

 

[GoEaglesGoSGIO]

Seems people now finally jumping on board the Pykes doing jack shit bus. Better late then never I suppose

 

[greatwhiteshark]

I would be staggered if the club pulled the pin now or even before his contract is up, even though they probably should, one thing this club likes more than anything is money, and with the pay out required, i cannot see them pulling the trigger.

That would be further delaying the start of the rebuild. They need to act now so the rebuild can start in earnest.

 

[Trouto]

Little has changed which has led to a continuance of disappointment and underachievement in the on-field performance of the club.

So how does this team repeatedly end up with such an embarrassing output?

The unfortunate answer is that the club today has by far the worst tactical setup that I have ever seen from any team.

It is at once compromised in both defence and attack and tries to remediate that by running the midfield into the ground, hampering the ability of that group to impact significantly during the latter part of matches. The gameplan has overwhelmingly pruned back its offensive capability to maintain defensive cohesion in the face of opposing counterattacks.

Opponents have come to learn that creating an outnumber through the corridor and linking disposal to shorter targets, rather than kicking long, rips apart the defensive zone of West Coast, creating an easy avenue to goal.

With the benefit of hindsight, the reluctance to modify the system in both directions was a time bomb that was always going to explode eventually once individual brilliance was no longer sufficient to deliver on-field results.

So where are we now? The club has completely broken down in defensive structure; whilst at the same time is completely unable to transition from defence into attack.


We keep hearing about how the club apparently needs more energy – however it remains questionable whether that will do much to address the tactical problems currently faced by the club.

Let’s face it, allowing an opponent 129 uncontested marks goes beyond whatever level of energy that the team may have – it only happens when your tactical setup is utterly incapable of containing the opposition.

It has little to do with energy when the opposition is able to walk through defensive holes in the middle of the ground, because the zone prioritises marking space over players, to the point where once opposing ball gets to the centre square the defence is opened up so comprehensively that it all but guarantees a shot on goal from directly in front.

The Telstra Tracker figures for the aerobic performance of both teams in this match against Hawthorn are similar, which dispels the obvious myth that the loss was due to being comprehensively outrun or due to a lack of effort by the players.
One team ran effectively, engaging dangerous positions; the other ran wildly to guard redundant space.

View attachment 2035692​

Considering the club continues to obsessively select squads that are overly tall, such instruction to run when the team currently features a midfield full of players that clearly remain underdone in their conditioning, combined with less rotational support, is a recipe for a dropoff in midfield output (both offensively and defensively) to occur during matches.

Should it really be any surprise then when the club concedes so many easy points late in matches?

View attachment 2035693​

As you can see, opponents are able to burst out of the blocks against West Coast as the system allows them to dominate possession. In response, the Eagles invariably push additional numbers up the ground to fill in holes, chase space and rally briefly; but all the extra effort in chasing shadows wears the team down, leaving the opponent free to re-gain dominance of possession during later stages – this time however, with much lower pressure being applied against them, the opponent is able to convert that dominance into easy goals on the scoreboard.

Only Richmond have conceded more points during last quarters this season than West Coast.

View attachment 2035695


This is a team with a ruckman that averages less than 75% time on ground, combined with a playing squad that incorporates 6-7 other key talls, in addition to midfielders returning from injuries.

And yet the approach is to somehow out-work the opponent and close out space, primarily through aerobic effort, in order to pin them down and gain territorial superiority.

Running is simply not a strength of this West Coast team, especially so when selection keeps finding places for unnecessary numbers of key-sized players – so expecting it to cover more ground than the opponent as a means of maintaining defensive cohesion is utterly foolish – and unfortunately will more often than not, lead to disappointing outcomes of the type that we been seeing of late.

Having more “energy” won’t make B.Williams or Flynn into an 85% time on ground ruckman, much like getting Jones to run 13km+ up the ground chasing grass won’t help the team to win ground balls in attack.

It is one thing to work hard, gut run and show effort – but if that extra effort leads to little in outcome other than early fatigue which allows the opponent to take hold of the game – then it just becomes dumb football.


Hawthorn ended up scoring 14 goals:

• 8 came from West Coast turnovers
• 9 came from chains that began in the defensive half of the ground

All the flaws in the system were laid bare - the Eagles gave the ball away going forward and then simply could not prevent the Hawks from generating attack out of defence.

S.Mitchell simply instructed his team to perform the following:

• Run the lanes
• Look for the short option
• Generate extra numbers in the corridor
• Move the ball quickly at every opportunity

Really simple stuff. But that is all that is necessary to break the Eagles’ defence. There is nothing novel about what Hawthorn did; indeed, it now seems to happen every week.


With the offensive capability teams now have at their disposal due to the recent rule changes, the days of being able to zone space through the middle are gone – if an opposing player is there somebody must go to them and mark up.

The dominance of “space” zones that are analogous to those utilised in soccer and hockey and are based more towards containing or directing opposing ball use in a certain way, is over. In their place are basketball-style “track” or hybrid zones, where players will track man-on-man with an opposing counterpart when play is in certain areas of the ground.

The first hurdle the club must overcome on the road to redemption is the abandonment of the zone defence as it currently stands.

The second hurdle relates to the ease in which opponents are able to accumulate possession. West Coast are worst in the competition when it comes to opposition dominance of ball.

View attachment 2035696​

This Round 16 match was the fourth time in 2024 that the club found itself losing uncontested possessions by more than 100; that's now consecutive weeks and 3 of the past 5 matches. In just one match this season (Round 10) have the Eagles won in uncontested possession.

With the team struggling to break even in the middle, the go-to response by the Eagles post-2018 is to cannibalise the forward line and repurpose it as additional cover for the under-pressure defence. The result is West Coast forwards often end up spending significant periods away from where they would usually be expected to operate and forward half pressure unsurprisingly drops off a cliff. A prime example is the current use of Chesser, Jones and L.Edwards, who have become the latest re-tread versions of the redundant aerobic sweeping “Masten” role – occupying so much time in the defensive half of the ground that they are no longer facilitating any forward function at all.

Of course, limiting the attack in such a way creates its own set of problems that are arguably far worse than the problem it is setting out to address. It is here that opponents are able to reaffirm their transition game, counterattacking from defence and where the club’s own ball movement from the back half suffers a lonely, withering death.

Rather, one should work to prevent the opposition from creating those midfield extras in the first place.

The third piece that requires correction is offensive ball movement (or the lack thereof).

What is the point of trying to control possession if no ground is being gained? As we as fans are all too aware, much to our frustration, the West Coast will voluntarily lose territory not just once, but multiple times in a match, trying to manufacture a slow switch in play that will never open up the opposing defence and only results in additional pressure being placed upon the Eagles’ defence that was completely unnecessary.

But for what reason is the retreat in the first place? No other club in the entire competition exhibits such risky activity that is so lacking in reward. Perhaps that is because there is a lack of options to kick to as the West Coast forwards are spending so much time up the ground to cover space defensively that they are often unavailable as offensive targets up forward. Thus the current situation is brought about, typified by slow, predictable ball movement that does not pose a threat to the opposing defence, ranking dead last of all teams for generating scores from the defensive half.

Get players ahead of the ball, stretch the opposing defence and provide those defenders with something to be worried about that creates uncertainty in terms of their positioning – that is how you create the opportunity for swift and direct ball movement that can tear a team to pieces.





Now it should be noted that all of the above is a near exact copy simply updated for this match and season from a post I made here back in 2021.

That it can detail so much of what is wrong today should be suffice enough to sum it all really.

The same issues have been described in detail since 2019 and yet they keep on repeating.


Nothing will change until the coach does.

All this

And the coaches would know the same stats Dylan does, so when they come out and say "the players need to try more" you know they are lying.

The players drop their heads at the end of the game cos they know they are being asked to play a game that doesnt work and we dont have a back-up plan. Imagine being asked to play a way that is getting the team flogged and getting instructions to keep to the plan and "try harder"?

Sam Mitchell must have been licking his lips in the lead up to this game, knowing how Simpson coaches and knowing he is unwilling or unable to have a second plan to combat a tactic that is destroying us.

Simpson said in the post match presser "now is not the time to make drastic changes" or something like that. I disagree, time for drastic changes.

 

[Boohemian]

Can we just not ****ing split/downgrade picks anymore?

eh? How is this the problem? We wouldn't have Hewett.

 

[Trouto]

I'm really concerned about the state of the list. I think we could actually win less games next season. We desperately need more picks but we just seem content in re-signing our old stagers and giving them more game time.

On SM-S901E using BigFooty.com mobile app

see i dont see the list as a problem. the fact that we can play terrific football and flog Freo and Melbourne means there is talent there, its just that a good coach sees the rigid way we play and exploits it.