Autopsy Round 16, 2024: Positives and Negatives vs Hawthorn

[Get_The_Gaff]

Week before we played mostly man-on-man and we were exploited, this week more zone defence and we were exploited.

I don't know what else that says besides that our zones and structures are still terrible. Man-on-man doesn't cut it in '24 but we don't have a viable alternative.

That's coaching all the way down.

Or the effort to run defensively by our mids is poor .

Kelly isn't a 2 way runner at all

Harley isn't a 2 way runner yet he needs more pre seasons .

Yeo isn't an aerobic runner more power athlete so transition running isn't his thing and i doesn't help with his modified pre seasons so he doesn't break down

Our 2018 team had some of the best 2 way runners in the comp . Gaff , Masten, redden and hutch were all gut runners .

Sheed was pretty good too before his foot injuries

 

[The Gtrain]

Positive: I left the game mid way through the 4th
Negative: Its the first time I've left a game early

I couldn't watch anymore, it was awful.

 

[garlic munchers]

Positive: I left the game mid way through the 4th
Negative: Its the first time I've left a game early

I couldn't watch anymore, it was awful.

Clearly you didn't go to the Tigers game at Optus in 2021.

78 pts to 8 at half time and punters were streaming out of the ground - never knew WC had so many smokers.

Reckon a good 1/2 the crowd was gone well before the end.

Was in the Nutrien box as a guest and even the Nutrien boys left early with most of the other guests, to go to the Cas.

+ ve

Looks like Priority Picks are back on the menu!

- ve

Looks like Priority Picks are back on the menu!

 

[Citizen Erazed]

Positive: Entertainment of watching a grown man (Hawthorn supporter) getting so triggered by a 19-year-old footballer halfway through his first season.

Negative: My lack of citizen's arrest of Harley's first stalker.

 

[Hoskin300]

I didn't suggest that you said it doesn't matter at all. I still think suggesting the coaching played barely any part in our 2018 success is a complete mid-read of the situation. Our 2018 list was easily the worst of our 4 premiership sides, in terms of raw talent. Yet they were well-drilled and well-coached, and had a belief that they could beat anyone, anywhere. Whether that was Simpson, Mitchell, or a combination of the two, anyone that knows footy could see that, clear as day.

The list does matter more, no doubt about it. You need the cattle. But a good list can still be coached poorly and drastically underperform. Look at Port Adeialde uner Hinkley - they've certainly had the cattle, but fall short constantly. A better coach would have done more with what they've had over Hinkley's time there.

I don't know how many people have to use the leadership analogies for you to understand - leadership is leadership. A footy coach/manager is a job, just like a manager in other industries. Have you ever been a people leader? Ever been required to motivate and inspire direct reports? If you cannot see that leadership is leadership, you obviously don't understand or you have your head in the sand. Tell me any industry where a manager or coach isn't required to drive performance from his or her direct reports.

Massive disagree on the 2018 team being the least talented. We had one of the best spines of all time that season. Maybe the team that actually won the grand final was the least talented if that’s you meant. Regardless one flag from that group was probably expected.

I have been in plenty of leadership positions thanks. Important to get personal to get your point across apparently. Good job identifying leadership is leadership. Leadership is obviously important across everything in life but that’s about as far as the analogy goes. Why don’t we stick to comparing afl teams to afl teams? The reality is coaching changes often don’t result in the desired outcomes.

 

[Hoskin300]

Most new coaches turn out to be mediocre?

How does any club win a premiership then?

You do realise most clubs don’t win flags every 12 years like us? I think you better do some reading on the success rate of coaches hahaha

 

[ziad]

The game was lost before it started. Pre game the Hawks spoke of positivity and conference. Allen spoke about not wanting leadership stuff the week before etc. Leadership isn't is a 24/7 responsibility, not a hat to wear when wanted. Only Gov and Barrass showed any leadership on-field. It was a pathetic performance by most. Duggan is a C grade HBF and not a good enough player to lead infield. Allen wants to be a welfare officer not a leader. Gov should be captain this season. I think Reid needs to be captain as soon as next season. He is combative and has skill.

 

[Smotie2]

The game was lost before it started. Pre game the Hawks spoke of positivity and conference. Allen spoke about not wanting leadership stuff the week before etc. Leadership isn't is a 24/7 responsibility, not a hat to wear when wanted. Only Gov and Barrass showed any leadership on-field. It was a pathetic performance by most. Duggan is a C grade HBF and not a good enough player to lead infield. Allen wants to be a welfare officer not a leader. Gov should be captain this season. I think Reid needs to be captain as soon as next season. He is combative and has skill.

The club is confused and is dysfunctional from the top down.

I was hoping pyke would correct the ship but nothing seems to have changed apart from a lot of peripheral assistance and medical people being shown their marching order.
Funnily our injuries have gotten massively better...go figure.

Be great if he did the same thing to other areas of our club.

Duggan isnt a captain and Allen is a question mark.
The one I would have as captain is yeo.
He gives his all and leads from the front and doesn't tolerate garbage it seems.

 

[ziad]

The club is confused and is dysfunctional from the top down.

I was hoping pyke would correct the ship but nothing seems to have changed apart from a lot of peripheral assistance and medical people being shown their marching order.
Funnily our injuries have gotten massively better...go figure.

Be great if he did the same thing to other areas of our club.

Duggan isnt a captain and Allen is a question mark.
The one I would have as captain is yeo.
He gives his all and leads from the front and doesn't tolerate garbage it seems.

Fair comment re Yoe.

 

[Eaglemaniac]

Have we won a game since we reverted to the Land Of The Giants forward line set up?

I don’t think we have but happy to be corrected if we have.

 

[Godfather32]

You do realise most clubs don’t win flags every 12 years like us? I think you better do some reading on the success rate of coaches hahaha

We've also never had a coach win a flag, then rebuild the side and win another flag. What's generally happened is they've built a contending team, won a flag and then dropped off a cliff a few years later and been replaced by the next guy to build the team up (with one or two small false starts)
Which is what needs to happen here, time for the next coach.

 

[xInfected_Virus]

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.

What did we do right against Freo, Richmond and Melbourne? Were we tactically great, did the players showed effort in smart ways rather than chasing redundant space or were Freo, Richmond and Melbourne really really bad or simply tactically inept on those days that the club's system on that day reigned supreme yet failed against others?

 

[KERRPOW]

Positive: I left the game mid way through the 4th
Negative: Its the first time I've left a game early

I couldn't watch anymore, it was awful.

same here. i left at 3QT...first for me. but i was so disgusted watching that tripe.

 

[cottoneyeYeo]

ur clutching at straws if ur getting ur info from dan const

 

[BeornJ]

The odd clanger

Get real and go watch the game again. No one shares your view. He is useless. 6 turnovers, 1 tackle and a couple of 1%.



On Pixel 6 Pro using BigFooty.com mobile app

Just watched the video of his game. Besides boring uncontested marks, long kicks down the line etc etc...

• Under pressure kick is smothered in d50
• One miskick that turns the ball over, a bad clanger
• involved in the chain that leads to Waterman's goal,
• a hurried kick out of defence that leads to a contest that the Hawks win,
• a smother, collect, then rebound 50 kick that flies through Allen's hands to hit him on the head,
• goundball get in the d 50, tackled, gets the ball to Ginbey, then runs on receives a handball then handballs to Cole running forward,
• Tackle to stop a shot on goal
• Leaves his man to spoil the ball
• Intercept possession leading to a wce score
• Intercept mark 10 metres out from goal

Again, I know not many people agree with me, but I think he had a decent game.

Will be my last post in this thread about it. Have a lovely day

 

[PremiershipNo4]

You do realise most clubs don’t win flags every 12 years like us? I think you better do some reading on the success rate of coaches hahaha

Simpson is completely cooked and has been for a ****ing long time, the end!

 

[MrWoollie]

Have we won a game since we reverted to the Land Of The Giants forward line set up?

I don’t think we have but happy to be corrected if we have.

We've barely taken a mark inside 50, let alone kicked any goals, let alone a winning score.

But I guess that a pre-requisite to taking a mark inside 50 is actually getting the ball inside 50.

 

[wce4premiership]

I immediately regret this engagement, dunno what I expected.

Do you evEn owN a radio!?

 

[Hook461123]

I get Gov was good but some of the credit should go to Simpson for all his intercepts.

I got a glimpse of Simpsons gamebook against Hawks.
1. Whole team Flood back. Don't worry about the ball carier and make sure you guard grass as you retreat.
2. Clog up the D50, allow the ball 70M from goal with no pressure.
3. Force them to kick high, hope Gov intercepts.
4. Try to rebound, have noone forward of the ball, turnover, repeat.

Note: If Barrass intercepts instead of Gov then add an additional step of stop and sideways kick.

 

[Hoskin300]

We've also never had a coach win a flag, then rebuild the side and win another flag. What's generally happened is they've built a contending team, won a flag and then dropped off a cliff a few years later and been replaced by the next guy to build the team up (with one or two small false starts)
Which is what needs to happen here, time for the next coach.

Yeah no chance Simpson is around for next flag so has to be switched at some stage. I have never disagreed with that.

He hasn’t prioritised youth so happy for him to go at end of the season.

 

[garlic munchers]

Have we won a game since we reverted to the Land Of The Giants forward line set up?

I don’t think we have but happy to be corrected if we have.

Not sure its a land of the giants problem, as taller Hawks didn't seem to have to many issues (Chol 200cms, Dear 195cms, Gunston 193cms).

Put Chol, Dear and Gunston in blue and yella and see how they go with mids losing a clearance battle 38-19 and centre bounces 14-4.

Yep we had 2 rucks, but Flynn was gone just after 1/2 time.

Rather, if that was the best side we could put out ATM then our issues are obvious:

FBL Rotham, Witho
HBL Duggan (honest trier), Cole
CL Chesser (Still time to make it) Jones
HFL Brockman Cripps (?)
FF Ryan & Allen (working back from injury).

Going fwd, we shouldn't be recruiting any Witho, Jones, Brockman types.

 

[Crimson King]

We've also never had a coach win a flag, then rebuild the side and win another flag. What's generally happened is they've built a contending team, won a flag and then dropped off a cliff a few years later and been replaced by the next guy to build the team up (with one or two small false starts)
Which is what needs to happen here, time for the next coach.

Spot on.

Said it before that there are usually two types of coaches. One that can do a full rebuild from scratch but fails to elevate the team to the required level to win a premiership and another, that can take an already rebuilt squad (or even do a mini rebuild if required) and elevate it to win a premiership.

Pretty rare for a coach to be able to do both, no shame in that.

 

[eaglesnutcase]

Nah - this side isn’t drastically different to the one that won the flag in 2018.

Sure the depth in the top end isn’t as good, but we’re talking replacing Shuey/Redden/Sheed with Kelly/Reid/Ginbey (not as big a gulf as it seems) and Kennedy/Lecca/Rioli with Allen/Waterman/Brockman (a downgrade but nothing ridiculous).

Then you have

Lycett/Vardy > Flynn/Williams (eh)

Hurn/Schofield > Hough/Rotham (alright that stings a bit)

There are others missing obviously but many of the premiership players are just as good if not better than they were in 2018. Others who have come in have shown they are capable of playing A grade footy.

This group of players shouldn’t be getting flogged at home regardless of whether or not the kids in the side are spuds.

In 2018 we had two big tough meatheads in Vardy and Lycett. They were also good footballers.Toughness comes from the top.Port have a good midfield but the toughness is lacking at the top.
Flynn needs to step up the aggression or just be mr plod!!
BW the same.Mate I want second efforts and then third efforts. Occasionally I want fourth efforts.Ya see these efforts can make a player go from C+ to B +. That’s on effort not talent!
BWs best and worst is too big a gap.There is a space available to step up and be Mr Big! I wonder if he’s up for it???!

 

[kranky al]

I've found the solution to this pain gents

whiskey on the rocks

Gin.

Whiskey bb hangovers are brutal

 

[eaglesnutcase]

Hough ? One of the few that can feel they put in . Probably our best behind gov and barrass

Negates yes!! But impacting the contest? Nah!