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To be fair about 4 pages are one person trying to argue that the coach has no influence on how the team plays
Autopsy Round 16, 2024: Positives and Negatives vs Hawthorn
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Oh it was eyewateringly bad. The polar opposites of the Melbourne and Fremantle games.
UseR2006
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It's coach killer territory bad.
Bender_
X
If the custard talk carried on into this thread it'd be up to 20.
The coach is responsible for the team's performance. It's his job to get the best out of his players. He has not done anywhere near that for 3 years now, & probably longer tbh
What more does someone need to do to get sacked. No coach ever gets sacked if we just point to the players performing poorly. That happens for every terrible team.
Coaches make a difference & it can happen quickly. McRae, Kingsley, B.Scott have all done it recently
Right we where just unlucky? Against the last team on the ladder who hadn't won a game. Nothing to learn. Roger.
Yes yes yes
Team underperformed in 19 & 20
Went south badly in back half of 2021. I was in the same camp as you. Objectively, at the time I thought his time is up, but it wouldn't have been fair to at that point given the flag not long prior.
But now we've endured two all-time bad years in 22 & 23. While 24 has been a small improvement, its because we've had a better run injuries. But we're still miles off where we should be with the # of senior & credentialed players in the team
And also, stoppage structure & the way in which we move the ball has a massive impact on midfield's performance. That is on the coach
There is no positives, only zuul.
Hawks had 9 players under 24 y/o today.
WCE had 6. 1 was the sub, so of the starting 22, 17 have 0 excuses.
Can we please stop using words or terms like experience, maturity, or 'further along the rebuild'
At least there's a chance.
There's no chance at the moment.
POSITIVE:
Jako on 6PR demanding change. He called the board soft, and even put the acid on Pyke to act, his 2-time premiership teammate.
He may not be the sharpest tool, but he's loyal & not afraid to speak out
Jako on 6PR demanding change. He called the board soft, and even put the acid on Pyke to act, his 2-time premiership teammate.
He may not be the sharpest tool, but he's loyal & not afraid to speak out
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The same issues of intensity and workrate have plagued this side since 2020.
We have our best cattle on the park and the theme is the same. Apathy.
Simpson is out of rope I think. Strung up and quartered by his feel good mates in the 22. Just baffling that this tier of footballer can get their pants pulled down time and time again and not seem to give a damn.
If Pyke is legit, Simpson goes at seasons end and we get some clear direction on that with 4-5 games to go and more than a few get their papers stamped or the riot act read to them.
The club just has to set the bar far above what is currently being accepted. The players simply aren't respecting or acknowledging the softly, softly approach that seem to be the method to date.
What's our excuse this week? Everybody felt bad for Yeo? How about you fire the **** up and win the game for him and give him something good in a shit week?
Deplorable. Predictable.
We have our best cattle on the park and the theme is the same. Apathy.
Simpson is out of rope I think. Strung up and quartered by his feel good mates in the 22. Just baffling that this tier of footballer can get their pants pulled down time and time again and not seem to give a damn.
If Pyke is legit, Simpson goes at seasons end and we get some clear direction on that with 4-5 games to go and more than a few get their papers stamped or the riot act read to them.
The club just has to set the bar far above what is currently being accepted. The players simply aren't respecting or acknowledging the softly, softly approach that seem to be the method to date.
What's our excuse this week? Everybody felt bad for Yeo? How about you fire the **** up and win the game for him and give him something good in a shit week?
Deplorable. Predictable.
Did an out of skin Waterman in the earlier week cover up our poor delivery to our forward 50.
In other words have we always been this bad with our ball use heading inside 50?
I really don't know who to blame but I had zero faith we would convert a score when we headed inside 50
In other words have we always been this bad with our ball use heading inside 50?
I really don't know who to blame but I had zero faith we would convert a score when we headed inside 50
This is such a bad, bad take. You've been saying some silly stuff this evening, but this is absolute rubbish. Coaching and leadership has so much impact on the way a team plays, having played and coached football before I have been on both ends of it, and a good coach will inspire you to do things you didn't think you could do. A bad coach (or coach that just isn't up to it anymore) will fail to lift the playing group to the levels necessary to be a consistent side, week in, week out.
Fact is, any Manager in any job, ever, has the responsibility to make sure their direct reports are performing to the level expected. If those employees are not doing that, the Manager needs to provide coaching to correct it, or performance manage the person out of the business. If they fail to do that, and the team isn't performing, guess what happens? The Manager loses their job.
Football is no different. No, Simpson cannot go out on the field and help Kelly and Yeo get 30 touches each, but his job is to ensure there is 100% effort from 23 players every week, or certainly as close to that as humanly possible (See - Hawthorn today and for the last 8 weeks, also Sydney every week). If he cannot do that, then he is not the right person for the job any longer. We are better off finding the right coach who is going to be able to demand what is required from the playing group. Uncompromising standards must be set. We cannot be satisfied with mediocrity, and unfortunately what we're seeing is mediocrity. There are little to no consequences for what is being dished up. Not sure how you cannot see that?
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Positives: Gaff and Sheed didn’t play
Negatives: we played this bad without Gaff and Sheed
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Negatives: we played this bad without Gaff and Sheed
Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
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.
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?
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.
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:
S.Mitchell simply instructed his team to perform the following:
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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Kapowie1
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This was the killer for me. Have sat through years of crap and never turned off the tv. Always sat there and took my medicine. Not today. Turned off halfway through the 3rd. Well done to those who found any positives outside of TB and Gov. utter sh1t show!!
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The sadest thing through all of this, is their seems to more passion on this board about our lack of performance than actually within the club. If Pyke and the board don't get rid of a coach who is clearly out of ideas on how to put together are semi decent game plan or even get the best out his players weekly, then what is the point of any of us showing any passion for the club. If they don't care, why should we.
I am currently a member in Melbourne, and if Simmo stays i'm out for now, and whilst i'm sure it won't make one difference to the club, it will give me choices, this coming weekend i had to choose between going to the game or playing golf, i had to pay up front for the golf, choose football as i had paid for the membership ( don't like wasting money), and right now i could not be less interested in going to the game to watch half assed efforts. The only real reason to go is to watch Harley. Next year without a membership i can pick and choose which games i go to, it's not like they are sell outs when we play over here. That is not something i thought i'd ever say, not wanting to go to a game, the last 3 years of this insipid shit has sucked the joy out of football for me.
I am currently a member in Melbourne, and if Simmo stays i'm out for now, and whilst i'm sure it won't make one difference to the club, it will give me choices, this coming weekend i had to choose between going to the game or playing golf, i had to pay up front for the golf, choose football as i had paid for the membership ( don't like wasting money), and right now i could not be less interested in going to the game to watch half assed efforts. The only real reason to go is to watch Harley. Next year without a membership i can pick and choose which games i go to, it's not like they are sell outs when we play over here. That is not something i thought i'd ever say, not wanting to go to a game, the last 3 years of this insipid shit has sucked the joy out of football for me.
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Barrybran
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Decision making and skill execution from some could have been better but our best 14-15 were fairly decent in both games.
In a twist of fortune we changed internet providers and in the 2nd we were cut off. Still getting router reprogrammed and working so a great game to miss.
Noticed early we seemed to be flooding back pretty hard. Was this the case all game?
Total change from the forward half pressure game we had been employing and developing.
Why?
Feel we identified with the land of the giants selection plus our three main mids and ruck being underdone and Yeo's tough week we worked out the forward half defence simply wouldn't work yesterday. So we totally changed our defensive set up. And we failed terribly doing it.
Our mids couldn't get the ball to the giant forward line and the giant forward line couldn't defend. So the plan was to drop back into our defensive half and flood.
Hawks had the run and speed both in defense and midfield to smash us especially when we just stopped defending in the front half.
Just terrible selection and execution all round and predictable. Players must be doubting those in charge of selection and tactics after yesterday.
Noticed early we seemed to be flooding back pretty hard. Was this the case all game?
Total change from the forward half pressure game we had been employing and developing.
Why?
Feel we identified with the land of the giants selection plus our three main mids and ruck being underdone and Yeo's tough week we worked out the forward half defence simply wouldn't work yesterday. So we totally changed our defensive set up. And we failed terribly doing it.
Our mids couldn't get the ball to the giant forward line and the giant forward line couldn't defend. So the plan was to drop back into our defensive half and flood.
Hawks had the run and speed both in defense and midfield to smash us especially when we just stopped defending in the front half.
Just terrible selection and execution all round and predictable. Players must be doubting those in charge of selection and tactics after yesterday.
Get_The_Gaff
Norm Smith Medallist
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Hough ? One of the few that can feel they put in . Probably our best behind gov and barrass
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