Autopsy Round 18, 2021: Hawks draw with Demons

[eldorado]

If you think it's logical to believe that the team has played one way for much of the season, and just took it on itself to change philosophy and style for this week, Spok you're not.

There is ZERO chance that players who in previous weeks held up play as often as possible, wait for players to move downfield near the boundary, hoof it high, and hope to win something out of a 'safe' contest were NOT INSTRUCTED to do so. Because frankly, when you do something the coach doesn't like, he asks you to change it, and if you don't, he pulls you from the field.

We absolutely tried something different this week. It's not that Clarko asked players to previously play 'Dire' football, it's just the gameplan he was instituting produced dire football.

Hardly the week for you to call out the observation that was made, regardless of whether you like the characterization of our previous game play.

This idea that it is 'gameplan' is just too ridiculously simplistic.

This idea that when we play badly, it is the coach's instruction. All he has to do is tell them to play well, or in any particular level of style and quality, and they do.

It completely ignores the fact that
1) there is another team completely dedicated to stopping you from what you want to do, and your ability to do what you want depends as much on them as it does on you.

2) their ability to do what you want them to do will be under a spectrum of physical pressure that is completely unpredictable, from zero to total at any given time. When zero, you do things as you wish

3) that their confidence to takes risks as required by any gameplan will never be completely static at 100%, and will be wildly fluctuating with their emotional state during the game

The players may have been more open and confident, and then successful, but the idea that this is an instruction, first to play boring and lose, and then, to release the shackles and win, it's just in our perceptions.

It seems many here don't undertand the psychological aspects of the game played by 18 human beings as a psychological and physical collective, not just androids, perfectly executing their coded instructions

Was this new successful 'gameplan' just worked out, delivered, and then perfectly absorbed and executed by players, just sometime this week? Conversely, can we also assume that Goodwin decided to try a new shit gameplan for some reason, despite the previous one resulting in win after win?

 

[Mercy Seat]

We watched different games. Player groups operated differently, positioned differently, midfielders had different instructions, forwards worked to different areas, way way way more hard running to create overlaps - even when not used.
If you say this is how we played all year, you don't remember last week for a start.

You do realise that trying to do something and actually pulling it off are two completely different things subject to a thousand different factors?

New game plans take months of training and development to pull off. Clarko always laughs in the presser when asked about new game plans because they take an entire off season to teach. You don’t magically come up with a new one in 7 days.

Yeah we tried a few differently, a lot of it to mitigate Gawn, Lever and May, but overall it was what we’ve been trying to do all year, albeit with limited success.

 

[Crankyhawk]

For as good as TOM played, and he played amazing football, I think it's still emblematic of the issue causing people to want him traded. We live or die by his fortunes, and the fact that he's a single point of failure for our midfield makes us easy to plan for.

Even if we get other talented midfielders into the side, Mitchell's single minded hunt for the ball makes him occupy so much of the contest that their output would be restricted. He calls for the ball in bad positions and we defer to him, he gives others the ball in bad decisions. It's still an issue.

yesterday he seemed to be calling for ball in good positions or winning the ball himself

 

[TassieGrown]

Every team has a style and ours was on display last night. Your style looks rubbish how ever when you lack personnel, form and confidence. There wasn’t much magically different to what we’ve been trying to do all year.

We played completely different to the previous weeks in attitude and style, we tried to win for starters.

 

[dermott]

Wasn't Carey the genius who cast doubts on Sam Mitchell's credentials to get a game with any other club outside of Hawthorn?

Carey was a great footballer but not a great intellect.

 

[Mercy Seat]

We played completely different to the previous weeks in attitude and style, we tried to win for starters.

Yeah true, if only our coaches had thought of that earlier. We’d be undefeated!

 

[madhawksfan]

Only managed to catch the final quarter and a bit but loved what I saw. Some quality youth (DGB, Bramble, Worpel, Brocky, Lewis, Reeves, Cuz, Kosi and Jeka) playing a prominent part in a great result.

Add Scrim, Day, CJ, a couple of high draft choices and the missing vets and we have plenty to work with.

 

[checkraiseulite]

Frost is an absolute liability

Wrong. Tries his guts out and wants to be involved and win.

Has to play every week.

 

[Bardo State]

I love what our three young tall forwards gave us despite unspectacular numbers. Kosi and Jeka were often in positions where they would have been out-marked earlier in the season but they brought it to ground. Jeka had a couple of great 2v1 efforts. They also kept a great distance from each other despite all the talls in the side.

And can I point to a play at the end of the second half. Lewis gathered on the ground, took a tackle, got his hands free to handball to a team mate, the ball got turned over and he pressured the Melbourne player, helping force a turnover, he then worked forward to receive a handball then give off to Breust for a goal. Second and third efforts (and he was under-done for this game). This game and over the season he tackles and pressures more than Kosi or Jeka, despite not having their speed or agility. He is our best tall forward option currently (not including Gunston) and the lazy/no heart comments are unfair and have come out of thin, frustrated air.

Bramble, Reeves, Brockman, DGB and Moore continue to impress

And the biggest factor was our senior mids (+Worpel) playing to the standard they are capable of. Brilliant effort and pressure.

 

[flinchfree]

This idea that it is 'gameplan' is just too ridiculously simplistic.

This idea that when we play badly, it is the coaches intruction. All he has to do is tell them to play well, and they do.

It completely ignore the fact that
1) there is another team completely dedicated to stopping you from what you want to do, and your ability to do what you want depends as much on them as it does on you.

2) their ability to do what you want them to do will be under a spectrum of physical pressure that is completely unpredictable, from zero to total at any given time. When zero, you do things as you wish

3) that their confidence to takes risks as required by any gameplan will always be completely static at 100%, and not wildly fluctuating with their emotional state during the game

The players may have been more open and confident, and then successful, but the idea that this is an instruction, first to play boring and lose, and then, to release the shackles and win, it's just in our perceptions.

It seems many here don't undertand the psychological aspects of the game played by 18 human beings as a psychological and physical collective, not just androids, perfectly executing their coded instructions

Was this new successful 'gameplan' just worked out, delivered, and perfectly absorbed and then executed by players, just sometime this week?

I hear what you're saying.

But

1) The other team can dedicate itself to stopping what you're trying to do being successful, but you can still see whether the team is trying to achieve a certain game plan. Watching the game it seems to me as though we chose not to concede that the other team would eat us alive should we dare to take the game on.

2) Again, they can physically pressure you all they like, but you can attempt to move the ball in one manner, or attempt to move it differently. The success you experience will vary, but you DO what you are best served by doing or by what you are instructed to try and do. Those last two things aligned IMO in the last game.

3) Yes, and No. Sure on occassion you will be flat out after having made multiple physical efforts and offering further run may be beyond you in that moment. That is when the instruction from the coach that ALL the teams members are required to offer that run allows for other teammates to pick up that slack. It can be conditional, or unconditional.
For the Tiggers it is unconditional. For us, it's been VERY conditional the last few seasons.

I get what you are saying. Form and confidence feed your belief and willingness to commit yourself physically to a demanding game plan.
My belief is that we have been coached to be risk averse. Of course it's in a spectrum, and we are not ALWAYS risk averse, but in terms of where to go with the football, who should or shouldn't leave their man when we are in possession, where the forwards should look to get their opportunities, etc., i think we have been MORE concerned with not allowing a rebound opportunity than scoring ourselves.

When we are talking about gameplan, we are not describing the Allied invasion of Europe and all it's constituent parts.
Most teams adhere to certain gameplan principles and they don't change regardless of circumstance.
Then there are the things like playing on as quickly as you can, not pause and wait until you can create big numbers for a contest in a 'safe' area of the ground harder for the opposition to counter attack from. That doesn't require an off season to implement, as the instruction usually follows with "you do not need a wide open hard target to move the ball on, just try and put it to the advantage of one of our players", and, YOU WILL NOT BE PUNISHED for turning the ball over in those efforts!!!
You can also tell your team that this week the forwards will be leading up the ground more and to different areas, and that even though a contest further up the ground that is won by the opposition may put them in position to slingshot back for an opportunity of their own, that's OK.

The players are never executing everything on some coded input from the coaches.
You may think that some of these things are small. They are EVERYTHING to how a team moves the footy and the energy with which they play.
There's more that was trialled in this game, but seems pointless to make more of it.

 

[Simon Crawshay]

This idea that it is 'gameplan' is just too ridiculously simplistic.

This idea that when we play badly, it is the coaches intruction. All he has to do is tell them to play well, or in any particular level of style and quality, and they do.

It completely ignores the fact that
1) there is another team completely dedicated to stopping you from what you want to do, and your ability to do what you want depends as much on them as it does on you.

2) their ability to do what you want them to do will be under a spectrum of physical pressure that is completely unpredictable, from zero to total at any given time. When zero, you do things as you wish

3) that their confidence to takes risks as required by any gameplan will never be completely static at 100%, and will be wildly fluctuating with their emotional state during the game

The players may have been more open and confident, and then successful, but the idea that this is an instruction, first to play boring and lose, and then, to release the shackles and win, it's just in our perceptions.

It seems many here don't undertand the psychological aspects of the game played by 18 human beings as a psychological and physical collective, not just androids, perfectly executing their coded instructions

Was this new successful 'gameplan' just worked out, delivered, and then perfectly absorbed and executed by players, just sometime this week? Conversely, can we also assume that Goodwin decided to try a new sh*t gameplan for some reason, despite the previous one resulting in win after win?

So do you dispute the fact that each team has a distinct game style that has been implemented by the head coach?

For instance the Tigers play a full on ballistic run and gun style as apposed to West Coast who play a much more structured kick and mark game

And other teams play maybe a mix of the full on attack and structured play (Lions, etc)

These teams play their style regardless of whether they play well or poorly. Or whether the opposition let's them play this way or not.

And how so we determine their style of play? By watching them play of course.

And I have watched enough Hawthorn games over the past 3 years to see that our style is very much a slow, deliberate style of play that values risk mitigation / defence over attack.

Last night was something different, I haven't seen our willingness to run and attack like that for a long time and I struggle to think at least part of that is not down to a change in tactics.

 

[The hands of stone]

Everyone suggesting the gameplan changed last night , would love your advice on how its possible to flick a switch and collective change things totally on a week turnaround .

As a cricket/batting coach Ive never been able to do this ( maybe im not very good ), and it goes against everything taught at high level coaching courses regarding repitition , structures and tactics.

Thanks in advance

Currently watching the Swans and GWS games .... something looks a bit familiar

 

[Lickmesocks]

he also leans back too much when he kicks

Why does he lean back.... because he has zero momentum and drive towards his target. He stops on his final step meaning he has to try and create enough power to kick 40 metres.

It’s a real technical flaw in his technique.

 

[Mercy Seat]

Everyone suggesting the gameplan changed last night , would love your advice on how its possible to flick a switch and collective change things totally on a week turnaround .

As a cricket/batting coach Ive never been able to do this ( maybe im not very good ), and it goes against everything taught at high level coaching courses regarding repitition , structures and tactics.

Thanks in advance

Currently watching the Swans and GWS games .... something looks a bit familiar

 

[eldorado]

So do you dispute the fact that each team has a distinct game style that has been implemented by the head coach.

For instance the Tigers play a full on ballistic style as apposed to West Coast who play a much more structured kick and mark game.

And other teams

Directly from the players mouths from sponsorship.

They have about 3 or 4 'modes' that they will try tomove into depending on the state of the game, but the idea that you just 'decide' what you want to do, and it magically happens, it contrary to every notion of sport.

There is another team working to various levels to stop those options that you would prefer to take.

You know it is implemented by humans...who can **** things up, execute perfectly, have or lack confidence, and make good or poor choices any given time.

If it was just 'gameplan' that decided results, they wouldn't bother walking out on the field. Clarko and Goodwin would just meet in the coaches box, look at each other's plans, and concede defeat.

 

[The Spirit of Cricket]

ppl arguing about the gameplan are literally just describing us when we win vs when we lose lol

the exact same shit was said after the Sydney game, the GWS game and the 2nd half of ess/adelaide. 'Wow look how good we look when we take the game on and play attacking footy! Why don't we do this every week?'

The gameplan doesn't magically change week to week, our execution of it does.

it takes YEARS to drill a gameplan into a team. YEARS. u can tweak it and I'm sure that the gameplan does get tweaked from week-to-week, but this is as much positional as a holistic view on how to play the game. For example when we played Titch forward vs GWS, or this game with TOB back, Flip more on a wing and challenging the Dees aerially with our talls.

But other than that its just so illogical to think that we play a certain way designed to not win games but then every now and then clarko thinks '**** it, been a while since we released the shackles, ay boys? how about we do that this week, and if we win and look good, make sure to go back to slow, boring footy next week cos we might lose by 60 points instead of... oh... we lost by 60 points anyway...'

 

[flinchfree]

Directly from the players mouths from sponsorship.

They have about 3 or 4 'modes' that they will try tomove into depending on the state of the game, but the idea that you just 'decide' what you want to do, and it magically happens, it contrary to every notion of sport.

There is another team working to various levels to stop those options that you would prefer to take.

You know it is implemented by humans...who can fu** things up, execute perfectly, have or lack confidence, and make good or poor choices any given time.

If it was just 'gameplan' that decided results, they wouldn't bother walking out on the field. Clarko and Goodwin would just meet in the coaches box, look at each other's plans, and concede defeat.

You know, you speak in such absolutes.

It's not JUST gameplan. You make it out to be ZERO about gameplan.

Seems there'd be no reason to ever change coaches. You'd need to change all the players.
Different coach can't be expected to get different results based on their philosophy and game style.

 

[The Spirit of Cricket]

You know, you speak in such absolutes.

It's not JUST gameplan. You make it out to be ZERO about gameplan.

Seems there'd be no reason to ever change coaches. You'd need to change all the players.
Different coach can't be expected to get different results based on their philosophy and game style.

of course gameplan has something do with it, but he's arguing that the execution of the gameplan will vary from week-to-week and that the reason there's such variance in us playing 'slow and safe' and 'releasing the shackles' has as much (or more) to do with the opposition and our poor skills, than our coaching/training

 

[TheFourPillars]

The games where we play so called attractive game plan seem to coincide with us actually equalising the clearances and contested possessions. Its amazing how when you kick down the line and then win a clearance from that congestion how much better u look. Last week we were flogged in that stat. This week we were flogged in the first qtr but were exceptional for the rest of the game. We still went down the line. Dont tell me that this was the only game we had players leading because Jeka kicked his first last week from a lead

 

[eldorado]

You know, you speak in such absolutes.

It's not JUST gameplan. You make it out to be ZERO about gameplan.

I have NEVER said it has nothing to do with gameplan. Every team has ways it wants to play.

I'm saying the difference when we play well or poorly MUST be the gameplan is a logically flawed one.

My issue is with those who automatically assume, when we play well, it is because the coaches must have changed the gameplan, rather than the players' execution of plans, decision-making, and football skills.

Gameplans are structures, and take a long time to develop, and inculcate.

If we're looking for wild variance in performance, don't look at the gameplan. Look at the flawed humans carrying it out, and the flawed or brilliant opposition working against you.

We are fixated on our own perspective. I'll repeat an earlier rhetorical question to better illustrate my point. The observable fact that Melbourne did not get their expected result, and their performance was, like ours, way out of kilter with previous performances.

Conversely, can we also assume that Goodwin decided to try a new sh*t gameplan for some reason, despite the previous one resulting in win after win?

If the gameplan is the paramount factor, we can only assume the above is true. Goodwin must instructed them to play completely differently for some reason.

Or we can look at more intangible, human factors, that I've tried to emphasize. Melbourne were 'off', we were 'on'...these things, sadly, in a developing team, you can't bottle. But even in a top team, they can inexplicably collapse.

 

[The Spirit of Cricket]

The games where we play so called attractive game plan seem to coincide with us actually equalising the clearances and contested possessions. Its amazing how when you kick down the line and then win a clearance from that congestion how much better u look. Last week we were flogged in that stat. This week we were flogged in the first qtr but were exceptional for the rest of the game. We still went down the line. Dont tell me that this was the only game we had players leading because Jeka kicked his first last week from a lead

and to that point, how many goals/score opps did we get from just banging it inside 50 after winning the contested ball? either from clearance, or from a down the line kick.

that had nothing to do with free-flowing, gameplan play where we controlled how we traversed the MCG, it was literally just instinctual pumping it fwd.

where the gameplan was actually changed and resulted in us nearly winning was something everyone bitched and moaned about on Thursday night — the decision to go tall and contest Melbourne in the air. We are aware that their defensive structures are probably top 3 in the league (if not top 1) and knew we would likely have to go along the boundary down the line a lot. So, we went in tall to stop May, Lever and Gawn from picking those kicks off. We turned them all into 50/50 ground balls, where skill and execution isn't as important as hunger and pressure. Once the ball hits the ground, those three are suddenly far less effective.

Now THAT is something we did different with our gameplan, not this 'shackles' stuff. We 'won' last night because of our immense pressure.

 

[Iceman!]

Hey come on friends we won (kinda), no need for the hostility

 

[Lickmesocks]

I like to think more game style than game plan.

we definitely attempted to the move the ball quicker than we have.

Perhaps having injurys and greasy conditions forced us into this game style but we are so much better to watch than the stop start hold crap we have been playing for the past 2 years.

 

[Brant]

Until today, he'd played in more losses than wins. 3 wins 4 losses from 7 matches until today. Now it's 4 - 4

Hmmm...is it really?

On moto g(7) using BigFooty.com mobile app

Yes, he's taking about losses - a draw isn't a loss.

He's saying it's 4 losses & 4 non-losses.

 

[Quacker5]

Last nights version of Worpel is the one we need to drive this midfield forward. Tough, relentless and with sharp clean hands. Also No coincidence that we start to win some clearance with a ruckman with more reach