Review Round 24, 2024 - Brisbane Lions vs. Essendon

[Grasshopper17]

Finals, as they say, are a whole new ball game - and a good thing they are, too, because if we dish up more of that slop, it’s mothballs.

Willingness to share the footy good tonight, execution not so. The Harlem globetrotter blind overhead handball shite needs to go straight in the bin.

Very happy with Noah’s return.

I noticed we raised an obscene amount of money for some cause tonight. I would be diverting a hefty portion of whatever that was towards hiring a better shrink.

Yeah great to see Noah back. The numbers indicate his inclusion was a big step in the right direction. We conceded 3 goals from stoppages, but all of those were from centre bounces. So 0 goals conceded from any around the ground stoppages, let alone defensive 50 stoppages. I know Essendon aren't blessed with a plethora of small forward options, but you can only play against who is out on the field, and I thought Noah acquitted himself well.

By comparison, against Collingwood we conceded 2 goals from centre bounces but another 4 from around the ground stoppages. Against the Giants it was 4 from centre bounce and another FIVE from around the ground stoppages (this was a real mess).

So I think I'm keeping Noah in the side even if Starce is available. McKenna tho I think would make a decent and potentially game-changing sub.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Could not remember any times tonight when we were streaming forward and kicking the ball inside 50, no hit up targets seemed to be on the menu tonight. I seriously could not remember anyone trying to chip a ball 20 metres to anyone leading up to the ball carrier.

Cam had a couple of shots where instead of trying to nail it from 50, he sat it on Charlie’s head in the goal square. He wasn’t the only one.
Over-corrected on last week and particularly for Cam it’s going away from what made him great in his purple patch this season.
He needs to recognise his strength and power and take those kicks.

CC needs to mix it up and come at the ball. He plays like Josh Jenkins lately… wants it all at the back or on the goal line

Yep, all this.

We have this obsession at times with having all our forwards play as high up the ground up as possible. Maybe the intention is to help with our transition defence, not quite sure. I suspect it's horses for courses, but I thought we looked a lot better in the most recent St Kilda game when we had Joe deliberately playing off (forward of) his man, seemingly in an attempt to draw his opponent away from congestion and lengthen the field.

The problem when you play as high as our forwards do, is that when we get quick ball forward there's really no other option but to lead hard back with the flight of the ball. The more of this I see the more I'd like to see us hold our forwards closer to goal as much as possible.

This would allow them time and space to lead up to the ball carrier. I think we see the occasional lead in this manner but they are so rare that I don't think our midfielders expect it, so often they don't even see it happening. If we made this more of a feature of our game, we'd become more predictable to our midfield and I think we'd see more of those leads get hit.

In the meantime, holding forwards closer to goal also creates space for our midfielders and high half forwards to get creative and use their skills. I think a lot of our problems in our front half (not just our goal kicking but also actually generating high quality scoring opportunities) stem from the fact that the middle of the field in our games is often pretty congested and messy, caused in large part by the insistence on opening up our forward line.

The other thing holding forwards deeper does is it makes it much harder for an opposition defence to rebound. More numbers in our forward line should make it easier for us to apply pressure, lock the ball in, and get a stoppage if we're unable to score.

The main downside to this is it may impact our transition defence. We saw a couple of our forwards (Logan Morris at one point) get back inside defensive 50 to take a couple of timely intercept marks. These guys can't be everywhere at once, so it's a real question of what do we value? Defending strongly or an enhanced ability to cash in territory dominance and scoring opportunities?

 

[bungalow_bill]

Who'd want to be an umpire.

Seriously.

Would need a bottle proof helmet for starters *

* Only required at Carlton games

 

[Grasshopper17]

I think it has spread across the team now. When Morris first came in he made the most of every opportunity and even when dropped back to the VFL he kicked 4. They all have the yips it seems, Jo, Charlie, Rayner, Bailey and he was our good one. McCluggage has started to nail them admiringly of a low base. I can't think of a single player I'd want kicking for my life at the moment - maybe Zorko.

We have two week to get the confidence back so we will see what Fagan comes up with.

I was reading about a really good golfer, who started his warm up with around 30 cm putts that were so simple to get he would knock every one in, over and over. When asked why he did that he said he wanted to hear the noise the ball made falling into the cup every time so when he got out on the course, no matter where he was on the greens he could just imagine his putt going in and making that noise.

It's a mind thing, not a skill thing, maybe as soon as someone has a set shot one of our other players immediately goes over and just says, "mate, just imagine the crowd when this kick goes over the goal umpires head".

It's different, but what ever we are doing, time to try something else.

I agree... It sounds counterintuitive, but we should be attempting easier shots at training, which I alluded to last week

Do we even practice kicking for goal from 20 metres out directly in front? Or do we think that is too easy and spend all our time kicking the tough shots from 40m out on the boundary? I mean, sure, if you're nailing shots from 40m out on the boundary, of course we should be nailing them from 20m out directly in front. But the mind doesn't work like that. If you haven't practiced it to the extent that you could basically do it in your sleep, you haven't practiced it enough.

Imagine a tennis player deciding to only practice their overhead smash and never their back court forehand. A soccer player who only wants to practice doing the rainbow instead of dribbling and passing. A bowler who spends all their time practicing his slower ball but can't put the ball on a hanky 5 times out of 6. These guys are gonna find themselves out of action pretty quickly.

At training I'd be marking straight lines from each behind post to the front corners of the centre square. That's the corridor. And then an arc 30m from goal. This is your zone of certainty. You should be kicking 9 out of 10 from there. Practice kicking from this region over and over again. Then once you've nailed it, move onto your trick shots or whatever: the ones nobody really expects you to make anyway.

This sounds a bit boring. It SHOULD be boring. But if you really want to spice things up a bit, you could do a lot worse than bringing the goal posts closer together This would also make it much easier to identify any flaws in technique.

 

[Grasshopper17]

I just posted about this in the coaching thread. We are just fatigued. Week off and we are back.

The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players - PubMed

Improvements in specific measures of basketball performance after sleep extension indicate that optimal sleep is likely beneficial in reaching peak athletic performance.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

So, the quality and quantity of sleep you get can affect elite level sporting performance?

What? Fair dinkum??

Yet we play mostly night games, and then train in the mornings? Yep, makes sense

 

[Gadzorks]

So, the quality and quantity of sleep you get can affect elite level sporting performance?

What? Fair dinkum??

Yet we play mostly night games, and then train in the mornings? Yep, makes sense

So basic. The paper was about increasing average sleep for improvement. I. Imagine those players with young kids would love a couple of extra hours.

I agree with training - train when you play. Get your body rhythm set, and do all the meetings etc in the mornings. Except they like physio etc after training so they'd have to change their hours as well..

 

[knaf]

Yeah great to see Noah back. The numbers indicate his inclusion was a big step in the right direction. We conceded 3 goals from stoppages, but all of those were from centre bounces. So 0 goals conceded from any around the ground stoppages, let alone defensive 50 stoppages. I know Essendon aren't blessed with a plethora of small forward options, but you can only play against who is out on the field, and I thought Noah acquitted himself well.

By comparison, against Collingwood we conceded 2 goals from centre bounces but another 4 from around the ground stoppages. Against the Giants it was 4 from centre bounce and another FIVE from around the ground stoppages (this was a real mess).

So I think I'm keeping Noah in the side even if Starce is available. McKenna tho I think would make a decent and potentially game-changing sub.

Yes I don’t know how many loose ball gets he collected, but the difference Noah made in gathering the ball in congestion was pretty obvious. Over the previous weeks when the ball hit the ground I would expect the opposition to score every time.

McKenna would be a reasonable sub. Would prefer a fit Reville as he has the flexibility to play in more positions.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Yes I don’t know how many loose ball gets he collected, but the difference Noah made in gathering the ball in congestion was pretty obvious. Over the previous weeks when the ball hit the ground I would expect the opposition to score every time.

McKenna would be a reasonable sub. Would prefer a fit Reville as he has the flexibility to play in more positions.

Reville comes straight into the 22 for mine, at the expense of Sharp.

 

[Dalions]

Reville comes straight into the 22 for mine, at the expense of Sharp.

Glad you’ve come around.

 

[p4p1]

Ah Chee had 5 pressure acts and 0 tackles, Bailey had 24 and 2

I thought Baileys defensive intent was pretty good on the weekend. The two tackles he nailed normally would have been broken IMO.

 

[p4p1]

The US Government, IOC and FIFA say hello!

Even the IOC was not as bad as the AIBA/IBA who were so bad that the IOC said too much corruption we are running the boxing in 2024

 

[wantok]

I agree... It sounds counterintuitive, but we should be attempting easier shots at training, which I alluded to last week



At training I'd be marking straight lines from each behind post to the front corners of the centre square. That's the corridor. And then an arc 30m from goal. This is your zone of certainty. You should be kicking 9 out of 10 from there. Practice kicking from this region over and over again. Then once you've nailed it, move onto your trick shots or whatever: the ones nobody really expects you to make anyway.

This sounds a bit boring. It SHOULD be boring. But if you really want to spice things up a bit, you could do a lot worse than bringing the goal posts closer together This would also make it much easier to identify any flaws in technique.

Create a competition. Each has shots at Goal starting at 10m moving backwards for the next kick in 5 m increments. Miss and you go back to the start. The player the furthest out after 10 kicks is the .

On SM-A525F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Happy_Neale]

So basic. The paper was about increasing average sleep for improvement. I. Imagine those players with young kids would love a couple of extra hours.

I agree with training - train when you play. Get your body rhythm set, and do all the meetings etc in the mornings. Except they like physio etc after training so they'd have to change their hours as well..

Except they play at all different times so that would mean changing the training schedule every other week. Not good for routine

 

[Grasshopper17]

I agree... It sounds counterintuitive, but we should be attempting easier shots at training, which I alluded to last week



At training I'd be marking straight lines from each behind post to the front corners of the centre square. That's the corridor. And then an arc 30m from goal. This is your zone of certainty. You should be kicking 9 out of 10 from there. Practice kicking from this region over and over again. Then once you've nailed it, move onto your trick shots or whatever: the ones nobody really expects you to make anyway.

This sounds a bit boring. It SHOULD be boring. But if you really want to spice things up a bit, you could do a lot worse than bringing the goal posts closer together This would also make it much easier to identify any flaws in technique.

Not sure whether to be annoyed or heartened at my "crazy" ideas getting traction.

First there was the guy Ben Davis interviewed on Monday talking about having people stand the mark at training



Then this morning the great man Zorks himself has referred to NFL teams training with... You'll never guess... Narrower goal posts!!!

 

[M Malice]

Not sure whether to be annoyed or heartened at my "crazy" ideas getting traction.

First there was the guy Ben Davis interviewed on Monday talking about having people stand the mark at training



Then this morning the great man Zorks himself has referred to NFL teams training with... You'll never guess... Narrower goal posts!!!

They should try what Dom Fay suggested on the Roar Deal yesterday.... cut back the practice drastically and take the spotlight off it, the more the players stress about it the worse it is going to get IMO.

It has nothing to do with the physical process it's totally mental and it is impossible to get anywhere near game day pressure in a training situation.

 

[Grasshopper17]

They should try what Dom Fay suggested on the Roar Deal yesterday.... cut back the practice drastically and take the spotlight off it, the more the players stress about it the worse it is going to get IMO.

It has nothing to do with the physical process it's totally mental and it is impossible to get anywhere near game day pressure in a training situation.

Broadly agree. Quality is more important than quantity.

Which again ties in with the whole "train as you play" mentality. You might only get 3 shots in a 150 minute game. And you don't know when those opportunities are going to arise. You just have to be ready to take them.

What's important then if you're reducing the quantity, is that the quality of the practice is at a high level.

 

[Section 5]

Goal kicking practice at training from different positions and even with non-preferred leg is better than nothing.
Also practicing your ball drop and technique is fine.

But that is not what happens in a real game.
Quite often players are stuffed when taking the kick.
You always have someone on the mark.
There is always an opposition player lurking just outside the protected area with angle shots for the inevitable moving off the mark and play on called
Often your own players and 1 umpire are around this area too.

And that only covers set shots at goal

 

[M Malice]

Goal kicking practice at training from different positions and even with non-preferred leg is better than nothing.
Also practicing your ball drop and technique is fine.

But that is not what happens in a real game.
Quite often players are stuffed when taking the kick.
You always have someone on the mark.
There is always an opposition player lurking just outside the protected area with angle shots for the inevitable moving off the mark and play on called
Often your own players and 1 umpire are around this area too.

And that only covers set shots at goal

Lachie said on IIRC footy classified that they do a lot of set shot practice under fatigue at training and have side bets like if you lose a set shot contest you have to shout the winner a meal.

Still nothing like game day pressure though, fingers crossed the first relatively easy set shot goes through in the EF.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Goal kicking practice at training from different positions and even with non-preferred leg is better than nothing.
Also practicing your ball drop and technique is fine.

But that is not what happens in a real game.
Quite often players are stuffed when taking the kick.
You always have someone on the mark.
There is always an opposition player lurking just outside the protected area with angle shots for the inevitable moving off the mark and play on called
Often your own players and 1 umpire are around this area too.

And that only covers set shots at goal

You're right. Train as you play.

Repetition is only of any benefit if you are seeking to change/improve/refine your technique. Other than that it should be, where possible, woven into other drills, which are likely to cause fatigue, whether by running or being involved in contests.

We often hear stories of batsmen have 5 minutes in the nets, say "yep that's pretty good" and that's the end of it. Come out and make an awesome hundred. If you are hitting them well that's all you need.

Quality over quantity.

 

[Nathan Barley]

You're right. Train as you play.

Repetition is only of any benefit if you are seeking to change/improve/refine your technique. Other than that it should be, where possible, woven into other drills, which are likely to cause fatigue, whether by running or being involved in contests.

We often hear stories of batsmen have 5 minutes in the nets, say "yep that's pretty good" and that's the end of it. Come out and make an awesome hundred. If you are hitting them well that's all you need.

Quality over quantity.

Starting to get the impression that you have an opinion on this

 

[Section 5]

A quick look at the year

12 times kicked more points than goals
9 times kicked less points than goals
2 times kicked the same goals as points

 

[M Malice]

Who would we want to take the first "easy" set shot from 25 meters out on a slight angle... I'll go with Zac Bailey

33

Zac Bailey

Age

25

Ht

182cm

Wt

84kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.7

3star

K

6.9

3star

HB

5.9

4star

M

3.0

3star

T

2.2

4star

CL

0.9

3star

D

12.9

3star

K

7.3

3star

HB

5.6

3star

M

3.9

4star

T

2.4

3star

CL

0.7

3star

D

13.4

4star

K

6.6

3star

HB

6.8

5star

M

3.2

4star

T

2.8

5star

CL

0.6

3star

.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Who would we want to take the first "easy" set shot from 25 meters out on a slight angle... I'll go with Zac Bailey.

Frog

 

[Dalions]

Who would we want to take the first "easy" set shot from 25 meters out on a slight angle... I'll go with Zac Bailey.

I’ll say Charlie.
Need to get him up and about right from the start of the game.
It would be no gimme but man the place would go off if he kicks it.

 

[Dalions]

A quick look at the year

12 times kicked more points than goals
9 times kicked less points than goals
2 times kicked the same goals as points

Did all of our losses come from the 12?