Strategy What is going wrong? A discussion of tactics, strategy and execution issues and how to fix them

[Yardie]

Irony is, Scully was the one that laced Gunston out twice against the Dees for goals. Not saying I want him in the side, but it's an indictment that Scully is almost our best user I50, Chad aside.

And that was when he was open in space (I actually thought we were on in that game against Melbourne with the first five minutes of play). The more I think about what Brishawk has posted the more I think he correct.

In that footage, imagine that Smith is positioned where Scully is, and Scully is actually further away from the play in space. So let's say that Mitchell wins the ball and is able to outlet to Smith who has some space (but not a lot) who then has an option outside of the congestion who can be fed and run. And then hit a leading forward. This is what happened at the start of the Melbourne game. Scully didn't get drawn to the contest and had so much space he can hit someone lace out on the lead.

In a way I'd rather have Scully get what some would call "cheap" possessions on the outside in space rather than trying to win a hard ball or tackle in close. And also run to space to force defenders to man up on him to take away a two on one in the forward line. Then we could all say he is as soft/bad as Brad Hill

 

[TylerDurden]

And that was when he was open in space (I actually thought we were on in that game against Melbourne with the first five minutes of play). The more I think about what Brishawk has posted the more I think he correct.

In that footage, imagine that Smith is positioned where Scully is, and Scully is actually further away from the play in space. So let's say that Mitchell wins the ball and is able to outlet to Smith who has some space (but not a lot) who then has an option outside of the congestion who can be fed and run. And then hit a leading forward. This is what happened at the start of the Melbourne game. Scully didn't get drawn to the contest and had so much space he can hit someone lace out on the lead.

In a way I'd rather have Scully get what some would call "cheap" possessions on the outside in space rather than trying to win a hard ball or tackle in close. And also run to space to force defenders to man up on him to take away a two on one in the forward line. Then we could all say he is as soft/bad as Brad Hill

You're on point. That's his role. He's petrified, but he's very dangerous in space with ball in hand, and with the overlap run. He's been bog average this year, but our new gameplan has not helped his game one iota.

 

[burner1]

Take away the Richmond game (we jumped them and they were off their game - and they could have easily beaten us if kicked straight in last) for most games wehaven’t been able to move the ball quickly. Why? Because I reckon teams figured out what what we did at the back end of last year and the brissie game (there’s been heaps of time to unpick it).

We are not a quick team nor generally good by foot. If you clog up the corridor and make us go wide we slow down as outside smith our wings aren’t line breakers nor are we quick enough to bust through the middle by hand. Teams then just park a tall down back for the intercept (our tall forwards are poor) to cut off the inevitable high ball (which takes breust and chad out of the game).

Going the other way teams just spread aggressively out of the contest. If you look at that dees footage they kept handballing out to the edge of the contest with their quicker players getting there first. We had to continually bring in help which left us exposed when they broke through. And every time a team gets us with pace we be more conservative going forward as don’t want to get burnt on rebound (see 2nd half with swans)

I’d also note none of worp/JOM/Mitch are quick or possess elite agility - when teams sit on them they are forced into rushed kicks (Vs Oliver who created half a second to get a handball out) and if they do get ball in space teams just sit on our good ball users as they know JOM/worpel/‘itch don’t do any damage anyway (eg Look how many kicks JOM is getting).

With each loss, our opposition is getting bolder as there’s enough evidence we’ll likely run out of gas in the 2nd half and you can cut us open with speed.

Breust and impey in will help and return to fitness/form our all tall forwards, but need a lot more. Next year may be different as well with return to longer quarters which will help us and bring our endurance runners into the game.

 

[Mrzohs]

I Still think alot of this is
a) Mental
B) Game plan
C) Personal, execution.

The last 8 weeks of last season we we're one of the best performed sides.
Followed up with a solid first month this yr sitting 3-1. There was some worrying signs in the cats game, last qtr of tigers,Kangas.

Time for every individual to work as a team and stand up or move on. The lack of organisation, team work, attack on the ball is blinding, footys fundamentals .

 

[OnionJam]

I’m curious if anyone has any insight into the assistant coach setup and what effect this might be having. Fagan and Ratten have obviously been huge losses, but there was a lot of optimism with Sam Mitchell returning, particularly given the transformative effect he seemed to have had on the West Coast midfield. Yet even allowing for the fact that Tom is returning from a major injury and others are down on form, our midfield seems to have gone backwards this year. Given that Sam is also considered the heir apparent to Clarko’s job, is there any evidence that he has had a positive impact to date? I think someone mentioned earlier in the thread that Chris Newman was stoppages coach rather than Sam which seemed a bit odd to me.

 

[Gralin]

I Still think alot of this is
a) Mental
B) Game plan
C) Personal, execution.

The last 8 weeks of last season we we're one of the best performed sides.
Followed up with a solid first month this yr sitting 3-1. There was some worrying signs in the cats game, last qtr of tigers,Kangas.

Time for every individual to work as a team and stand up or move on. The lack of organisation, team work, attack on the ball is blinding, footys fundamentals .

I'd say our mental state is impacting our execution.

Hard to get a read on the game plan in that situation. We have personnel issues for sure but every club has wholes on their list, even GWS

Are we playing our best combination and giving them a game plan they can execute, especially considering limitations on training right now?

I don't know, maybe we need to go simpler on game plan, maybe we need to move a few people around. Mostly we need to get some belief in the group and that tends to only coming from winning.

 

[Brishawk]

I'd say our mental state is impacting our execution.

Hard to get a read on the game plan in that situation. We have personnel issues for sure but every club has wholes on their list, even GWS

Are we playing our best combination and giving them a game plan they can execute, especially considering limitations on training right now?

I don't know, maybe we need to go simpler on game plan, maybe we need to move a few people around. Mostly we need to get some belief in the group and that tends to only coming from winning.

Is there a simpler game plan than kick long down the line and take no risks by switching across the last line of defence?

 

[Mrzohs]

I'd say our mental state is impacting our execution.

Hard to get a read on the game plan in that situation. We have personnel issues for sure but every club has wholes on their list, even GWS

Are we playing our best combination and giving them a game plan they can execute, especially considering limitations on training right now?

I don't know, maybe we need to go simpler on game plan, maybe we need to move a few people around. Mostly we need to get some belief in the group and that tends to only coming from winning.

Yea every team has there flaws and you can only play to you're strengths. But there is no excuses for fundamentals, I have a feeling we will see a differernt Hawthorn in the Perth hub.

 

[Gralin]

Is there a simpler game plan than kick long down the line and take no risks by switching across the last line of defence?

Is that our game plan? Or is it just what we do when everyone stands around waiting for someone else to do something?

 

[Beandip]

I think we have two clear issues (and a myriad of others I won't touch on for now):

1) Fitness/Effort
Our gameplan makes us slow, but we're also not working hard enough to make space, break lines or provide outlets. Games are 20% shorter, and we're supposed to have a heap of quality endurance players and we're getting SMASHED in KMs covered, as well as high-speed KMs. The table below makes for grim reading.



2) Leadership
I believe we are devoid of leadership, and that it has actually become toxic. Stratton appears to have lost the faith of his team which leads to lazy play, poor effort and selfish acts. He appears (at least to me) to have zero presence on the ground, with others like Sicily, O'Meara and Gunston being much more vocal and providing direction and leadership. Stratton is also playing like a passenger rather than a leader, compare him to Rampe last game who played out of his skin... with a clearly broken hand! - saving goals on the line, going third man up, intercepting, chasing, tackling etc.

I believe the act Stratton could take now, which evidences the greatest leadership would be to say to the group "I'm down on form and not providing what I need to as a leader and team mate, we require the highest standard, I'm going to step down from the captaincy to work on a few things in training and scrimmage until I'm confident I can contribute at the level I need to".

He may never come back into the role, but it would be selfless and significant, set an expectation and perhaps even ease some of the pressure to allow him to improve, as well as potentially fastrack our next captain with some opportunity.

 

[Gralin]

I think we have two clear issues (and a myriad of others I won't touch on for now):

1) Fitness/Effort
Our gameplan makes us slow, but we're also not working hard enough to make space, break lines or provide outlets. Games are 20% shorter, and we're supposed to have a heap of quality endurance players and we're getting SMASHED in KMs covered, as well as high-speed KMs. The table below makes for grim reading.

View attachment 922619

2) Leadership
I believe we are devoid of leadership, and that it has actually become toxic. Stratton appears to have lost the faith of his team which leads to lazy play, poor effort and selfish acts. He appears (at least to me) to have zero presence on the ground, with others like Sicily, O'Meara and Gunston being much more vocal and providing direction and leadership. Stratton is also playing like a passenger rather than a leader, compare him to Rampe last game who played out of his skin... with a clearly broken hand! - saving goals on the line, going third man up, intercepting, chasing, tackling etc.

I believe the act Stratton could take now, which evidences the greatest leadership would be to say to the group "I'm down on form and not providing what I need to as a leader and team mate, we require the highest standard, I'm going to step down from the captaincy to work on a few things in training and scrimmage until I'm confident I can contribute at the level I need to".

He may never come back into the role, but it would be selfless and significant, set an expectation and perhaps even ease some of the pressure to allow him to improve, as well as potentially fastrack our next captain with some opportunity.

We don't run when we are down, it's been that way for years. I think we clearly came back less prepared than some other teams but the issue now is being stagnant not tired from what I can see

 

[Roger Rogerson]

I’m curious if anyone has any insight into the assistant coach setup and what effect this might be having. Fagan and Ratten have obviously been huge losses, but there was a lot of optimism with Sam Mitchell returning, particularly given the transformative effect he seemed to have had on the West Coast midfield. Yet even allowing for the fact that Tom is returning from a major injury and others are down on form, our midfield seems to have gone backwards this year. Given that Sam is also considered the heir apparent to Clarko’s job, is there any evidence that he has had a positive impact to date? I think someone mentioned earlier in the thread that Chris Newman was stoppages coach rather than Sam which seemed a bit odd to me.

Sam Mitchell was speaking to the mids at half time last week on the video footage. Newman the backs. I was hoping he wasn't given how bad we have been through there.

 

[Brishawk]

Is that our game plan? Or is it just what we do when everyone stands around waiting for someone else to do something?

Regardless, that is how we are playing and it would be impossible to play in a more simple manner. What we need to be doing is be willing to stick to the plan we have no matter the scoreboard or how many times it fails. We need to be encouraging risk taking because we will only get confidence by taking risks and then coming off. Historically though, clarko has sought to grind out wins With hard defence.

 

[Hawk-in-syd]

Sam Mitchell was speaking to the mids at half time last week on the video footage. Newman the backs. I was hoping he wasn't given how bad we have been through there.

The results from the centre bounce have been terrible. Thats a pretty good indicator of how the mids have been performing from a neutral start. Is that the mid coach?

Sometimes at the center bounce we seem to be setting up on the expectation we will lose. Players in front are focused on the guys behind ffs. See ball get ball!! One looks after the gun the rest hunt.

So often we win the ball and give a quick handpass close to someone whos standing still. THAT player is the problem. If you are moving you have momentum making you hard to tackle. That make us easyto tackle =see free kick count.

The light frames suited to a longer game dont help in soft arm tackles either.



On SM-G960F using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[TylerDurden]

Hawthorn's era of sustained success has finally caught up with them - ABC News

amp.abc.net.au

 

[Jack Gun Cyril Stun]

The light frames suited to a longer game dont help in soft arm tackles either.



On SM-G960F using BigFooty.com mobile app

I’d like to see stats on tackles attempted vs effectiveness. I reckon we would be bottom.
In that clip at the start of this thread we attempted 6 or 7 and Melb broke through or got an effective disposal away every time.

When we had the footy they dispossessed us every time either through the force of tackle or physicality at contest.

In 12 contests in about 15 seconds we basically lost every one and so Melbourne got a “grubby” goal.

 

[Beandip]

I like to see stats on tackles attempted vs effectiveness. I reckon we would be bottom.
In that clip at the start of this thread we attempted 6 or 7 and Melb broke through or got an effective disposal away every time.

When we had the footy they dispossessed us every time either through the force of tackle or physicality at contest.

In 12 contests in about 15 seconds we basically lost every one and so Melbourne got a “grubby” goal.

Has to be drastically affected by how light we play all our players... Melbourne's mids (and every other teams) just crash through us, which also hurts us more and slows down our recovery (going to get rekt in the upcoming period with hardly any time off). It's not like playing light has given us some amazing agility or speed - we're the slowest, least creative team in the league.

They say players don't get any shorter as the game goes on, but if I was playing well undersized on Cripps I'd be depressed lining up on him again and again as the game went on!

 

[Brishawk]

Hawthorn's era of sustained success has finally caught up with them - ABC News

amp.abc.net.au

Kind of reminds me of this..

Lisa Simpsons GIF - Simpsons Teeth Lisa Simpson - Discover & Share GIFs

Click to view the GIF

tenor.com

 

[Noel Gallagher]

I think we have two clear issues (and a myriad of others I won't touch on for now):

1) Fitness/Effort
Our gameplan makes us slow, but we're also not working hard enough to make space, break lines or provide outlets. Games are 20% shorter, and we're supposed to have a heap of quality endurance players and we're getting SMASHED in KMs covered, as well as high-speed KMs. The table below makes for grim reading.

View attachment 922619

2) Leadership
I believe we are devoid of leadership, and that it has actually become toxic. Stratton appears to have lost the faith of his team which leads to lazy play, poor effort and selfish acts. He appears (at least to me) to have zero presence on the ground, with others like Sicily, O'Meara and Gunston being much more vocal and providing direction and leadership. Stratton is also playing like a passenger rather than a leader, compare him to Rampe last game who played out of his skin... with a clearly broken hand! - saving goals on the line, going third man up, intercepting, chasing, tackling etc.

I believe the act Stratton could take now, which evidences the greatest leadership would be to say to the group "I'm down on form and not providing what I need to as a leader and team mate, we require the highest standard, I'm going to step down from the captaincy to work on a few things in training and scrimmage until I'm confident I can contribute at the level I need to".

He may never come back into the role, but it would be selfless and significant, set an expectation and perhaps even ease some of the pressure to allow him to improve, as well as potentially fastrack our next captain with some opportunity.

This IMO is a huge issue which is killing us at the moment. At our peak we had several genuine leaders who just happened to be champions as well - Hodge, Mitchell, Roughead, Lewis and Gibson. Franklin and Cyril made everyone else walk taller without uttering a word and players like Sewell had genuine leadership qualities as well

In our current side, we have bar none the worst Captain in the league - both in playing form and ability to lead. JOM is really our only true leader and he is pushing shit up hill when it comes getting support from his fellow midfield players in TOM, Worpel, Scully, Henderson and Smith. Smith tries to inspire but he just doesn't quite have it. We have no true leaders in the backline and definately NONE in the forward line. Breust is a champ but lead he does not, ditto with Wingard

Ironically the player with seemingly the most leadership potential we have seen this year is Will Day - a player we drafted with a high pick. When you keep topping up with players from other clubs I would argue that its very difficult to bring in players with genuine leadership qualities. When you look at GWS they have pretty much kept ALL of their gun players who are leaders. Yes Gills extra cash helps but the point is they just don't let these type of players go..

 

[Beandip]

This IMO is a huge issue which is killing us at the moment. At our peak we had several genuine leaders who just happened to be champions as well - Hodge, Mitchell, Roughead, Lewis and Gibson. Franklin and Cyril made everyone else walk taller without uttering a word and players like Sewell had genuine leadership qualities as well

In our current side, we have bar none the worst Captain in the league - both in playing form and ability to lead. JOM is really our only true leader and he is pushing sh*t up hill when it comes getting support from his fellow midfield players in TOM, Worpel, Scully, Henderson and Smith. Smith tries to inspire but he just doesn't quite have it. We have no true leaders in the backline and definately NONE in the forward line. Breust is a champ but lead he does not, ditto with Wingard

Ironically the player with seemingly the most leadership potential we have seen this year is Will Day - a player we drafted with a high pick. When you keep topping up with players from other clubs I would argue that its very difficult to bring in players with genuine leadership qualities. When you look at GWS they have pretty much kept ALL of their gun players who are leaders. Yes Gills extra cash helps but the point is they just don't let these type of players go..

I view McEvoy as an inspiring on-field leader, but any of that is nullified when you're a) down the back, and b) down the back next to the actual, completely ineffective captain.

To be honest, the whole Stratton situation is embarrassing for the club and takes some of the polish off what is an amazing career. Back when he had the mullet he was legitimately playing like Ayres reborn.

 

[Noel Gallagher]

I view McEvoy as an inspiring on-field leader, but any of that is nullified when you're a) down the back, and b) down the back next to the actual, completely ineffective captain.

To be honest, the whole Stratton situation is embarrassing for the club and takes some of the polish off what is an amazing career. Back when he had the mullet he was legitimately playing like Ayres reborn.

Good point I forgot about Mcevoy and agree hard for him to lead from the backline.

 

[Yardie]

Hawthorn's era of sustained success has finally caught up with them - ABC News

amp.abc.net.au

Interesting looking at the footage between the two groups. Much more running to space, but a belief that someone will be there. The interesting take was that when Gibson was kicking the ball he had two players within 30-40m who broke to space but then also had Bruest further afield in space who he chose as the option.

 

[Mrzohs]

To quote:
Alastair Clarkson can't put his finger on it. But the legendary Hawks coach does concede it is an "enormous coincidence" that his side's form has dropped away significantly in the aftermath of being forced around the country in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

What a few of us we're thinking but didn't wanna say it, the whole article pretty much sums up alot of the Snr players attitude in this environment, Which has reflected on the field. The sad thing is we don't really know where we stand with the list,gameplan etc and have probably thrown our season away let's see how we go the next few weeks in win able games.
Like clarko states going into the hub we had won 9 out of our last 12 games against some good teams.
One thing we have learnt is a few of our youngsters are more than capable, which one's need further time, we need more on field leadership.

 

[hawkeye77]

I feel as frustrated as the comments coming out of these pages but it's not just one thing.

Yes the game plan is not helping atm which most people acknowledge but the 3 biggest things for me are our inability to use creative and effective handballs to release players out of congestion. This is due to both really poor handballing skills which continuously put players under pressure and force the dump kick and no one providing an option by running into space and not being stationary. It just kills us every game.

The second one is our ball use coming out of the back. I throw up in my mouth everytime I see Sicily or Scrimshaw (both having good seasons btw) sideways/backwards kick to Frawley or Stratton for them to stand there, wait for the opposition to get set and then try and kick out of defence. Sicily and Scrimshaw and even Day should take that risky kick because they are the ones that can pull it off.

The third one is the midfield - we are getting slaughtered. All our top mids are having down years, expected from Titch but O'meara, Worpell and Shiels are just drifting in and out of games.

Basically we can't win the ball and when we do we can't use it. Any gameplan is going to look bad with those two factors.

No immediate fix but I will be here supporting the same as ever until we manage to solve some of these issues.

 

[Flukey!]

To quote:
Alastair Clarkson can't put his finger on it. But the legendary Hawks coach does concede it is an "enormous coincidence" that his side's form has dropped away significantly in the aftermath of being forced around the country in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That just pisses me off to be honest.
Look at the adversity the whole club overcame in 2014 and compare it to what we (and all clubs) are going through now.
2014 was a year where everything possible went wrong but the club powered on regardless.
Using the pandemic as an excuse makes us sound like we are more mentally fragile than the other clubs.