Your Strategy to Beat Geelong

[jive]

To be fair, we feel the same way about Selwood who always lifts to play Hawthorn and has single handedly gotten us back into a couple of contests against you guys.

I think the number one word is composure. For some reason your players seem to lose it against us. The fact you always get close (I'll admit I thought the game was over when we got 33 up in the last, and your comeback was impressive) indicates that it's not a matter of skill or gameplan. It's just that Geelong players seem to do the right things at the right time. FWIW, we've had the opposite problem v Collingwood over the past two years having lost by a goal twice and given away crucial 50m penalties and made stupid mistakes when the games have been on the line.

Some of your posters are being a bit disrespectful to Geelong though... It's not like we're a bottom 8 team that you should be assured of beating every time. We've comfortably beaten Sydney, Fremantle and Essendon this season as well as you guys twice. We're a good team and I'm sure our player go into every game believing we can/will win. (Unfortunately they forget this mindset when they're 9 goals up v Brisbane!)

Yeah for sure - its a two way street. A lot of the time we don't play well because Geelong's pressure is so good, but on the weekend we played particularly shyte in the first quarter.

I think everyone knows Geelong is a great team, there wouldn't be a thread titled 'Your Strategy to beat Geelong' in the board of the first positioned team if that wasn't the case. A lot posts are vents of frustration because we didn't play to nearly what we are capable of and after 11 straight losses, especially the last 4 people are going to be raging (with reason!)

 

[hawker92]

geelong are excellent at playing the percentages.

i would try and beat them at their own game - when we have the ball, take safe, smart shots and don't rush anything. hold the ball until an option presents itself. keepings off kinda stuff.

but when we don't have the ball, i want to see numbers in hawks favour at every contest.
centre clearances and stoppages need big bodies and ruthless tackles.

i'm liking the idea of cyril one-out. the freo game in 2011 showed how no defender can match him for speed when leading out of the square with the 50 to himself.

 

[Jiggystoon]

Our entry into the forward 50 is a huge problem and unless it is addressed we will always struggle to beat them, the longer this streak goes on the and the longer we have the same approach, the easier it will be for the Cats to plan and execute.
One thing that I have been thinking about is the reasons why we seem to bomb into the 50 against them, (also happened in the GF last year). We have a reputation for having the best foot skills in the comp, always being able to spot up targets and keep the ball moving meaning when we come into the 50 its very hard to defend against, sides like Geelong and Sydney have found that one way to combat this (and it is common sense if you think about it) is to hunt our outside receiving players (Smith, Suckling, Birchall etc or whoever we play outside) taking away their time on the ball, another thing that should be pointed out (and this was very obvious on the weekend) was Geelongs ability to force our players onto their opposite sides, again creating a forced kick, which is where the likes of Taylor and Bartel were able to take control and constantly mop up all those bombed kicks into the 50. The way the Cats play us takes away our fluency and space to find targets but equally important for them is their ability to work fast and hurt us going the other way, often catching our guys out of position.
The only way this can be stopped is to either completely change the way we play against the Cats to ensure that both a) our receivers have better protection and b) we change the way we set up our attacking plays so that we can better defend against the Geelong counter attack.
Another method that could be used could be to open up our forward 50 by bringing our forwards up to the 50 and leave the rest open, we could then try and use the pace of Buddy, Roughy, Bresut, Gunston, Rioli etc to run onto the ball, this would make the likes of Bartel to take a man and not be able to play sweeper so effectively because we made it so easy for him on Sat night.
The more I think about it though, the more I think that we can beat them, but it wont happen playing the current way we have been, it works against everyone else but the Cats have it nutted out and unless we really try and work them differently we are set for more predictable heartbreak

 

[Lord Mud of Glenferrie]

Firstly for the coaching group to realise we won't win the game if we try and play it on our terms and to plan accordingly.

I imagine there is no spelling mistake there. If not, then that is a very interesting concept.

 

[Roger Rogerson]

I imagine there is no spelling mistake there. If not, then that is a very interesting concept.

Do beg my pardon?

 

[Lord Mud of Glenferrie]

Do beg my pardon?

Too cryptic for me.

 

[Harry Yorkie]

Don't play like frightened schoolgirls - build game plan from there.

Time to go a bit old school - I think there is an element of denial amongst the club - we've been unlucky etc there are no mental demons etc. We need to play with anger, show some media plonkers calling us chokers, newspaper clippings etc, change the mind set from timid to angry.

 

[Yuley95]

I would love to be a fly on the wall and know if Clarkson has anything else up his sleeve. I'm clinging to the hope that the coaching group are experimenting with a few things during the season while keeping a couple of things up their sleeve so that come finals time we wont be as predictable this year.

Last year we were smashing the comp for the 2nd half of the season and seemed to get unpicked in the finals. My eternal hope is that the coaching group don't want the same thing to happen and are playing their cards closer to their chests.

Having said that - we need to beat Geelong by working harder when we don't have the footy. We also need some of our more solid bodies to hit a few packs hard and early. Not to start a riot but to put a seed of doubt in their heads.

No point trying to ruffle Selwood's feathers - we have tried that and failed. But put a highball to CHF and get Rough or Hail to smash the pack. Get Goo to run off HB at a centre bounce and bowl through a few hoops. Get Hodge to sit 15m off ball ups around the ground and hit them with speed a few times.

Do that for a quarter then settle in and play hard.

 

[The Spirit of Cricket]

I posted this in another thread but heres my take

There are 4 issues that have let Geelong go on their streak of 11.

1. Monster Forwards

2. Overlap-running/Rebound/Speed

3. Defenders (aka Harry Taylor)

4. Hold our composure and clean up scrubs like Andrew Mackie

5. We don't have Dew



So we can tick off number 1 as being solved

2. To fix up their run we need to tag in my humble opinion. Obviously with Sheils injured we couldn't, but I believe we need to tag atleast 2 of Duncan, Stokes, Christensen and Motlop in the midfield and maybe even place a forward tag. These guys generally wouldn't be used to feeling a tag and might crumble under the pressure. Now this addresses part of problem 3 but either we have Sewell and Shiels tagging and leave Lewis free to do as he pleases, or we don't play Sewell and have Shiels and Lewis tagging in the midfield (or maybe even Langford if he gets a gig). Though these guys are plodders if we tag Geelongs runners we can get them frustrated, worn out and may not be able to run our taggers of their feet.

3. Problem three revolves around us needing to have good forward 50 entries. Now I know a lot of Hawks fans are against moving one of Suckling or Birchall (admittedly Suckers won't be back by the finals but hypothetically) onto a wing/midfield. We need to tell our grunt midfielders (Lewis, Hodge, Sewell, Shiels etc.) to get it into the hands of Smith(??), Hill, Burgoyne, Rioli and one of Suckers/Birch to make our entries into forward 50 cleaner and stopping Geelong's defenders running riot. Mitchell can just do what he always does, but it was guys like Hodge, Lewis and Sewell who were kicking the "chaos ball" into the 50 far too often.

4. This shouldn't be too difficult but the way we play against Geelong it seems it is. Play that 'unsociable footy' that we pride ourselves on so much. GET JED ANDERSON BACK IN. His hit on Bartel (atleast I think that's who it was) is a perfect example of what some of our younger players need to be doing.

5. Talk to Sydney.

 

[cozhawk19]

How about we leave Buddy and Cyril in the forward 50 and instead of kicking it in the air we just kick it along the ground to them in the one on ones.

Geelong never mark the ball and when they grab possession they dont have anytime to set up and we just pressure them full on.

The old 'chaos' ball theory.

 

[Bosk]

Geelong will always try and speed up the pace of the game because it results in more mistakes & turnovers by both sides and thus more 'fast breaks' which is how they love to score, usually through the corridor.
We on the other hand are very good at setting up our attacks in a more controlled, slower fashion using chains of precision passes combined with switching play.

I think we need to make a deliberate effort to slow the tempo down especially during periods where Geelong get a run on. Recently we've also been smashed at center clearances but last week that was much better. We could definitely use more pace at stoppages to prevent them clearing using their younger mids who can run & carry, however.

We probably need to go smaller up forward given our talls are almost always beaten by Taylor & Lonergan, more crummers at the base of packs will probably help and most of our 50 entries are probably going to be shallow anyway. What we really need to bring back is forward pressure to prevent their half backs strolling it out of defense which inevitably leads to many of their scores - Rioli, Puopolo & Bruest need to make this their focus.
The good news is I don't think they have a matchup for Gunston with Taylor & Lonergan being needed to guard Roughead & Franklin.

With Lake, Gibson & Stratton the backline is probably the least of our worries. Injecting Birchall and Guerra should hopefully give us more drive out of defense.

What we really need is a massive effort from the entire side if we're to get over them. Often in past games our bottom 6 have let us down while their bottom 6 has been very solid, that's one area we could improve.

 

[Themeanmachine]

Answer; Anthony Robbins.

 

[blackhead&boil]

Geelong will always try and speed up the pace of the game because it results in more mistakes & turnovers by both sides and thus more 'fast breaks' which is how they love to score, usually through the corridor.
We on the other hand are very good at setting up our attacks in a more controlled, slower fashion using chains of precision passes combined with switching play.

I think we need to make a deliberate effort to slow the tempo down especially during periods where Geelong get a run on. Recently we've also been smashed at center clearances but last week that was much better. We could definitely use more pace at stoppages to prevent them clearing using their younger mids who can run & carry, however.

We probably need to go smaller up forward given our talls are almost always beaten by Taylor & Lonergan, more crummers at the base of packs will probably help and most of our 50 entries are probably going to be shallow anyway. What we really need to bring back is forward pressure to prevent their half backs strolling it out of defense which inevitably leads to many of their scores - Rioli, Puopolo & Bruest need to make this their focus.
The good news is I don't think they have a matchup for Gunston with Taylor & Lonergan being needed to guard Roughead & Franklin.

With Lake, Gibson & Stratton the backline is probably the least of our worries. Injecting Birchall and Guerra should hopefully give us more drive out of defense.

What we really need is a massive effort from the entire side if we're to get over them. Often in past games our bottom 6 have let us down while their bottom 6 has been very solid, that's one area we could improve.

I like this. I noticed on saturday night that hawthorn got back into the game in the second half as the overall pace of the play slowed down.

I think there's something in that for everyone...

 

[Argy]

Geelong will always try and speed up the pace of the game because it results in more mistakes & turnovers by both sides and thus more 'fast breaks' which is how they love to score, usually through the corridor.
We on the other hand are very good at setting up our attacks in a more controlled, slower fashion using chains of precision passes combined with switching play.

Geelong were on top in the first quarter. They got there because they slowed the tempo down when they got clean possession and used precision kicking to short leads. They used our game against us. Meanwhile we were rushing around sending bombs into our forward line. Once we settled down into our normal tempo we began to get on top.

 

[Collins-Langford-Ayres]

I think we also need to change the composition of the team we bring to the game.

We need another big defender down back. Gibson just isn't big enough for Pods and playing him there robs us off all his creativity as a 3rd tall back.

We can't play all of Hodge, Mitchell, Sewell and Lewis against their mob. They don't have one mid slower than these guys and it just exposes us too much. Lewis is the one to go on form, for mine.

We need more creativity up forward and speed to apply defensive pressure; and a bit more run and creativity down back. Offensive defenders like the way Bartel played are far less damaging if they think they are on a player who can kick goals. Guys like Lewis and Whitecross really don't cause that many concerns.

My team is therefore:

FF: Puopolo - Roughead - Osborne
HF: Breust - Franklin - Rioli
Ce: Hill - Hodge - Smith
HB: Birchall - Lake- Stratton
FB: Gibson - Spangher - Burgoyne

Ru: Bailey
RR: Shiels
Ro: Mitchell

I/C: Sewell, Savage, Whitecross and Gunston

Emerg: Hale, Lewis and Guerra

 

[Brant]

I'll go the other way C-L-A & suggest that we'll get better entries going inside F50m if we have runners with composure through the middle instead of always being pressured onto the boundary & being forced to sky the ball I50m; and, we'll have better resilience against the 'sling-shot' if we have speedier players around the place. I hate that we hide slow players across HB so I'll inject some pace there & turn the weakness into a weapon. Oh, and I've taken the luxury of playing the 2012 Brownlow Medalist* in the position in which he won the medal.

While we're adding run I'll pose that we drop one of the big ruckmen for a mobile ruckman being that Geelong are playing 1st-year or at least non-dominant Rucks against us.

FB: Stratton....Lake....Duryea
HB: Cyril......Gibson.....Birchall
Ce: Hill........Mitchell.....Smith
Ru: Hale.......Hodge......Shiels
HF: White'ss...Franklin...Breust
FF: Gunston...Roughy...Burgoyne
I/C: Popeye...Lewis....Simpkin....Grimley

Unlucky: Savage as he could play Wing or HFF on recent form.

Simpkin vs Sewell for the grunt midfield spot
Duryea vs Goo for Back Pocket
Bailey vs Hale for No.1 Ruck spot
Lewis vs Osborne for the Defensive Forward position

 

[dipper86]

I think we also need to change the composition of the team we bring to the game.

We need another big defender down back. Gibson just isn't big enough for Pods and playing him there robs us off all his creativity as a 3rd tall back.

We can't play all of Hodge, Mitchell, Sewell and Lewis against their mob. They don't have one mid slower than these guys and it just exposes us too much. Lewis is the one to go on form, for mine.

We need more creativity up forward and speed to apply defensive pressure; and a bit more run and creativity down back. Offensive defenders like the way Bartel played are far less damaging if they think they are on a player who can kick goals. Guys like Lewis and Whitecross really don't cause that many concerns.

My team is therefore:

FF: Puopolo - Roughead - Osborne
HF: Breust - Franklin - Rioli
Ce: Hill - Hodge - Smith
HB: Birchall - Lake- Stratton
FB: Gibson - Spangher - Burgoyne

Ru: Bailey
RR: Shiels
Ro: Mitchell

I/C: Sewell, Savage, Whitecross and Gunston

Emerg: Hale, Lewis and Guerra

* Really, based on form between Lewis and Sewell, i'd say Sewell has been in worse form. Lewis now takes over the grunt work and leaves the run with roles for others.

* I like the idea of bringing in an extra tall in the backline. It allows Stratts to take Stevie J in the forward line and Gibbo the freedom to play 3rd tall.

* Rucks, I think we need one genuine ruck, so one of Hale or Bailey with second ruck options of Roughead and Grimely. Blicavs was basically an extra midfielder for Geelong. Grimely and Roughead are better suited.

* We need more of a defensive running aspect through our midfield one that consists of pace. Therefore i'd be bringing in Langford ASAP to learn his craft and gain experience, along with Shiels and Simpkin, I think the mix has potential.

My Team

FF: Puopolo - Roughead - Whitecross
HF: Breust - Franklin - Rioli
Ce: Hill - Lewis - Smith
HB: Birchall - Lake - Hodge
FB: Gibson - Spangher - Stratton

Rucks: Bailey, Shiels Mitchell

I/C: Langford, Simpkin, Grimely and Gunston

 

[blackhead&boil]

do less of option 1 and more of option 2...

 

[mickmaster]

Recruit pinchy Crowely because J Selwood the ducker destroys us.
Play an all small forward line because our bigs apply lube before all Geelong games.
Get Clarko to go down to the boundry and get someone else to coach on match day.
Bring in a shrink to fix our heads, which go to shit when we play the cats.
If that fails Kill Geoffrey.

 

[You talkin to me]

Small mobile forward line...Cyril. Gunston. Breust...buddy and rough to drag out Taylor and lonegan to outside 50.

How about playing bud and rough out of goal square and get Gunston to earn his money at Chf have 3 smalls and no rotations except mids and use abit of violence against there back half we have been too nice for too long bending down and letting them do what they want. All the pretty boys need roughing up

 

[Bark Maguley]

Beat them how you beat most other teams, confidently kick the ball into the forward 50 and take your opportunities. Do not shit yourself and DO NOT TURN IT OVER, they will kill you everytime.

 

[Bark Maguley]

My Team

FF: Puopolo - Roughead - Whitecross
HF: Breust - Franklin - Rioli
Ce: Hill - Lewis - Smith
HB: Birchall - Lake - Hodge
FB: Gibson - Spangher - Stratton


I/C: Langford, Simpkin, Grimely and Gunston[/quote]

You don't want a ruckman?!?? and rovers!?

you that desperate to beat em you try some next gen 15 men

 

[blackhead&boil]

yeah, looks like he left out a line...

 

[DrEvil]

Maybe kick straight for a change would help.

 

[blackhead&boil]

for a change? we are mostly an extremely accurate side when it comes to kicking for goal. today was another example of that. and we can't blame poor goal kicking as the reason why we lost since geelong was far more inaccurate than we were. we lost the match in general play...