So what do we need to do to win a GF?

[Andre]

So we were shit today. Hell my kids nappies leave less rank smells then what I saw today. After today the players and coaches deserve all the scorn heaped on them.

However once that's done, what do we need to do to close the gap between us and Geelong?

1) I'd nominate for a start our young guys to get down to the gym ASAP. Our youngsters played like crap (Symes aside), but how much of that with them it often looked like men versus skinny boys? The Hoff is the most obvious one. Don't get me wrong, I think he's got a great footy brain and a big future, but during the H&A he could get away with being a stick, but come finals and the battering he took, he had almost zero impact.

2) Stop talking about being able to play against sides that apply the close checking pressure and learn to walk the walk. We get killed everytime by the Swans and Crows doing this during the H&A and got a lucky win over an injury hit West Coast then flogged today as our players wilted under close attention. Our speed and skill are great strengths, but finals showed once again they aren't enough. The stop and prop allowing sides to get numbers back and the reflex to handball sideways or backwards to guys under pressure instead of quickly moving it forward by foot killed us today and do against close checking over and over.

3) Devise some kick in routines that don't involve statically moving it around the boundary line 15 metres at a time, begging for a turnover to hurt us. I'm losing hair fast enough on my own, without having to pull it out in frustration at how many '11-point' turnarounds we have.

4) Following on from point 2, teach our players to use the corridor to move the ball quickly, even when players are manned up, up the ground. Practice set plays for breaking from their man for quick kicks forwards, rather then wanting to go wide to the wings. I got tired of seeing us go via the stands whilst Geelong owned the corridor. And it's again, seen against that style of play over and over.

Any others?

[Macca19]

1 - Bigger bodies. This is a necessity. Our kids have needed to put on a lot of extra muscle for years now. Its time they did. We also need to draft and develop 2-3 hard nut players in the Wilson/Hardwick/Carr mould. This is a must. We are too easily pushed off the ball all over the ground.

2 - A gun key forward. Tredrea is old and slowing down (despite his decent game today). Hoff will never be that player. We badly need a player that can play CHF.

3 - A vastly revised gameplan. No more kicks sideways. No more hospital handpasses in defence. No more leaving half the ground unmanned so teams can have 3-4-5-6 unmarked players on their own.

4 - Experience. Hopefully they will recover and learn from this and come out determined to wipe this from our memories next year.

[swampygezza]

1. Find a draft pick that has the height of a Pettigrew, runs like Pearce, and built likeHardwick / Carr. Add the guts and determination of Wilson and gets the ball like Rodan.

3. Get another number 1.

[Port_GW]

I think we should think about the fact that Geelong has basically worked 5 or so years for what they've achieved today. 5 years of moulding a quality football team, with great midfielders, an awesome defence and numerous forward options. I just think we need to give our young guys more experience and allow themto bulk up. Westhoff is a quality young player but hes been shown up a bit in finals, hes more of a forward pocket type player, we need to get some quality young key forwards into our team very soon.

[Bighol]

You Need to Get Rid of Tredrea old and slow

Stick with Westoff and find another young key forward.

And your coach should not make rash statements prior to huge games unless he has the amo to back up these statements this would go a huge way to making your lives much more enjoyable.

Thanks for the Great memories

"CATS 07"

[crazyman27]

Yea I agree, we need some bigger bodies around the footy. In the 2004 GF Hardwick was superb in the first quarter and set it up for us. We didn't have anybody like that today.

Have more faith in the forwards. We never wanted to get the ball moving quickly today and get it in long and fast. This gave our forwards no chance as they always had people sitting in front of them. Get it in long and fast, create a contest and give the crumbers something to work with.

Stop handballing to people under pressure. We did that so much today and it killed us. Almost as if the players were saying 'it's your problem now'.

Anyway bring on season 2008!

[Power King]

1. lock the team in a gym and throw away the key

2. break open the gym door and practice kick ins, off-the-ball pressure and corridor use

3. repeat 1 & 2

4. invest in a young kpp forward for life after tredrea (few yrs to go i know)

[PJ Power]

A hit of amnesia to wipe out the psychological scars left by today.

We must get some honest midfielders into the group. Strong bodied ones.

Our backline needs Thomas and Lower to come along over the next 2-3 years. Grew and Surjan were softer than butter today.

A big forward with real presence would help alot too. I can't see Westhoff ever developing the frame or strength to be a power forward.

Of our squad, I think Carlile, Lower, Thomas, Krakoeur and Gray are most likely to be regular members of our 22 in the longterm.

None of the rucks inspire me - at all.
Thomson has not improved anywhere near enough to deliver on the potential many of us saw in him. Needs more opportunities, but almost needs a Roger James type awakening of his deficiencies to become the player he could be.
Stewart looks like a dud pick, while Williams may be a slow developer.
Bentley has limitations and will be an honest goer, but can't see his skills cutting the mustard at AFL level.

[dyertribe]

2 - A gun key forward. Tredrea is old and slowing down (despite his decent game today). Hoff will never be that player. We badly need a player that can play CHF.

I don't disagree that a project type is badly needed - makes you sick that the reigning Premiers have one Tom Hawkins sitting on the shelf for the price of a third rounder - but as for the present, let's see how Tredders returns from his first full preseason since 2004/2005.

29 is twilight years for a CHF/FF, but by his own admission he's been moving like a dog this year and has been well off the pace for 2 years.

With no knee trouble/surgical recovery to worry about (fingers on oak, cedar and willow) I have no doubt we'll see a marked improvement from him in 2008 well beyond what he was able to achieve in fits and starts this year.

[greg62]

I think we can give the James Hird inspiration speech a miss next time for starters :o

[*PAF]

You Need to Get Rid of Tredrea old and slow
...
Tredrea is fine and all things considered he had a much better season than most would have considering he had no pre season.
Hell why don't we do what Richmond did with Rodan and get rid of him since he didn't come back from major knee surgery in less than one year. :rolleyes:

Yesterday we had no forwards at all and that is why we got creamed. I am expecting to find out there were injuries involved.

What do we need come 2008?
Easy, bigger bodies and two of Hardwick, Carr, Wilson and Pickett.
Personally I am more confident of 2009 than 2008, as in 2009 we will have a better balance of games played, wrt 50, 100 and 150 gamers.
Trade week, perhaps with Judd going to Melbourne it will give us a chance to get Wells.
Wells plus 2 big bodied tough/rough players and a ruckman or two.

:

[thebigboy]

Didnt you guys try to get Mark Johnson off us a couple of years ago?? His physical presence would have made a difference out there.

[*PAF]

Didnt you guys try to get Mark Johnson off us a couple of years ago?? His physical presence would have made a difference out there.
I think we did but you lot got rid of Solomon instead.

[Andre]

Didnt you guys try to get Mark Johnson off us a couple of years ago?? His physical presence would have made a difference out there.
Cue everyone trying to offload every quasi-toughman hack onto us as the solution to our problems :rolleyes:

We need CLASSY tough players, not a MJ or Shattock.

[Mr Magoo]

Need to get a lot better at

Contested football - it's no surprise when we played Brisbane in the 2004 grand final we were very good in this area... in fact i think thats one of the reasons we beat Brisbane that day
Skills - hitting a target by foot or hand (see above^).. especially under pressure
Tackling - need to improve quite a bit in this area as well

[timeless]

we need to get Mr T in his tank to come down to alberton, crush a few cars, and inform the boys of their need to "Get some Nuts"

[dbiz]

Stay in school, drink milk & dont do drugs

aside from Mr T hardening the team up we definitely need to work on disposal under pressure. The disposal against the eagles in the QF and the cats yesterday was absolutely shocking when the pressure was on. The players more or less passed to the player closest to them, they needed to lift their eyes and look for the smart option like they had done so often in the H&A season.

Stop handballing to people under pressure. We did that so much today and it killed us. Almost as if the players were saying 'it's your problem now'.

Exactly.

Looking forward to 2008 however:thumbsu:

[Power King]

Tredrea is fine and all things considered he had a much better season than most would have considering he had no pre season.
Hell why don't we do what Richmond did with Rodan and get rid of him since he didn't come back from major knee surgery in less than one year. :rolleyes:


^people are too stupid to realise this mate.

[dyertribe]

^people are too stupid to realise this mate.

I've said it before, but I reckon most of the criticism Tredders receives from outside is not only down to the fact noone realises just how serious his knee injury/surgery/recovery was (I heard one knob say he just had a 'cleanout'), but also his prior durability and hairline.

It seems like he's been around forever and he looks 'old'. At a guess I reckon most would figure him to be 30+ rather than 28 turning 29 and therefore say silly things like he should retire.

Daniel Harford on Fox Sports News even said "this looks like being Warren's last year".

Ridiculous.

[Porthos]

I've copped a few told-you-so's in my time on this board, particularly this year, so I'm going to have my moment if thats OK.

1) Protect the ball carrier. Yet again, Peter Burgoyne seemed to be the only player we'd bother shepherding for. Every time someone else had the ball, the guy who gave it to him denied all responsibility for the ongoing security of the play. He'd tail off and let the ballcarrier run into a maul, or he'd run behind him and hope for a bullshit 2 metre handpass...and then find his teammate was tailing off and that he was the one now running into a maul.

We could've won yesterday if the importance of ball-carrier protection had been stressed at training, and employed on the rebound. Last week against the Roos it was almost completely absent because it was such an easy game, and the determination to follow up such physical play (and be so selfless) is hard to conjure after you've just lived a footballer's wet dream.

2) Small marking forwards get exposed in big finals. Remember Phinals Phil Matera. Now look at how tough Ebert found it with no space to run around in and with less than sterling midfield delivery. He can't bust packs open, he can't outmark fullbacks, he is genetically disadvantaged as a forward. Thats just fact, and I dunno what we're going to do about it.

3) Recruiting. We've known since Lockwood around 2000 gave up that we needed to work on getting another quality big forward. We've known since Wilbur first did his knee, and then again when Hardwick retired, and then when Wanganeen retired, that we need to work on getting accountable small defenders. We've got Surjan doing his best, and don't trust anyone else enough other that Wilson.

If we have another Western Bulldogs type draft this year (all pacy midfielders or scrawny talls), given our neglect of recruiting hard nuts and big tall forwards in the past five years, we will be ****ed as a club, and wandering down the road towards becoming a Terry Wallace side. Fact.


Yesterday reminded us all that if we are going to win another premiership, we will once again need to be good enough to have our 18 men beat 21 men on any given day. We've got a lot of holes that need to be filled before Choco can make a serious run at that objective.

[TheFridge]

If we have another Western Bulldogs type draft this year (all pacy midfielders or scrawny talls), given our neglect of recruiting hard nuts and big tall forwards in the past five years, we will be ****ed as a club, and wandering down the road towards becoming a Terry Wallace side. Fact.

Agree with your post, Porthos - particularly your extremely valid point about protecting the ball carrier.

To be fair, we have attempted to recruit a few big tall forwards - having had a play at Pavlich on a couple of occasions, along with the seemingly unsuccessful recruitment of Willits. Was perplexed with the lack of a KPP selected early last year, but have been very impressed with Boak's and Krakouer's first years (haven't seen anything of Stewart to comment). However, the dilemma is how to find a genuine strong KPP forward gem with only a late first rounder.... Hopefully, our recruiting team can weave some magic there, or we can sort successfully through another teams left overs? (Remembering the effort Geelong have invested in Cam Mooney).

To win a flag, you cannot be manhandled so easily and have so many missed tackles - we must work hard on improving player strength across the ground and in our efforts to use that strength (tackling and shepherding). And yes, improve our forward KPP strength and structure.

[Boy from the West]

IMHO you blokes are a year or 2 ahead of where everyone thought you would be.

The young blokes will get stronger in time but they have already shown they can play and while the flogging in the GF will hurt, it will always serve as motivation.

I reckon you blokes are in for 4-5 good years and possibly another flag in that time.

[Ford Fairlane]

I think everything's been covered here. The two that rang in my head after the game :

1) Never play the kangaroos in the finals - if the curse doesn't hit us straight away, it kicks in the next week

2) Never, ever mention our pace advantage over a side again (particularly Geelong who seem to take it very personally, and more than once).

[PJ Power]

I think everything's been covered here. The two that rang in my head after the game :

1) Never play the kangaroos in the finals - if the curse doesn't hit us straight away, it kicks in the next week

2) Never, ever mention our pace advantage over a side again (particularly Geelong who seem to take it very personally, and more than once).

You've got a good memory Ford.
My lasting memory of Phil Walsh, as I've posted before, is of him cheekily telling a prematch media conference in about 1999 that we had too much pace for the Cats who we were about to play in round 4 at Aami. His words were something like......"we know what Geelong don't have and we do....legspeed". We lost that game by a big margin having started the season off with three wins prior to that match.

Also agree with the Kangas and finals omens. Two big wins against the Kangas in our last 2 finals campaigns have been followed by the club's most embarrassing 2 losses at AFL level.

[Todnb]

"......there's history here in the making....''[/I]. There sure was history made, 119 points. That performance bordered on abuse - abuse of football followers watching it.

[*PAF]

"......there's history here in the making....''[/I]. There sure was history made, 119 points. That performance bordered on abuse - abuse of football followers watching it.
I think you should stop abusing young Johnny. ;)

[Forzaport]

Just got back from melbourne so i thought i'd put my 2 cents in. I agree with most of porthos said. Simple hey. And to Ford, yes i never want our team to meet the roos in a final ever again - either way it ends in pain.

Watching the game live the only thing that kept on coming up again and again is how far behind geelong we are - development wise, not on the scoreboard!

I felt like we were a team at the GF 2-4 years sooner than we should've been - if nothing else, we did a fantastic job of getting to the GF but we were always prone to being exposed. Geelong has a plethora of players in the prime of their careers, we don't and we paid for it.


At least the cats fans in melbourne we gracious in victory (well most of them anyway)

[Mr Magoo]

You could have 22 guys out there who are built like Hercules but unless these same players are able to withstand/absorb all kinds of pressure (particularly when we have the ball) & also be willing to to apply it as well then it's a lost cause. Decision making under pressure is another area i would be looking at as well.

As someone here has already mentioned that we generally struggle when we play the Swans & crows ... why is that? because they apply pressure all over the ground but especially on who ever has the ball. Look at Collingwood as an example they don't have huge guys running around the ground but they do apply pressure when they don't have the ball which is why they don;t generally get smashed on the scoreboard.

[Malibu#27]

Apaprently Robert Walls think Cornes should play at CHF.

Abuse of Robert Walls aside, he may well have a point. Would we prefer Chad to have 20 per game at CHF, or 30ish roaming the ground ... noting theres nothing stopping him being thrown on the ball in bursts.

I could live with that move - hes not playing CHB anymore, so effectivly we are replacing an onballer - get ourselves a strong bodied onballer to play Chads role and use him at either end.