Black Thunder
8 Sep 2003, 01:33
Allright, we've all talked about the merits of trading for Hay, and how we should also look at getting a tall marking forward, but let's just assume, we make no changes to our list, aside from end of year retirements/delistings and draft picks coming in to take their spots.
Where else do we have to improve.
It's all well and good to trade for guys, but the guys we have got still need to improve.
We have heaps of talent, but we are still abit raw and rough around the edges, and in particular there are some areas we need to work on.
1 - Defence From Kick Ins - why o why o ****ING WHY!!!!!!! do we allow the opposition to constantly take marks around 20-30 metres from goals with no Eagle man within 15 metres of him. Fair enough it's gonna happen every now on than, but I'd reckon of 75% of the kick ins taken against us, particularly over the past 2 months, this situation has occured. It is close to the most frustrating thing I've ever seen.
I understand some clubs allow the opposition to do this, because it corners them into one pocket with only one way to go, but even then, they usually find another target 20-30 metres from the guy who takes the first mark, and they have gone outside their defensive 50 with minimal pressure.
THIS MUST BE CHANGED IN 2004. We need to zone off better from the kick ins. When we looked good, opposition teams found it hard to kick in, I.e. last quarter v Freo, but this happened few and far between.
2 - Handling at Ground Level - This is just a general skill error, and perhaps this can be rectified during the next pre-season by doing more wet ground work. But a lot of the time this year, we overran the ball on the ground (Cousins topped the league in Handling errors), and aside from Cousins, the other main culprit for mine was Adam Hunter, and Kasey Green. Obviousbly, we can't have 22 Chris Judd's, but if we could just minimalize the amount of times we overrun the ball or spill it when it's to be picked up, we'd be a much better team. I reckon we would've conceed more goals coming from the opposition taking advantage of a handling error than any other team in the comp. Not sure about that, but I reckon it would be close to correct.
3 - Break some Bones!!!! - We need to start showing a willingness to break bones. Unfortunately we don't have any big guys who are renowned for this type of play, and with only really Chick and Hunter our providing a real physical presence, we are definetaly not what you would call a "hard" team.
I wouldn't call us soft, but we are not a team that physically intimadates other teams, and Port took advantage of that. Most teams of recent years that win comps, have been very tough physical teams - Port I don't think will win it this year, but have been the best team and are very physical (as we found out), Brisbane over the past two years have belted opponents, as did Essendon the year before. The Kangaroos had guys like Glen Archer, Anthony Stevens, Mick Martyn, Shannon Grant, Byron Pickett and co. who were very willing to throw themselves at anything with a pulse.
4 - Accountability - In the midfield, we look great when thing are going well, but when the chips are down, we aren't exactly all that willing to get back and help out down back. For all his greatness, Chris Judd is very weak in this area, but at 19 it's very hard to be good at everything, so hopefully this area will come with time. The one thing about Judd though is that he is super quick with the ball in hand, but he often seems to just dawdle behind an opponent and let the opponent get an easy kick. Once again, will hopefully come with time, but something he does need to learn to do is chase.
5 - Movement into the forward line - We aren't exactly the most skilled team by foot, so it bemuses me why we are trying to spot guys on a lead. How many times did Phil Matera actually take a mark on the lead this year - very few, a combination of him not being strong overhead, and us not having the mos reliable foot skills.
The only reason Haynes took so many marks on the lead, particularly ealier in the year, was because he is so quick for a FF, hence he was 10-15 yards in front of his opponent a lot of the time, which makes it much easier to hit him with no trobules.
But generally, hitting a forward on a lead require a pretty spot on kick, something which we just can't do with regularity - we can, and we will improve, but our forward line needs to become much more open if we're gonna continue to find guys like Matera and Haynes and McDougall on a lead.........
The option is to just get the ball into the hot spot, bring it to ground, and look for guys like Sampi and Matera and co. to do their stuff. This, however, is EXTREMELY unreliable tactic.
Basically, we just need to open up the forward line a lot, because if our forwards can lead a long way up the field, and have lots of space around them, we don't have to be pin point with the kicks.
6 - Being killed by individuals - we seem to have a common trend of being beaten by an individual. This is a hard one to explain, but it does seem to me that a lot of the times, we'll be able to draw even or win 18-19 of the 22 contests on the park, but there will be 3 or 4 we were are just killed and this costs us the game.......McLeod in Round 4, Rawlings Round 2, Pavlich and Haselby Round 22, and over the years Brodie Holland (grrrr....), Paul Williams, and quite a few others seem to have absolutely murdered us at some point........
Fair enough we're not gonna win all 22 contents, but if you can just try and minimize your losses, it will go a long way to winning a game.
A bit hard to explain, but basically, I reckon this comes down to assigning the right match ups.
Thoughts?? Any other Areas??
Where else do we have to improve.
It's all well and good to trade for guys, but the guys we have got still need to improve.
We have heaps of talent, but we are still abit raw and rough around the edges, and in particular there are some areas we need to work on.
1 - Defence From Kick Ins - why o why o ****ING WHY!!!!!!! do we allow the opposition to constantly take marks around 20-30 metres from goals with no Eagle man within 15 metres of him. Fair enough it's gonna happen every now on than, but I'd reckon of 75% of the kick ins taken against us, particularly over the past 2 months, this situation has occured. It is close to the most frustrating thing I've ever seen.
I understand some clubs allow the opposition to do this, because it corners them into one pocket with only one way to go, but even then, they usually find another target 20-30 metres from the guy who takes the first mark, and they have gone outside their defensive 50 with minimal pressure.
THIS MUST BE CHANGED IN 2004. We need to zone off better from the kick ins. When we looked good, opposition teams found it hard to kick in, I.e. last quarter v Freo, but this happened few and far between.
2 - Handling at Ground Level - This is just a general skill error, and perhaps this can be rectified during the next pre-season by doing more wet ground work. But a lot of the time this year, we overran the ball on the ground (Cousins topped the league in Handling errors), and aside from Cousins, the other main culprit for mine was Adam Hunter, and Kasey Green. Obviousbly, we can't have 22 Chris Judd's, but if we could just minimalize the amount of times we overrun the ball or spill it when it's to be picked up, we'd be a much better team. I reckon we would've conceed more goals coming from the opposition taking advantage of a handling error than any other team in the comp. Not sure about that, but I reckon it would be close to correct.
3 - Break some Bones!!!! - We need to start showing a willingness to break bones. Unfortunately we don't have any big guys who are renowned for this type of play, and with only really Chick and Hunter our providing a real physical presence, we are definetaly not what you would call a "hard" team.
I wouldn't call us soft, but we are not a team that physically intimadates other teams, and Port took advantage of that. Most teams of recent years that win comps, have been very tough physical teams - Port I don't think will win it this year, but have been the best team and are very physical (as we found out), Brisbane over the past two years have belted opponents, as did Essendon the year before. The Kangaroos had guys like Glen Archer, Anthony Stevens, Mick Martyn, Shannon Grant, Byron Pickett and co. who were very willing to throw themselves at anything with a pulse.
4 - Accountability - In the midfield, we look great when thing are going well, but when the chips are down, we aren't exactly all that willing to get back and help out down back. For all his greatness, Chris Judd is very weak in this area, but at 19 it's very hard to be good at everything, so hopefully this area will come with time. The one thing about Judd though is that he is super quick with the ball in hand, but he often seems to just dawdle behind an opponent and let the opponent get an easy kick. Once again, will hopefully come with time, but something he does need to learn to do is chase.
5 - Movement into the forward line - We aren't exactly the most skilled team by foot, so it bemuses me why we are trying to spot guys on a lead. How many times did Phil Matera actually take a mark on the lead this year - very few, a combination of him not being strong overhead, and us not having the mos reliable foot skills.
The only reason Haynes took so many marks on the lead, particularly ealier in the year, was because he is so quick for a FF, hence he was 10-15 yards in front of his opponent a lot of the time, which makes it much easier to hit him with no trobules.
But generally, hitting a forward on a lead require a pretty spot on kick, something which we just can't do with regularity - we can, and we will improve, but our forward line needs to become much more open if we're gonna continue to find guys like Matera and Haynes and McDougall on a lead.........
The option is to just get the ball into the hot spot, bring it to ground, and look for guys like Sampi and Matera and co. to do their stuff. This, however, is EXTREMELY unreliable tactic.
Basically, we just need to open up the forward line a lot, because if our forwards can lead a long way up the field, and have lots of space around them, we don't have to be pin point with the kicks.
6 - Being killed by individuals - we seem to have a common trend of being beaten by an individual. This is a hard one to explain, but it does seem to me that a lot of the times, we'll be able to draw even or win 18-19 of the 22 contests on the park, but there will be 3 or 4 we were are just killed and this costs us the game.......McLeod in Round 4, Rawlings Round 2, Pavlich and Haselby Round 22, and over the years Brodie Holland (grrrr....), Paul Williams, and quite a few others seem to have absolutely murdered us at some point........
Fair enough we're not gonna win all 22 contents, but if you can just try and minimize your losses, it will go a long way to winning a game.
A bit hard to explain, but basically, I reckon this comes down to assigning the right match ups.
Thoughts?? Any other Areas??