What makes you think we didn't train it enough? I lean towards the culprit being mental weakness. No amount of shots at training is going to matter if your team is full of chokers.
Analysis Adelaide 2023 - #1 Scoring team - doesn't make finals - an AFL first?
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Said before the season began our front half was a flag winning offense. It's just some of the other cogs need to be sorted.
Scorpus
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Some of our players have poor set shot routines that don't involve running directly at the goals and kicking through the ball
That's a coaching issue
If you want to see examples of this watch our set shot behinds against Collingwood. Now there are some mentally weak shots and just unfortunate misses from good techniques. But there's a dozen shots across these games where we don't run at the goals or kick through the ball.
Some of it is very subtle. Soligo for example one shot flicked out slightly to the right then had to correct his kick at the last minute and sprayed it left. Pedlar on a number of occasions tries this weird ball launch action rather than a smooth run up and kick through. Rachele multiple times takes on the man on the mark and curves out left/right only to kick it there and miss. Thilthorpe also loves to run at the behinds. Laird very often stabs his set shots rather than kicking through.
There's a few especially infuriating shots from general play as well, eg Brodie Smith, who receive the ball in the clear then run directly at the behinds and kick it there.
These are technique issues that can be trained out. Players like Tex, Fogarty and even a guy like Jones have much better set shot actions that are smooth, direct and repeatable and they typically get results
SugarShane
C12 H22 O11
I don't really agree that being the number 1 scoring team means we can't improve our forward functions. We clearly lost a bunch of games with poor kicking.
A better defence would wallpaper our poor kicking somewhat, yes. But they're effectively the same thing. Kicking more goals achieves the same thing as allowing fewer. The end result is we score more than the opposition. Being the #1 scoring team in the comp isn't an excuse for being so inaccurate. Instead of scoring 13 points more than the next most high scoring team we could have scored 50 points more.
They say defence wins premierships, but they don't mention that 6 of the last 8 non-Covid premiers have kicked 15+ goals. And only 1 premier in the past 15 years has kicked more behinds than goals, which was West Coast in 2018.
A better defence would wallpaper our poor kicking somewhat, yes. But they're effectively the same thing. Kicking more goals achieves the same thing as allowing fewer. The end result is we score more than the opposition. Being the #1 scoring team in the comp isn't an excuse for being so inaccurate. Instead of scoring 13 points more than the next most high scoring team we could have scored 50 points more.
They say defence wins premierships, but they don't mention that 6 of the last 8 non-Covid premiers have kicked 15+ goals. And only 1 premier in the past 15 years has kicked more behinds than goals, which was West Coast in 2018.
MsTopG
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A strong Defence wins titles in all sports. A high powered defence will shut down a high powered offence in the championship game. Sure a strong offence will still allow you to kick a score but shutting down the oppo's offence better than they can shut down yours wins you the game.
What a terrible finals series. None of the teams look convincing, and the bottom half of the 8 look much worse than usual.
Luckily EPL is back up and running.
On SM-A325F using BigFooty.com mobile app
Luckily EPL is back up and running.
On SM-A325F using BigFooty.com mobile app
MsTopG
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Ange doing well. Spurs sitting in 3rd.
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Thing is it may only be a flag winning offense for another season. Tex could fall off the cliff quickly when it happens.
We will challenge next year imo.
Something I just noticed. Total scoring shots (goals + behinds, but includes rushed) below. Top 9 in clusters separated by just 1 or 2 points!
Bris - 600
Port - 599
Adl - 598
Geel - 558
CWD - 557
Syd - 555
Mel - 554
GWS - 548
Carl - 547
Bris - 600
Port - 599
Adl - 598
Geel - 558
CWD - 557
Syd - 555
Mel - 554
GWS - 548
Carl - 547
Gtowncrow
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Our leaking defence is a factor. But is it their fault alone. I wonder how AFC stacks up for inside 50 against? Are our one on one defenders behind others in the comp? Is the leakage from stoppages? Marks on the lead? Contested marks? Centre clearances? Free kicks against? Ruck losses which create one of the above? Plus however many different types of goal which can be measured.
I'd like to see more detail before blaming our "non premiership" defence.
Thoughts? It would be interesting to know some of these data points.
Golumless
A bigger deal out west.
Our leaking defense isn't a factor - it is the factor. We were 9th for points against in a spot that heavily rewards restricting the oppositions scores (history has it that if you're defense isn't stellar, you can kiss any premiership aspirations goodbye). It also stung us in the worst way as we lost four games where we scored more than 90. The difference between missing the finals and 5th.
That said, there really isn't a smoking gun in our differentials (well the publicly available ones) as to why. Clearances were in the early part of the season, but seemingly we cleaned that up. In part that might be due to us being a team who is quite willing to turn the game into a slog when we don't have the ball, with the highest tackles in the league. We've tended to be stronger at ball retention then the opposition seeing in team/opp rankings we were 2nd in disposals, and 2nd least turnovers at -2.4. We were 8th for goals conceded against inside 50s conceded at 0.23 goals per I50 and 12th for scoring shots conceded at 0.43 which gives a bit of an impression we tend to give up more difficult shots and protect the higher percentage parts of the ground better but both aren't crash hot. So, it might just be an age/experience thing for the most part, seeing we carry a lot of young defenders/midfielders alongside our kids getting better in one-on-one situations seeing most of our main lads tended to hover around a 25-30% loss rate, alongside just making more mistakes against good teams.
One quiet thing that's worth mentioning whilst I was digging through numbers, Milera really did turn into a gun defender this year. My dude boasted a 17.8% loss rate in contested one-on-ones, on top of elite score launches, above average intercepts and ground ball gets.
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MsTopG
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Max and Worrell will be stronger as well. Also another preseason into Keane and he could turn into a decent defender. Murray back mid year will really help too. A defence of Muzz, Keane, Worrell, Hinge, Michalanney, Milera, Jones/Smith, Nankervis is pretty good. Hinge really came in in leaps and bounds this year.
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