We can't handle being the hunted

[Bigeasy]

I've been looking at our results this year and to me it's obvious we can't handle it when a team focusses on our strengths like running the ball out of defence for example.

I staggered that against the best teams we can get our game going from the backline where the better teams focus more on their games leaving us to implement our game plan without too much hinderence. When we played Brisbane, Carlton and Gold Coast for example they targeted our own run from behind ball and hence we struggled.

To me the players look lost when some players don't have a set job to do and that causes our structure to break down or maybe that's being too simplistic.

Interested in what others think?

 

[Donkey Chop]

Yeah agree 100%. I posted something similar in the what went wrong thread

 

[scooby1279]

I've been looking at our results this year and to me it's obvious we can't handle it when a team focusses on our strengths like running the ball out of defence for example.

I staggered that against the best teams we can get our game going from the backline where the better teams focus more on their games leaving us to implement our game plan without too much hinderence. When we played Brisbane, Carlton and Gold Coast for example they targeted our own run from behind ball and hence we struggled.

To me the players look lost when some players don't have a set job to do and that causes our structure to break down or maybe that's being too simplistic.

Interested in what others think?

yep when a team takes possession of the ball and continually switches the ball we have no idea what to do. Mark Murphy mentioned that the plan was to continually switch the ball against us. This again comes down to no plan B.

 

[justroyal]

Bingo. I've said it since round 1. Keep possession and play kick to kick around us. Game over

 

[Only Forwards]

I've been looking at our results this year and to me it's obvious we can't handle it when a team focusses on our strengths like running the ball out of defence for example.

I staggered that against the best teams we can get our game going from the backline where the better teams focus more on their games leaving us to implement our game plan without too much hinderence. When we played Brisbane, Carlton and Gold Coast for example they targeted our own run from behind ball and hence we struggled.

To me the players look lost when some players don't have a set job to do and that causes our structure to break down or maybe that's being too simplistic.

Interested in what others think?

It feeds the no plan B to go to notion.

We have consistently been unable to arrest momentum when it has swung hard in the other direction.

The 7 goals to 1 quarters that we have had consistently throughout the season seem to point to the idea that we do not have a set position to go to.

We have some contested ball beasts. Perhaps we need to be able to click into win ugly mode for some of a game?

What is certain is I am tired of outside runners being able to get hold of us with out us knowing to go to them and shut them down.

There shouldn't need to be an instruction from the coaches box, if a guy is starting to tear us apart go to him and take him out of the game.

I fear round 22 and us allowing Kerridge to run free and embarass us again.

 

[tazaa]

Can just imagine Chris Scott in the rooms next Saturday night.

Okay boys what are we? s**t!
Who we gonna play like? CARLTON!
What are North Melbourne? BETTER!
Lets go out there and play like a bottom 4 club. Get out there you duds!!!!

 

[muttley45]

yep when a team takes possession of the ball and continually switches the ball we have no idea what to do. Mark Murphy mentioned that the plan was to continually switch the ball against us. This again comes down to no plan B.

Surely the answer to the constant switch is to play man on man/ tackle, and abandon the zone/corrall ploy, is it this simple ??

 

[Horace]

I think there is some merit in your suggestion Bigeasy, however I also think that maybe we are all guilty of overrating our team and also the depth of our team. I think the wins against Port, Sydney, Freo and Hawthorn, have all created a better impression of how good our list is, than is the reality.

We beat Port in round 3 and while I cant think of any notable absences from their side, I think we lined up pretty well with them at that early stage of the season. A couple of recent injuries at Port have provided a better idea of where they are, in particular, like us they do not have the same depth to cover injuries to key players.

The Sydney we played and beat comprehensively is nothing like the Sydney now. Absent were Reid, Goodes, Tippett while Buddy was really just feeling his way and Hannebery and O'Keeffe (since unable to get back in) were way down on form. I suspect a lot of other sides of lesser quality would have also liked to have met Sydney at that time of the year.

Against Freo the notable absentee was Ballantyne. Leaving aside last years poor effort in the GF, more and more his impact on Freo's performances are becoming evident. He provides a spark that few other players can provide and they rarely lose when he is on fire. Love him or hate him he is terrific for Freo when he is up and about.

Perhaps our best win of the four was against Hawthorn, but they also were without Rioli, Gibson, lost Sewell early and Lake played a shocker. We also just had to come out firing because of the previous losing game against Brisbane.

This year we have been able to get ourselves up better against better credentialed teams but I don't think we are good enough to maintain that every week, irrespective of how good the opposition is, especially when we lose some of our better players and our depth is not there to replace them. Very good teams however are able to get themselves up just about every week.

We are not a "very good" team. We are in my view in the words of the late great "Captain Blood" Jack Dyer a "good ordinary" team. "Good ordinary" teams are maybe just above middle of the table and that is where we are going to finish this year.

(Actually what we lack is a player like Captain Blood. Now there was a wonderful footballer; in his prime he'd turn us around.)

 

[King Corey]

Our list only contains a Hunter so it's understandable.

 

[scooby1279]

Surely the answer to the constant switch is to play man on man/ tackle, and abandon the zone/corrall ploy, is it this simple ??

you would think it is that easy but we have too many players who zone off there man and let them take the short kicks. So many times i saw about 3-4 north players running towards carlton backline but not actually doing anything, they all seemed to run to grass.

 

[roos_fanatic08]

It seems that mentally, we get ourselves for big games, and against the minnows we just expect it to happen.

In all our poor losses we could see from an early stage that we hadn't shown up to play. Players not going in hard, fumbling, overrunning the footy and not running Defensively are the most noticeable traits that are shown in our crap games. All of a sudden there is a bit of pressure and we go into our shells, teams chip it around and gain uncontested footy at nauseum. Our significant drop in intensity means we don't work hard enough to cause a turnover.

There are a number of things that contribute to this I feel:

-lack of leadership...all our leaders while good footballers are not those who pick up a footy team and take them to the next level. Ziebell and McDonald have these qualities but Ziebell has seemingly lost his ability to play football and McDonald is too young.

-Continual playing of inconsistent players. If I'm an AFL player who isn't the hardest footballer, what happens when it's my turn to go and I don't go? In our world...Nothing. Nothing happens. No one gets dragged, or dropped. All it does is set a standard of mediocrity an it is a stink that has been evident for the last three years (before that development was integral so I didn't mind continually playing younger players). The fact that Adams, Bastinac, Black and a number of other haven't been dropped is indicative of Scott's mantra "to back the players" well * me why do you continually back the players when they are consistently inconsistent. Every single player at this club knows they can have a bad month of footy (even more) and not get dropped, that sort of s**t builds mediocrity.

- Game Day Coach: When games are slipping away Scott literally does nothing. Forward line not functioning, So? Midfielders not accountable, So? Defenders getting creamed by their direct opponents, So? Play Thomas in the midfield, send Petrie to CHB, Play Atley in the guts. Send boomer
To FF. Do something.

The worst thing is is that this tripe will continue to happen until there is changes at the helm or changes in Scott's mentality.

 

[Only Forwards]

I think there is some merit in your suggestion Bigeasy, however I also think that maybe we are all guilty of overrating our team and also the depth of our team. I think the wins against Port, Sydney, Freo and Hawthorn, have all created a better impression of how good our list is, than is the reality.

We beat Port in round 3 and while I cant think of any notable absences from their side, I think we lined up pretty well with them at that early stage of the season. A couple of recent injuries at Port have provided a better idea of where they are, in particular, like us they do not have the same depth to cover injuries to key players.

The Sydney we played and beat comprehensively is nothing like the Sydney now. Absent were Reid, Goodes, Tippett while Buddy was really just feeling his way and Hannebery and O'Keeffe (since unable to get back in) were way down on form. I suspect a lot of other sides of lesser quality would have also liked to have met Sydney at that time of the year.

Against Freo the notable absentee was Ballantyne. Leaving aside last years poor effort in the GF, more and more his impact on Freo's performances are becoming evident. He provides a spark that few other players can provide and they rarely lose when he is on fire. Love him or hate him he is terrific for Freo when he is up and about.

Perhaps our best win of the four was against Hawthorn, but they also were without Rioli, Gibson, lost Sewell early and Lake played a shocker. We also just had to come out firing because of the previous losing game against Brisbane.

This year we have been able to get ourselves up better against better credentialed teams but I don't think we are good enough to maintain that every week, irrespective of how good the opposition is, especially when we lose some of our better players and our depth is not there to replace them. Very good teams however are able to get themselves up just about every week.

We are not a "very good" team. We are in my view in the words of the late great "Captain Blood" Jack Dyer a "good ordinary" team. "Good ordinary" teams are maybe just above middle of the table and that is where we are going to finish this year.

(Actually what we lack is a player like Captain Blood. Now there was a wonderful footballer; in his prime he'd turn us around.)

I struggle with us being able to put out really good performances against quality opposition and then backing it up with s**t performances against s**t sides.

I think we are somewhere between good ordinary team and very good team.

I think we are a good team. One that if it sorted its s**t out could easily become a very good team.

The difference between a good team and a very good team is taking the opportunities that present themselves.

This team is no good at that. We were last year in so many game the opportunity to win was there and we couldn't. This year the opportunity to finish incredibly high despite just being a good team was there and we shat on the opportunity every time it has arisen.

In the 90's we weren't a team of greats. We had some magnificent players. Carey, McKernan, Stevens these blokes were wonderful players. but they were backed up with a team of hard bastards. We could hang our hat on that. Hard and the man hard at the ball.

It needs to return. We need teams to know that you allow us to play our way and we are going to beat you. You deny us the ability to play our way and we are going to hurt you every time you go near the ball.

I want more emotion from the coach in these instances.

What would the difference have been if Brad came to the bench after quarter time? you think Carlton would have been able to walk through tackles? that there would have been some much uncontested rubbish?

Our players don't change tact when its not going our way, the coaches don't either.

 

[Only Forwards]

It seems that mentally, we get ourselves for big games, and against the minnows we just expect it to happen.

In all our poor losses we could see from an early stage that we hadn't shown up to play.

Do something.

We are weak mentally.

We telegraph when we are not on,

We fail to adjust to the intensity of the opposition.

We do basically nothing.

Brad says bitterly disappointed a lot.

Rinse and repeat.

The question I have is how disappointed is Brad going to be when we lose to Adelaide again with Kerridge kick 6.

 

[Horace]

I struggle with us being able to put out really good performances against quality opposition and then backing it up with s**t performances against s**t sides.

I think we are somewhere between good ordinary team and very good team.

I think we are a good team. One that if it sorted its s**t out could easily become a very good team.

The difference between a good team and a very good team is taking the opportunities that present themselves.

This team is no good at that. We were last year in so many game the opportunity to win was there and we couldn't. This year the opportunity to finish incredibly high despite just being a good team was there and we shat on the opportunity every time it has arisen.

In the 90's we weren't a team of greats. We had some magnificent players. Carey, McKernan, Stevens these blokes were wonderful players. but they were backed up with a team of hard bastards. We could hang our hat on that. Hard and the man hard at the ball.

It needs to return. We needs teams to know that you allow us to play our way and we are going to beat you. You deny us the ability to play our way and we are going to hurt you every time you go near the ball.

I want more emotion from the coach in these instances.

What would the difference have been if Brad came to the bench after quarter time? you think Carlton would have been able to walk through tackles? that there would have been some much uncontested rubbish?

Our players don't change tact when its not going our way, the coaches don't either.

Carey and Stevens and the incomparable Glenn Archer are precisely the types of player we do not have. Put Wayne Carey into our current side and everyone else would walk taller and play tougher. Carey alone would lift substantially the average level of ability of our side. I'm tipping that if we had Wayne Carey now at the top of his supreme powers, we would be top 4 now.

Those sorts of blokes do not "grow on apple trees". We have some very good footballers but we don't have anyone in that category, nor do many clubs have that calibre of player. And we have been unable to obtain them because to do that nowadays you have to get very early first round picks in the draft.

Boomer is still our best player and he started almost before I started watching football almost 93 years ago. That speaks volumes and also in my view backs up my claim to us being a "good ordinary" side.

While Nicky Dal has added some polish and has been very good for us, the bloke I would have liked us to have recruited from St. Kilda is Brendan Goddard. We should have gone hard on him at the end of 2012 because he is a leader and demands better from others around him. He along with Lenny Hayes were brilliant in the 2010 drawn GF, almost pulling off a win for the Saints that day and he is now leading the way at *essendon.

 

[hilly]

Against Freo the notable absentee was Ballantyne. Leaving aside last years poor effort in the GF, more and more his impact on Freo's performances are becoming evident. He provides a spark that few other players can provide and they rarely lose when he is on fire. Love him or hate him he is terrific for Freo when he is up and about.

Give me a spell mate, we had plenty out that night.

 

[royals1922]

I've been looking at our results this year and to me it's obvious we can't handle it when a team focusses on our strengths like running the ball out of defence for example.

I staggered that against the best teams we can get our game going from the backline where the better teams focus more on their games leaving us to implement our game plan without too much hinderence. When we played Brisbane, Carlton and Gold Coast for example they targeted our own run from behind ball and hence we struggled.

To me the players look lost when some players don't have a set job to do and that causes our structure to break down or maybe that's being too simplistic.

Interested in what others think?

Or in other words, we have the spine of a jellyfish.

 

[Jimms]

Carey and Stevens and the incomparable Glenn Archer are precisely the types of player we do not have. Put Wayne Carey into our current side and everyone else would walk taller and play tougher. Carey alone would lift substantially the average level of ability of our side. I'm tipping that if we had Wayne Carey now at the top of his supreme powers, we would be top 4 now.

I don't think there's any evidence to support that if we had the best player of all time, playing for us right now, at his very best, that we would improve.

 

[Hearts to hearts]

I don't think there's any evidence to support that if we had the best player of all time, playing for us right now, at his very best, that we would improve.

I think it would be fair to assume that any side with arguably the best player ever in the game added to it would improve.

But I thought the original point was not that this side needs a Carey - they are once in a lifetime, if you are lucky - but that it needs a Blakey, a Rock, a Scholl, a Bell, a Fairley, a Martyn. All those guys who weren't the best ever but absolutely busted a gut for each other and contributed as much as they could to what the team was trying to do. They hunted every team, every opponent, every week (I know they can't have, because they wouldn't have lost as often as they did, but they did it more often than not).

 

[Only Forwards]

Carey would play High Half forward or in the midfield now.

Playing at CHF he'd give away height and weight every week.

McKernan would get eaten in the ruck most weeks.

 

[Orange Peanut]

Paul Roos's famous "1 metre" theory about North was never more obviously true than on Friday. Probably the thing that's shitted me the most if I'm honest.

 

[tazaa]

Paul Roos's famous "1 metre" theory about North was never more obviously true than on Friday. Probably the thing that's shitted me the most if I'm honest.

I was gonna mention that but I hate justifying Paul Roos as right.

 

[Orange Peanut]

I was gonna mention that but I hate justifying Paul Roos as right.

I've been washing my fingers with antibacterial soap ever since I wrote it.

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

No accountability.

That's what it comes down to.

Also, we play very 'arrogant' football. We refuse to close down space and just expect an opposition turnover rather than creating one.

 

[nicko74]

Carey would play High Half forward or in the midfield now.

Playing at CHF he'd give away height and weight every week.
McKernan is the exact type of player we need now. Can play forward and swing Into the ruck when required. He was a jet





McKernan would get eaten in the ruck most weeks.

 

[Thewlis Dish]

I've never seen any team concede as much uncontested ball up the wings as we do. As soon as an opponent takes a mark on a back flank it's basically a scoring opportunity.