Analysis What happened after the Adelaide game?

[Bunk Moreland]

It’s genuinely one of the biggest in-season form drop-offs I’ve ever seen.

We were 9-7, competitive against almost all teams, generally playing very honest footy and Scott was being lauded as bringing accountability etc back to the club.

We were disgusting that night against Geelong and, perhaps the Sydney game aside, have been every week.

The performance against West Coast was the equivalent of a 100 point loss, which is what the Eagles are losing by every second week.

Today was a 126 point loss.

The North game probably the equivalent of a 10 goal loss.

Over the past six weeks we are at West Coast / North levels of competitiveness.

It’s like a switch was flicked. It was instant.

WTF?

 

[frodos gardener]

Did it roughly coincide with Peter Wright’s return? I feel like the team started playing differently from that point, and the midfield/forwards stopped working to present a short option in place of bombing long.

 

[Yoda_]

what were in 2014 or something? we were like 10 - 2 or something and lost 9 of our last 12.. can't remember but it was around that part that we dropped dramatically

 

[Vander18]

Yep - said the other week that they looked like they are playing in the middle of a huge training load but that I don’t imagine they are.

Biggest thing for me - we brought constant, strong frontal pressure through that first part of the season, it’s disappeared.

No idea what happened….but I suspect it’s orchestrated.

 

[IggypopsTshirt]

No club gets ahead of itself quicker than Essendon. Most weeks after an okay win the lads jog around like millionaires with a gut full of their own bath water. I believe that comes down to a long term acceptance of poor standards so a deviation to the positive means our boys are quick to rest on their laurels and of course the output drops back to what we know and accept; mediocre. So what happened after the Crows game? We returned to our baseline, the success was the outlier. The culture that creates these performance patterns is so ingrained in us now it’s our DNA, it’s who we are. We are mediocre; we are Essendon.

 

[Shanghaistu]

How about just abysmal levels of fitness (Saga-aftermath, other reasons….?)

 

[BomberManU]

Yep - said the other week that they looked like they are playing in the middle of a huge training load but that I don’t imagine they are.

Biggest thing for me - we brought constant, strong frontal pressure through that first part of the season, it’s disappeared.

No idea what happened….but I suspect it’s orchestrated.

'Orchestrated'??

 

[Vander18]

'Orchestrated'??

I think what’s happening is happening because Scott/Vozzo want it to happen.

 

[BomberManU]

I think what’s happening is happening because Scott/Vozzo want it to happen.

Whilst it's hard to believe how bad we've been lately, that's a massive stretch/wishful thinking. More likely Scott lost the players, for some reason.

 

[Old Campaigner]

I think Scott has mentioned they're still doing quite a bit of training in the back half of the season where most other clubs are carefully managing workloads.

If that's the case I assume he knows what he's doing, if nothing else it's probably as good a away to tank for picks as any, and if it speeds up the development of the list then that's good too.

 

[mike14]

Go back further, since round 10 and the thriller against the Tiges (which honestly wasn't a great display of footy despite the exciting finish):
Rnd 11 - WCE, workman like win
12 - Nth, yuck win
13 - Carl, good win
14 - Bye
15 - Freo, we didn't look good
16 - PA, 'honorable loss'
17 - Adel, good win
18 - Cats, urgh
19 - Dogs, as above
20 - Swans, 'honorable loss'
21 - WCE, yuck win
22 - Nth. yuck win
23 - GWS, lol

That's half a season of pretty average football. 6 wins, mainly due to having 4 games against the worst 2 teams in the comp, and not man what you'd consider ' commanding' performances. The Port loss and the 1st half against the Crows are about the best footy we played in that period.

So how important are a fit Shiel and Setterfield to this team? Both went down in round 9, and then we also lost Draper from the bye. Do they provide the size and strength that we need through the middle of the ground and pushing forward to really compete?

 

[ant555]

Have said it a few times over the last 4 weeks.
Started the year playing a short kicking game with players finding space in the opposition zone as they where playing a full field zone.
We still have a real issue with not being able to take a contested mark in front of the footy. First half of the the year it was not as big an issue as Jones was still leading up and getting to contests even though he was not marking them and we where reading the crumb and playing on inside. Weideman was also taking marks early in the year on the lead and presenting but his form fell off the cliff.
Sides started to pick up we would only mark 2 in 20 kicks down the line and the lead up players had dropped off so they started to zone the midfield or play man on man to cut off our short kicking game. Once the short leads dried up we had to take kicks with more risk that result in more midfield turnover or we had to just kick down the line to contests we do not win. The more the year has gone on the worse we have been at leading up at the footy.
Our one trick was exposed. We do not have the players on the list to make a plan B work. Even our midfielders struggle to take marks against opposition midfielders. We where basically worked out.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

I think Scott has mentioned they're still doing quite a bit of training in the back half of the season where most other clubs are carefully managing workloads.

If that's the case I assume he knows what he's doing, if nothing else it's probably as good a away to tank for picks as any, and if it speeds up the development of the list then that's good too.

This would at least start to explain it, as we are simply not competitive.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

what were in 2014 or something? we were like 10 - 2 or something and lost 9 of our last 12.. can't remember but it was around that part that we dropped dramatically

Shitload of losses but this… this isn’t just losses. This is absolute non-competitiveness and not AFL standard. It’s as if we’ve thrown in the towel.

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Go back further, since round 10 and the thriller against the Tiges (which honestly wasn't a great display of footy despite the exciting finish):
Rnd 11 - WCE, workman like win
12 - Nth, yuck win
13 - Carl, good win
14 - Bye
15 - Freo, we didn't look good
16 - PA, 'honorable loss'
17 - Adel, good win
18 - Cats, urgh
19 - Dogs, as above
20 - Swans, 'honorable loss'
21 - WCE, yuck win
22 - Nth. yuck win
23 - GWS, lol

That's half a season of pretty average football. 6 wins, mainly due to having 4 games against the worst 2 teams in the comp, and not man what you'd consider ' commanding' performances. The Port loss and the 1st half against the Crows are about the best footy we played in that period.

So how important are a fit Shiel and Setterfield to this team? Both went down in round 9, and then we also lost Draper from the bye. Do they provide the size and strength that we need through the middle of the ground and pushing forward to really compete?

Thought the Carlton, Port and Adelaide games were all good to very good performances. So that Round 13-17 period was good for mine.

Since then, holy *… it’s like we replaced the AFL team with the VFLW team.

 

[Happyskeret]

The thing that puzzles me the most is not our skills as when we were winning early in the year we made plenty of mistakes but we were industrial best we looked in years imo.

The last 5 weeks was Essington from the past just roll up looking for bruise free footy. Do they realise we are not playing beach volleyball? Hind, Perkins and at stages Caldwell showed a bit of heart. Flip had a couple of minutes of it.

Having heart doesn’t require ability!!! Always the same even when we are winning we are carrying a minimum of 2 passengers all the time. If you have no heart you don’t even have the ability to compete!

 

[Zach Package]

You’d cop it if we just came out and said we have absolutely flogged them like they’ve never been flogged before and they’ve simply run out of steam. Looks like even the more senior players are limping to the line.

 

[IggypopsTshirt]

Having heart doesn’t require ability!!! Always the same even when we are winning we are carrying a minimum of 2 passengers all the time. If you have no heart you don’t even have the ability to compete!

This is the first building block of elite output. Effort, application to the task and persistence is not negotiable. Systems can break down, skill errors happen, fatigue weighs on the athlete. But effort, application and persistence needs to remain at the maximum on game day and that needs to be the enforced standard within the group. It hasn’t been the enforced standard at Essendon for a very long time. We’re reaping what we’ve sewn.

 

[Vander18]

Whilst it's hard to believe how bad we've been lately, that's a massive stretch/wishful thinking. More likely Scott lost the players, for some reason.

It’s literally the only way I can rationalise what’s happened.

I suppose he could have lost the players…..but there is no noise to the effect.

 

[Keystone agony]

Not alot changed outside of opposition and a couple of injuries added Ridley, Stringer the main ones

We put a greater emphasis on 'eye to the future' post dogs game with Tsatas, Cox, Bryan and Davey getting games

 

[andleanback]

Not sure what happened, but Jesus the whole team just went off a cliff out of nowhere.

 

[Vass38]

It all went down hill after the bye - which was round 14. After that we won we won 1 game from the next 6 (Crows by 3 goals). We then scraped over the line against 2 s**t teams, followed by the drumming against GWS last night.

It seemed to coincide with losing our number one ruckman in Draper, and our key forwards really went missing - no Jones, Weideman 0 goals from 7 games and Stringer 4 goals in that period.

Setterfield and Shiel were out, and Ridley missed a big chunk of that period also

But really we were just s**t - we are s**t, and we continue to be s**t.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Happyskeret]

It all went down hill after the bye - which was round 14. After that we won we won 1 game from the next 6 (Crows by 3 goals). We then scraped over the line against 2 s**t teams, followed by the drumming against GWS last night.

It seemed to coincide with losing our number one ruckman in Draper, and our key forwards really went missing - no Jones, Weideman 0 goals from 7 games and Stringer 4 goals in that period.

Setterfield and Shiel were out, and Ridley missed a big chunk of that period also

But really we were just s**t - we are s**t, and we continue to be s**t.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[eth-dog]

A young and inexperienced list runs out of puff in the second half of the year. Shocking.

In all seriousness though, we lack a physical presence around the ball

 

[Petrify]

I think Durham embodies the drop off to me. He was so good in the first half of the year, played tough with his head over the ball. Now he's nowhere to be seen except shirking contests. Bizarre change in a single season