Analysis Where's our side at? Are we not playing to our potential?

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CarterS

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Completely agree with Robbo and I think it is a dangerous sign for our mental strength that this could be happening so often. By the way, we have been ahead at Quarter time and subsequently lost to the following teams this year:

Essendon
St Kilda
GWS
Adelaide
Fremantle
Sydney
Gold Coast
Adelaide
Hawthorn
 
Is it a sign of our mental strength or our physical fitness? Poor conditioning could be playing a big role. As for us going backwards over the last few seasons. Well yes our team has gotten younger over the past few years and going backwards is usually what happens when a team gets younger.
 

jackess

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Our loss margins have improved, as have our quarters won - these are two signs that suggest there is light at the end of the tunnel.

2014: Won only 21 quarters, with a loss average of 56.4pts
2015: Won 26 quarters to date, with a loss average of 48.2pts (with 4 more losses too).

And don't forget, there have been some terrific mini-displays against some good opposition (all after round 7) in:

1. 37pt win vs Port Adelaide (home)
2. 5 goals up v Adelaide (home) at 3/4 time (then got swamped by the better team).
3. Led Fremantle deep into the 3rd quarter (away)
4. A goal down v Sydney at 3/4 time (home)
5. Won the 1st quarter vs Adelaide, then got smacked (away)
6. Same as above vs Hawthorn on the weekend.

In comparison, we didn't win a quarter against the same teams in 2014 :thumbsu:

These are great little wins that Leppa has been talking about and I didn't see them against the top echelon in 2014.

You need to win about 45 quarters to play finals these days. We've actually won 9 first quarters (the same as Richmond and more than Adelaide)...but as young teams do, we fall away as the game progresses.

I think our 7 wins last season really flattered our performance.

The problem with this year is we were uncompetitive in rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 16, 17, 18, 21, and 22. Some might disagree with some games but basically every second week we got smashed. That's extremely pathetic.
 

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CarterS

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Is it a sign of our mental strength or our physical fitness? Poor conditioning could be playing a big role. As for us going backwards over the last few seasons. Well yes our team has gotten younger over the past few years and going backwards is usually what happens when a team gets younger.

I think it's mental strength because as soon as the opposition kick 2/3 goals on the trot we tend to stop running. And it's happening in the 2nd quarter. At least that's my perception.
 
I think it's mental strength because as soon as the opposition kick 2/3 goals on the trot we tend to stop running. And it's happening in the 2nd quarter. At least that's my perception.

It would certainly be playing its part. We are simply not that good and I think that is what it comes down to above all else.
 
I think our 7 wins last season really flattered our performance.

The problem with this year is we were uncompetitive in rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 16, 17, 18, 21, and 22. Some might disagree with some games but basically every second week we got smashed. That's extremely pathetic.

We had J. Brown playing last year, which contributed to our wins.
 
I would be more likely to put that down to inexperience and lack of physical maturity, as well as quality of opponent, rather than public messaging.

Do we really expect Leppa to come out and say "we are as good as any team in the league". I prefer cold honesty rather than blowing warm air up my posterior.

I remember when Malthouse said the blues trained like a top 4 team and kept playing them up as the real deal. Thank christ Leppa doesn't do that.
 
And don't forget, there have been some terrific mini-displays against some good opposition (all after round 7) in:

1. 37pt win vs Port Adelaide (home)
2. 5 goals up v Adelaide (home) at 3/4 time (then got swamped by the better team).
3. Led Fremantle deep into the 3rd quarter (away)
4. A goal down v Sydney at 3/4 time (home)
5. Won the 1st quarter vs Adelaide, then got smacked (away)
6. Same as above vs Hawthorn on the weekend.

In comparison, we didn't win a quarter against the same teams in 2014 :thumbsu:

These are great little wins that Leppa has been talking about and I didn't see them against the top echelon in 2014.

You need to win about 45 quarters to play finals these days. We've actually won 9 first quarters (the same as Richmond and more than Adelaide)...but as young teams do, we fall away as the game progresses.

That is not an effective way to assess our season.

Being a young team shouldn't mean we get blown away in the second quarter as comprehensively as we did in the last two games, which you rather counter-intuitively cite as 'terrific mini-displays'. It has a lot more to do with being nowhere near as good as the opposition than anything to do with physical maturity.

Over the course of a season, a struggling team will probably lose control of the game at some point. It could be at any stage of the game, and sometimes it will happen later rather than earlier. It would be extremely troubling if we were getting blown away in the first quarter every week but the fact that we're not is just the difference between being terrible and irredeemably broken; I'm glad we're not irredeemably broken but we've still been terrible.

If there was a consistent pattern of us being close for three quarters and then getting run over, like there was in 2011, then I might be more inclined to think that youth and a lack of fitness was the main issue we needed to resolve. But I don't believe that's the case.
 
Our loss margins have improved, as have our quarters won - these are two signs that suggest there is light at the end of the tunnel.

2014: Won only 21 quarters, with a loss average of 56.4pts
2015: Won 26 quarters to date, with a loss average of 48.2pts (with 4 more losses too).

And don't forget, there have been some terrific mini-displays against some good opposition (all after round 7) in:

1. 37pt win vs Port Adelaide (home)
2. 5 goals up v Adelaide (home) at 3/4 time (then got swamped by the better team).
3. Led Fremantle deep into the 3rd quarter (away)
4. A goal down v Sydney at 3/4 time (home)
5. Won the 1st quarter vs Adelaide, then got smacked (away)
6. Same as above vs Hawthorn on the weekend.

In comparison, we didn't win a quarter against the same teams in 2014 :thumbsu:

These are great little wins that Leppa has been talking about and I didn't see them against the top echelon in 2014.

You need to win about 45 quarters to play finals these days. We've actually won 9 first quarters (the same as Richmond and more than Adelaide)...but as young teams do, we fall away as the game progresses.

I like your optimism but For all those stats you state I could find counter ones also. :)

For example ....We lose 4 qtrs this week and that will mean we have only won one more than last year with an easier draw.
 

wantok

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Plenty of people beating up on the boys. Robbo's opinions are designed to sell papers in Melbourne and invariably based on his shallow insight of any team outside Melbourne.
Consider Hawthorns record at Aurora and our effort on Saturday doesn't look all that bad.
They beat the Dogs by 70,Suns by 53,Dockers by 72 and us by 72 at the venue..When we lost the first few this year and the injury curse hit our depth i accepted that this year was all about development and unlike Robbo and other negative Nancys i have actually enjoyed watching some good development from Robbo,Harris,Cutts,Hugh,Freeo, Bourkie and Billy plus Jaden early on. They all made huge gains and I look forward to the Trade period and further development next year.
 

ColdWarWarrior

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Let's wait and see what happens when we have a fully fit team playing.

How anyone can judge the team this year is beyond me. Injuries ARE a legitimate reason for poor results.
Injuries are not an excuse for dropping an uncontested chest mark, its not an excuse for turning over a 20m pass, its not an excuse for being unable to execute basic skills.

There is no doubt injuries hurt us but our problems run much deeper than that and I'm afraid that injuries will be used to explain away to many failures without real examination of the problem.
 

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Kent Brockman

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Let's wait and see what happens when we have a fully fit team playing.

How anyone can judge the team this year is beyond me. Injuries ARE a legitimate reason for poor results.

Injuries hurt us but they're not the real problem... Even with a full list, I think we would have been dismal. Whether it's a lack of mental fortitude, a coaching problem or a deeper psychological issue, something isn't right.
 

Jman78

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What about our the fact that our KP's are young. That is pretty much the story for us along with slow decision making which will be quicker when we can start kicking it into the forward 50 with confidence. It'll happen, just not now. If we win 6-8 games next year I'll be happy.
 

Eons

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What about our the fact that our KP's are young. That is pretty much the story for us along with slow decision making which will be quicker when we can start kicking it into the forward 50 with confidence. It'll happen, just not now. If we win 6-8 games next year I'll be happy.

We have a very young spine, until they mature or we add some more experienced bodies through the trade period, we aren't going to improve that much.
 
Let's wait and see what happens when we have a fully fit team playing.

How anyone can judge the team this year is beyond me. Injuries ARE a legitimate reason for poor results.

I actually agree with that last point. I just don't think it means that you can't judge a team at all. You just have to make allowances.
 

Fitzroy bears

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Wow. I cant beleive how negative some people are on here. I half expected it from outsiders but not supporters. We all feel pretty crap about the season, but we have to celebrate the small gains being made by a very young side. I dont here a lot of answers from the nay sayers, just finger pointing( redden, rich, lost this, lost that). What are the alternatives? Sack the coach? Who will we get? Who can say the next one will take us to the finals next year. Doubt it. Poor old leppa inherited an unbalanced list and imo he is doing the best he can with what hes got. Whats next option? Trade all the players that had poor years(redden, rich,hanley)? If every club did that there would record player movement every year, not to mention unstable culture. Whats the answers?
 

Jman78

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We have a very young spine, until they mature or we add some more experienced bodies through the trade period, we aren't going to improve that much.
Hmmm see I'd like to think a player or two can 'step-up' in the off season. Im also really intrigued if some of the news I heard about Jackson Paine is true. Big body in backline could be a diamond in the rough for us.... if he gets a contract extension of course
 

AFLQLD

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Interesting to hear other opinions, especially when they have been delivered respectfully and thoughtfully as most have. As much as we would all like to think that the road to improvement is clearly signposted, there is no one single aspect of our gameplan/list/development/drafting/leadership/injuries that has produced our performances this year.

The performances of footy teams sometimes have few obvious predictors. The ingredients can seem right and things still don't work. The ingredients can also seem wrong yet things work beautifully on the field. The equation for improvement is long and complex, simply because there are so many variables that might make a difference:

If we hit our targets five percent more often, might that have made a difference?
If we had three fewer major injuries, could that have helped us?
If we sustained our best output for ten percent longer in games, what difference would that make?
If we kicked 20 more goals and 20 fewer behinds, what would that do to our performances?
If we made 15 more tackles in an average game, where does that put us?
If we had kept just one of the Go Home 5, would we be better off now?
If we won just 3 more centre clearances a game, how would that change things?
If we had facilities the equal of the best in the comp, would it make a difference?
If we had ten more inside 50s per game, would we be looking better now?

On their own, any one of those things might not be enough to change much at all. But all of them combined? That might make a huge difference. The subtleties of performance are such that isolating any one factor as the cause and therefore its improvement as the solution, just won't happen. In every aspect, we need to seek improvement because while none alone is the magic bullet, somewhere within the complex mix of all of them, lies the way to improvement.

And I do think the club is bit-by-bit addressing most of them. It is a work in progress, because that is the nature of change. Trying to put your finger on that one thing that needs to change is maddening. It will take time and the magic bullet won't come in the form of a Schache, a Lambert, a big-name trade, a new fitness guru, coaching changes, tactical changes or any single other thing. The magic bullet is change itself. Change as a process involves methodical commitment to improvement by the whole club in all aspects. All aspects. I think that is beginning to happen but it needs to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Organisations that change too rapidly suffer a fate worse than simple poor performance. The cultural integrity is ripped apart and things rarely end well. The good is tossed out along with the bad. What worked is lost, along with what didn't work. Scorched-earth style change is pretty nasty to endure. The development of the list alone, is a years-long operation that affects real peoples' jobs and lives. Patient and determined change is the way that the club improves. Good performances will come when more and more of the many factors that determine success begin to improve. None of us really know what combination of changes will make everything work.

As impatient as we all are for the club to build towards success again, the only thing to do is be patient and trust in the process of change to move all of the cogs into their perfect places and for the team to work like a precision machine.
 
As impatient as we all are for the club to build towards success again, the only thing to do is be patient and trust in the process of change to move all of the cogs into their perfect places and for the team to work like a precision machine.

Oh, you had me right up until that last line!

So much great stuff in that post, AFLQLD, but I just don't buy that the only thing to do is be patient. I believe in warily and critically watching the progress and constantly checking how we're tracking against meaningful performance standards.

I'm a big believer in incremental improvement, as you clearly are, and we are in furious agreement that that means more than winning one more game, or clawing back an extra percentage point.

Unfortunately I'm not seeing much improvement in the key indicators you've cited. Not only at a team level, but for most individuals. I suppose if you really dig into it you can find a few positives, but I expect at least as many negatives.

As for the revolution vs evolution point, this has in fact always been my biggest problem with Leppitsch. He walked into an environment reeling from the instability of losing players, a coach, a CEO, a chairman and seemingly its entire sense of direction and went and compounded that by marginalising experienced if limited players, prioritising youth over experience, and shifting a lot of players into unfamiliar positions. He comes across as a revolutionary more than an evolutionary.

That is very different from the approach taken recently by the likes of Beveridge, Roos and Richardson. I suppose time will tell who was right, but Leppa is definitely going against the conventional wisdom.

EDIT: Is evolutionary a word?

2nd EDIT: Yes, but not in the sense that I used it.
 

Last of the Roys

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[Perhaps all this discussion should be put in its own thread given it is worthwhile (and no longer related to the Media).]

On how we are going as a team my question would be the one that has been thrown up a number of times but never really answered in any depth:

  • Why have the Bulldogs been able to be incredibly competitive/successful so quickly with just as young/inexperienced list when compared to the Lions?
I probably know some of the factors contributing to the difference, but that still leaves a hell of a lot that is unexplained.
 

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