Opinion I've lost my faith in Ken Hinkley

[Steve Dore]

He can help us deal with our spate of brain tightness.

 

[Steve Dore]

..... We should be training specifically on how to win the close ones.

If we trained on how to win games in general maybe we wouldn't need to concentrate on trying to win close ones.

Training to regularly replicate 2014 EF 1st quarter or 2015 round 4 1st quarter would seem far more beneficial.

It is difficult to replicate the pressure the finish of a close game at training because training is just training.

 

[OneGreatClub]

If we trained on how to win games in general maybe we wouldn't need to concentrate on trying to win close ones.

Training to regularly replicate 2014 EF 1st quarter or 2015 round 4 1st quarter would seem far more beneficial.

It is difficult to replicate the pressure the finish of a close game at training because training is just training.

You are prob right but I did hear that Clarko does it specifically with the Hawks.

 

[Power Girl]

You look at that last 2 minute video against the crows and you almost want to cry. You can talk about teams finding us out after 2014 but nobody has found out teams like hawthorn in over 30 years. I honestly dont believe so many players can drop off all at the same time. Something at our club just doesn't add up.

This!! I have been banging on about this for 2 years now but it seems I thought I was alone as people kept trash talking individuals as well as the entire playing group. This is the same playing group that looked amazing and had the entire AFL community wanting to be like us and loving our players.

IT IS THE COACHING AND GAME PLAN.

But that's just my opinion.

 

[MotlopRules]

I've said this for years - the club needs a team of full-time sports psychologists.

A player is a body and a mind - if either one is off, they don't perform.

We surround them all with cutting edge talent and technology to take care of the body. They have Burgo, his assistants, Mladen, the wrestling guy, physios, doctors, trainers, weights rooms, machines, tanks, etc etc, to take care of the body side.

But what do they surround them with to take care of the mental side? To train them in techniques to maintain focus when the chips are down ... to shut out surrounding noise and distractions when shooting for goal ...... to harness the full power of the brain's circuitry to nail that shot ..... to deal with scoreboard pressure in a controlled way .... to maintain the upper mental hand .... to deal with all the stresses of modern professional sport and the immense pressure that the club community exerts on them either directly or in an implied manner?

They are just told to harden the **** up. There's a massive discrepancy between the attention we pay to their bodies and to their minds. These days, most squads are very similar in their fitness, strength and so on. The successful teams are always mentally tough and mentally skilled. It's about ****ing time we took care of that side too. Only the very top coaches can take care of it on their own, and Ken has made it pretty clear he is not in that category.

 

[1954]

The obvious change is to get the ball moving as quickly as possible out of defence so opposition sides can't set up their zone. If you watched the second half game last night between Melbourne and West Coast you would have seen what happens when you do that - there's lots of mistakes, errant kicks, turnovers etc because play like that requires complete trust that there will be someone where they are supposed to be.

However, hesitation and fear due to thinking about the consequences of turning the ball over generally lead to play that is too slow to beat the zone and too fast to not get you into trouble. I believe that there are meant to be two options at all time for the kicker to take - the fast risky option (plan a) and the slow, safe option (plan b). Our problem at the moment is that players are preferring to kick a dump kick out of defence to reset and try to run it out quickly from the following defensive 50 entry than working through congestion methodically.

That's why Ken says they are picking up too much of the game plan at times - yes, the plan is to beat the zone with fast, instinctive ball movement...but that doesn't mean blind movement.

That `dump kick out of defence, ' and often down the line, allowed the tiggers numerous repeat fwd 50 entries, particularly in the 2nd term, it is extremely low percentage football.

There are obviously higher quality teams than Richmond, and they will cut us to pieces if that isn't sorted out.

 

[Steve Dore]

You are prob right but I did hear that Clarko does it specifically with the Hawks.

I'd be interested to know how Clarkson trains the Hawks specifically for this.

 

[El_Scorcho]

The obvious change is to get the ball moving as quickly as possible out of defence so opposition sides can't set up their zone. If you watched the second half game last night between Melbourne and West Coast you would have seen what happens when you do that - there's lots of mistakes, errant kicks, turnovers etc because play like that requires complete trust that there will be someone where they are supposed to be.

This is effectively the gameplan. The one that worked amazingly in 2014. However teams started to realise that they couldn't stop us from doing it because of the running power of the likes of Ebert and White, so they just leave players back. They're happy to leave 2 or 3 loose players back and beat us 8 goals to 5 instead of getting into a shootout with us and getting trounced.

A big part of our turnover issue is because that route 1 football nolonger works and the players aren't really sure what to do when they look upfield and see our breaking players massively outnumbered.

However, hesitation and fear due to thinking about the consequences of turning the ball over generally lead to play that is too slow to beat the zone and too fast to not get you into trouble. I believe that there are meant to be two options at all time for the kicker to take - the fast risky option (plan a) and the slow, safe option (plan b). Our problem at the moment is that players are preferring to kick a dump kick out of defence to reset and try to run it out quickly from the following defensive 50 entry than working through congestion methodically.

I'd argue that being able to effectively implement plan b would be the antidote to our problems, but we always appear confused and out of position when trying slow ball movement, especially when we get to the forward line. We are absolutely horrendous at plan b to the point where it looks like we have no system at all for it.

That's why Ken says they are picking up too much of the game plan at times - yes, the plan is to beat the zone with fast, instinctive ball movement...but that doesn't mean blind movement.

We need to be able to execute plan b effectively first. If we can do that, those players sitting back will trot back up the field to fill space and the space over the top will open back up.

It's like establishing the run before you start passing in American football. Make people defend short to open up space long. Apart from a few games at the end of 2015, we just don't look like we have any sort of idea how to execute that, and as such we rely on someone making a play against the odds to get most of our goals.

We had 2014 where we established the slingshot as plan A and people weren't sure yet how to defend it. It's time to switch gears back and make plan A the slow ball movement, which will tire out defenders so late in the game we can absolutely blitz them with the slingshot and take the game away from them.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

The obvious change is to get the ball moving as quickly as possible out of defence so opposition sides can't set up their zone. If you watched the second half game last night between Melbourne and West Coast you would have seen what happens when you do that - there's lots of mistakes, errant kicks, turnovers etc because play like that requires complete trust that there will be someone where they are supposed to be.

However, hesitation and fear due to thinking about the consequences of turning the ball over generally lead to play that is too slow to beat the zone and too fast to not get you into trouble. I believe that there are meant to be two options at all time for the kicker to take - the fast risky option (plan a) and the slow, safe option (plan b). Our problem at the moment is that players are preferring to kick a dump kick out of defence to reset and try to run it out quickly from the following defensive 50 entry than working through congestion methodically.

That's why Ken says they are picking up too much of the game plan at times - yes, the plan is to beat the zone with fast, instinctive ball movement...but that doesn't mean blind movement.

No wonder the players are confused. It seems like they are saying.

"Play on quick and move the ball out of defence"

And then

"Not now you idiot"

IMO the problem is we aren't well drilled enough and well coached enough to play on quick.

Having the confidence to play on quick means you need to have confidence that there will be an option to play on quick to (short and long). Too often our structures are desperately lacking so we play on quick and there.is nothinf to do but kick long to an outnumbered forward.

The problem is not that we play on too quick too often the problem is that we don't have the structures and game plan and coaching to be ready for it.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[TeeKray]

Plan B requires lots of precise short kicking. We've built a team full of athletes with running capabilities first, kicking skills second. Cam O'Shea is the poster boy but there are many others in this category. That's why when plan A is in full motion we look near on unbeatable but when forced into plan B we look average to poor.

We need to change the personnel or we'll keep getting the same results.

 

[Chrizzt]

Let's hope we can fix that. We should be training specifically on how to win the close ones.

While there should be some focus on keeping composure in tight games it shouldn't be the focus - the focus should be on consistent footy. In a close game an errant bounce or a dodgy umpire call can make the difference between win and loss, whereas it makes much less difference if you have a 4 goal lead.

I've linked to this article a number of times as I found it quite fascinating: Close Games in VFL/AFL History: Do Successful Teams Win Them?
In short, there is almost no correlation between good teams (premiership/top 4) and winning close games, but (somewhat obviously) there is a large correlation between good teams and winning games by large margins.

There have been some other articles done that have shown that winning close games is largely based on luck, and that close wins/losses average out over a period of 2-3 years.

This is all pretty intuitive. You don't want to be training for how to come back from 4 goals down with 10 minutes to play, or train how to hold a 3 point lead for 3 minutes. You want to train how to play consistently over 4 quarters so that you capitalise on momentum as often as possible and build a lead that is easy to defend. And this is certainly true for Port. There have been very few close losses that I lamented our decision making or gameplan in the dying minutes - far more often the situation was the result of a 15 minute down patch in the middle of the 1st/2nd/3rd quarter.

One of the very few games where this wasn't the case was the Carlton game last year: blowing a 20 something point lead with 10 minutes to go - but even that can go back to the question of how we let Carlton start to well in the first 10 minutes of the game?

 

[TeeKray]

You can't tell me there is no mental issue involved in us giving up umpteen 4-6 goal last quarter leads against Carlton over the last however many years. It's a recurring nightmare and is not luck or coincidence.

 

[JUSTWORK]

We need to change the personnel or we'll keep getting the same results.

Having Houston step up this year with his elite disposal will help, as will Bonner who can do both.

 

[Chrizzt]

You can't tell me there is no mental issue involved in us giving up umpteen 4-6 goal last quarter leads against Carlton over the last however many years. It's a recurring nightmare and is not luck or coincidence.

Well I've explained the 2016 game - it was a poor finish, but also a very slow start by us that allowed it to happen.

In 2015 we never had control of that game, arguably except for the last quarter - where we kicked 5 goals to 1 but it wasn't enough.

We smashed them in both meetings in 2014.

The next obvious one is the last game at AAMI stadium in 2013 - however that is a bit of an outlier given we had absolutely nothing to play for (locked in for 7th) where they had a potential finals spot on the line.

 

[Steve Dore]

You can't tell me there is no mental issue involved in us giving up umpteen 4-6 goal last quarter leads against Carlton over the last however many years. It's a recurring nightmare and is not luck or coincidence.

Playing footy is 10% skill, 95% fitness and the rest is just good luck.

It is a recurring nightmare and this playing group is mentally weak. I don't believe it can be blamed on the 2007 GF. I'd rather see us spend our money on a really good sports psychologist rather than Burgo's hamstring tearing machine. Training to stop teams getting a run on would be more beneficial than training to win close games.

 

[Kingfish73]

You look at that last 2 minute video against the crows and you almost want to cry. You can talk about teams finding us out after 2014 but nobody has found out teams like hawthorn in over 30 years. I honestly dont believe so many players can drop off all at the same time. Something at our club just doesn't add up.

Its the coaching and some instances where players have been over rated - but mostly coaching. Just read Hombsch interview yesterday about the game plan and taking time to adjust and get right. FFS. Its obvious to me that Ken has lost control of the ship. Nothing about our game style is inspiring. Watching others trial games demonstrates how far behind the pack we are in trying to identify our best sequences of play. Even when teams are loosing they show great passages of play and you can see their game style coming together. Not here. It will be a f***in miracle if something clicks and we play good football in the first few rounds this year. Even if we do, we dont have the coaching smarts to deal with teams combating our strengths, which then inturn hits our confidence and we go into our shell.

 

[Holden Hillbilly]

Hinkley: "I'm a better coach than I was in 2013":

http://indaily.com.au/sport/football/2017/03/10/hinkley-im-a-better-coach-than-i-was-in-2013/

 

[Steve Dore]

Hinkley: "I'm a better coach than I was in 2013":

http://indaily.com.au/sport/football/2017/03/10/hinkley-im-a-better-coach-than-i-was-in-2013/

"I’m a better coach today and I have to be a better coach tomorrow again"

Not sure what metrics he used to arrive at the conclusion for the first part of that statement but I definitely agree with the second part.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Better but less successful.

He came in with a unique gameplan that was difficult to counter, and almost jagged a flag with it before people figured out how to negate it.

The measure of him as a coach will be how he handles that. So far not particularly well.

 

[JUSTWORK]

Hinkley: "I'm a better coach than I was in 2013":

http://indaily.com.au/sport/football/2017/03/10/hinkley-im-a-better-coach-than-i-was-in-2013/

Time to prove it

 

[El Zorro]

Playing footy is 10% skill, 95% fitness ...

And 0% maths knowledge.

 

[Steve Dore]

And 0% maths knowledge.

 

[El Zorro]

View attachment 344212

Which one is you?

 

[Steve Dore]

Which one is you?

None, but the quote (fishing changed to footy) you have taken issue with is from that movie.

 

[OneGreatClub]

This 'bedding in' the new game plan has me perplexed, especially as the women's teams seem to have been able to bed in their game plans in a matter of a few weeks.