Of all the stats that have been thrown up etc this one is probably the one I feel means the most.
Probably means that we haven't recaptured the form from last year when our entire game evolved to be built off that running and pressure.
I guess maybe the argument could be made we have changed things so we aren't having to run as much maybe? With the way it's all setup, but I have a feeling that might be clutching at straws a bit.
I still think a lot of the issues fall on the players not the coaching staff. Then again there does come a point where it's on the coaches not getting the players into the mindset to win.
I think it also comes back to our game style a bit - we don't play possession footy like Collingwood does. Instead we still heavily lean on last years approach of trying to turn the ball over at the HBF and rebound through the center. As a result we spend much more time on defense then other teams do which reduces the average running speed.
The problem is we don't have a good possession footy game and I think this comes down to both personnel and coaching. On the coaching side this clearly isn't a style we can adapt to quickly.
On the personnel side we have two issues:
- Midfielder's who can take contested marks (height/build)
- Kicking efficiency
- 70%+ Pendles, Sidebottom, Mayne, Greenwood, Zaka
- 65%+ Grundy, Mcgrath
- 60%+ Merrett, Treloar Parish, Langford, Ham
- 55%+ Beams, Heppell, Adams, Bellchambers
- 50%+ Shiel, Myers, Phillips
- <50% Smith