Game Day Preseason 2024 @ Sydney

[Elixuh]

Brisbane's answer to Billy Frampton in 2024

That’s a disservice to Gardiner! Billy Frampton was one of our best players in the grand final. Gardiner has more skill and footy nous in his beard.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Sydney always play a tough, defensively accountable brand of footy, and that means they will win their share of games but geez they wouldn’t be very fun to go and watch 11 times a year.

1 point from stoppage in 3 quarters. Oof.

Pretty much all their scoring has come from forcing the turnover by playing one extra behind the ball (in a practice match) followed by slow, methodical chip chip up the field. Not a great brand at all.

As forecast.

 

[Gadzorks]

On this, does anyone know if you cancel Kayo at the normal (expensive) rate and then sign up for the digital membership, would you still get the 12 months of Kayo? Or would they pick up your email address marked as a pre-existing customer and not give you that access?

Pretty sure the email address is checked.

Setting up a second email address should work though.

 

[M Malice]

That’s a disservice to Gardiner! Billy Frampton was one of our best players in the grand final. Gardiner has more skill and footy nous in his beard.

If you ask Pies supporters in their opinion Frampton quelled Harris's influence.

 

[Grasshopper17]

The difference between playing with the seconds and the firsts really helps some players. Kai looks to be one.

And Ah Chee is another I think.

 

[irel]

I'd prefer we rise above the notion that what we post on an increasingly obsure/niche forum has the supernatural ability to "mozz" a player.

I think I'm a sceptic and a realist but seen the old mozz take hold so often in my life it's useful to explain the otherwise inexplicable things that happen.

Put me down as one who is wary of the far reaching powers of the mozz.

Nah,nah, no, yeah, yeah yes, the "obscure/niche forum" god is all seeing, all hearing kind of deity with a membrane thin temptation filter. "They" hand out those dreaded "Mozz"cards at the slightest of prodding.

 

[martinson]

Nah,nah, no, yeah, yeah yes, the "obscure/niche forum" god is all seeing, all hearing kind of deity with a membrane thin temptation filter. "They" hand out those dreaded "Mozz"cards at the slightest of prodding.

I think a lot of it's to do with players reading and being told how good they are mentally taking a little edge off their performance.

There's a conga line of coaches past and present who believe the game's often played between the ears.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Going the early crow here.
Last night in a pre determined 20 min quarter in the last, it seems clear to me that the heads went to thinking of Opening Round.
Understandably.
I noticed people on here making the claims of, it’s time to get our best players off the ground.
I am sure the players were thinking the same, let’s just get through.

1000%. Anyone trying to read anything into that final quarter wasn't considering the obvious part that no points were up for grabs and everyone on both teams were in preservation mode.

That's all fine and will be the popular opinion. But the ease with which Sydney found McInerney on a (very) slow play all alone inside 50 for their last goal concerned me.

Anyway, every individual game has its own story... The narrative will become clearer over multiple games, and right now the baseline for the discussion is our 4th quarter % over the whole of 2023 of just 96.8.

Sadly I didn't track red-time scoring in 2023, but will be this season. Let's see.

 

[Grasshopper17]

If you ask Pies supporters in their opinion Frampton quelled Harris's influence.

Gardiner 3 disposals last night, all handballs and 2 tackles. But I'd suggest he played an important role. Much as Frampton did with his 2 disposal Grand Final.

 

[Elixuh]

Gardiner 3 disposals last night, all handballs and 2 tackles. But I'd suggest he played an important role. Much as Frampton did with his 2 disposal Grand Final.

Gardiner is McStay minus some physical traits (prob affecting contested marking ability) but plus footy smarts.

 

[Dalions]

That's all fine and will be the popular opinion. But the ease with which Sydney found McInerney on a (very) slow play all alone inside 50 for their last goal concerned me.

Anyway, every individual game has its own story... The narrative will become clearer over multiple games, and right now the baseline for the discussion is our 4th quarter % over the whole of 2023 of just 96.8.

Sadly I didn't track red-time scoring in 2023, but will be this season. Let's see.

Love your work mate.
And all for it for the season proper.
Because I agree that imo we are not a good red time team especially late in games when we have a lead.
Which is not a good habit and obviously affects our 4th percentage.

 

[martinson]

Love your work mate.
And all for it for the season proper.
Because I agree that imo we are not a good red time team especially late in games when we have a lead.
Which is not a good habit and obviously affects our 4th percentage.

Hard not to think the way we set up it's a coaching instruction.

Of which the only inevitable consequence is that the opposition can score if they fluke something but we can't because we're not trying to ,we're trying to stop them scoring.

I don't believe it's a fitness issue ,nor that we can't score towards the end of quarters if we put our minds to it ,because we can score plenty at other times when the game is hot.

 

[Dalions]

Hard not to think the way we set up it's a coaching instruction.

Of which the only inevitable consequence is that the opposition can score if they fluke something but we can't because we're not trying to ,we're trying to stop them scoring.

I don't believe it's a fitness issue ,nor that we can't score towards the end of quarters if we put our minds to it ,because we can score plenty at other times when the game is hot.

It’s fine to go into that mode but you still need to win the ball.
First and foremost.

 

[Elixuh]

Time will tell. Nothing will surprise me with the tribunal this year and their stated disregard of historical precedents.

Some pretty strong comments from King and Cornes this morning (IN DARCY'S DEFENCE before you lot in the cheap seats start carrying on)

I was going to post about the incident and say they need to remove the free kick to get rid of the incentive to do what Hayward did. Leave it entirely up to the MRO. It may be too difficult but could we award free kicks against bad technique? Maybe too difficult.

Anyway, suffice to say gulp I agree with Kingy.

If Wilmot were to get reported for what he did, the only reasonable conclusion you can reach is the AFLs preferred approach is for both players to lead with their heads.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Hard not to think the way we set up it's a coaching instruction.

Of which the only inevitable consequence is that the opposition can score if they fluke something but we can't because we're not trying to ,we're trying to stop them scoring.

I don't believe it's a fitness issue ,nor that we can't score towards the end of quarters if we put our minds to it ,because we can score plenty at other times when the game is hot.

Yeah my knee jerk reaction was that it was fitness related, but it's quite possible that it's something completely different, whether it's mental or strategic.

(Mind you if it's mental I'd argue it's also physical because of how the two are related. My club coaches would often say that when you are buggered the first thing to go is your voice and the second thing to go is your decision making - both mental more so than physical)

Ultimately the "why" is harder to determine than the "what", but also perhaps less relevant too. Long story short, we did something the dynasty team could never do last season and that's go through an entire season unbeaten at the Gabba. But I never got the sense going to any games that visiting teams were mentally beaten before the game even started. Back in the early 2000s, even if teams were able to stay with us for 2-3 quarters, we'd invariably bury them in the last, and I think that's where a lot of the fear factor came from.

 

[martinson]

Yeah my knee jerk reaction was that it was fitness related, but it's quite possible that it's something completely different, whether it's mental or strategic.

(Mind you if it's mental I'd argue it's also physical because of how the two are related. My club coaches would often say that when you are buggered the first thing to go is your voice and the second thing to go is your decision making - both mental more so than physical)

Ultimately the "why" is harder to determine than the "what", but also perhaps less relevant too. Long story short, we did something the dynasty team could never do last season and that's go through an entire season unbeaten at the Gabba. But I never got the sense going to any games that visiting teams were mentally beaten before the game even started. Back in the early 2000s, even if teams were able to stay with us for 2-3 quarters, we'd invariably bury them in the last, and I think that's where a lot of the fear factor came from.

It seems to me ,and I've heard Fagan speak of this in prior years , that we try to pace ourselves during games , going really hard at times and just taking a breather sometimes. It was in response to clubs scoring heavily in bursts against us when we weren't much of a team. And one of the 'learnings' was to take the heat out of the game when you were under the pump.

In the GF we had the Pies on toast during the 2nd quarter and just seemed to ease off a bit to protect what we had . They were all over our tactics because they really upped the ante when they had an extra in the M/F.

I'm not privy to what goes on internally or as to when and why our tactics are the way they are which I'm sure is for good reason ,but from an outsiders view it didn't seem to help us much.

 

[Grasshopper17]

It seems to me ,and I've heard Fagan speak of this in prior years , that we try to pace ourselves during games , going really hard at times and just taking a breather sometimes. It was in response to clubs scoring heavily in bursts against us when we weren't much of a team. And one of the 'learnings' was to take the heat out of the game when you were under the pump.

In the GF we had the Pies on toast during the 2nd quarter and just seemed to ease off a bit to protect what we had . They were all over our tactics because they really upped the ante when they had an extra in the M/F.

I'm not privy to what goes on internally or as to when and why our tactics are the way they are which I'm sure is for good reason ,but from an outsiders view it didn't seem to help us much.

Totally agree. There are real parallels here with financial markets, particularly short term trading. On one hand there is "the trend is your friend", ie if the market is rising, it's likely to keep rising so you should buy in.

On the other hand there is the concept of "buying the dip” and "selling the rip", which suggests when markets rise, they are likely to fall next, so you should sell, and vice versa. It's a bit like the law of averages if you will.

It seems as though, strategically at least, Fages is very much in the latter camp. If we've had a good period, it's only a matter of time before the opposition has a good patch. And to me this ties in with something Fages has said in the past, "I feel like I coach better if I think we're gonna lose, and I feel like our guys play better if they think there's a chance we'll lose". And maybe he's right... But the challenge I would put to the brains trust would be to say, does putting someone behind the ball prevent that change of momentum, or does it actually cause it?

To me, I'd rather our coaching group show faith in our players to perform, for a whole quarter or match, and only change things up once the status quo is demonstrably not working. To me, I must admit that trying to pre-empt disaster the way we seem to do is a loser mentality, and it directly cost us the Melbourne game last year. I'd rather us keep the foot down when we're going, and play to win the game, not save it.

Food for thought.

 

[martinson]

Totally agree. There are real parallels here with financial markets, particularly short term trading. On one hand there is "the trend is your friend", ie if the market is rising, it's likely to keep rising so you should buy in.

On the other hand there is the concept of "buying the dip” and "selling the rip", which suggests when markets rise, they are likely to fall next, so you should sell, and vice versa. It's a bit like the law of averages if you will.

It seems as though, strategically at least, Fages is very much in the latter camp. If we've had a good period, it's only a matter of time before the opposition has a good patch. And to me this ties in with something Fages has said in the past, "I feel like I coach better if I think we're gonna lose, and I feel like our guys play better if they think there's a chance we'll lose". And maybe he's right... But the challenge I would put to the brains trust would be to say, does putting someone behind the ball prevent that change of momentum, or does it actually cause it?

To me, I'd rather our coaching group show faith in our players to perform, for a whole quarter or match, and only change things up once the status quo is demonstrably not working. To me, I must admit that trying to pre-empt disaster the way we seem to do is a loser mentality, and it directly cost us the Melbourne game last year. I'd rather us keep the foot down when we're going, and play to win the game, not save it.

Food for thought.

It's not as if we're not good enough to do it. When things are running your way you should put the foot down. If the tide turns you reset. Last year and in the GF we saw the opposition really spark up when we started to try to chip it around when we had the lead.

The coaching group would have good reasons and perhaps a different perspective but my point is that it didn't really work for us many times in 2023.

 

[Nunez]

That's all fine and will be the popular opinion. But the ease with which Sydney found McInerney on a (very) slow play all alone inside 50 for their last goal concerned me.

Anyway, every individual game has its own story... The narrative will become clearer over multiple games, and right now the baseline for the discussion is our 4th quarter % over the whole of 2023 of just 96.8.

Sadly I didn't track red-time scoring in 2023, but will be this season. Let's see.

It could 100% be an issue in 2024, however we can't draw any inferences from the pre season game we witnessed last night when it comes to Q4 scoring etc. Would be the definition of bad data.

Going to be interesting to see how we do in red time this year though. Definitely an are we can try and improve.

 

[scoman]

Narrator: it did not get better

Well it did for a little while maybe.

 

[Elixuh]

That's all fine and will be the popular opinion. But the ease with which Sydney found McInerney on a (very) slow play all alone inside 50 for their last goal concerned me.

Anyway, every individual game has its own story... The narrative will become clearer over multiple games, and right now the baseline for the discussion is our 4th quarter % over the whole of 2023 of just 96.8.

Sadly I didn't track red-time scoring in 2023, but will be this season. Let's see.

Players were jogging in that last quarter; casually taking the ball over the line whenever they could; physicality dropped right off. That’s from both sides.

It was clear they were just trying to get through the 20min given the short turnaround to OR.

It’s often hard to make assessments using pre season games. Impossible to assess that last quarter in any meaningful way.

 

[martinson]

Players were jogging in that last quarter; casually taking the ball over the line whenever they could; physicality dropped right off. That’s from both sides.

It was clear they were just trying to get through the 20min given the short turnaround to OR.

It’s often hard to make assessments using pre season games. Impossible to assess that last quarter in any meaningful way.

The purpose of pre season games is to get game time into your players legs without injuring themselves and to give those on the fringes an opportunity to show what they could potentially bring.

We've achieved that in this pre season. Not reading anything into the form or otherwise of those assured of a spot.

 

[Jim Stynes11]

Pretty sure the email address is checked.

Setting up a second email address should work though.

don't you need to use the email address in your Lions membership?

 

[Tassie4ever]

My two bob's worth- we've had a deficiency at HB and have had for years, and as the GF exemplified. It's not in getting the pill, or toughness. It's disposal. Coleman a very considerable exception.

One prime example from last night- Coleman delicately places the ball onto the chest of a full-throttle Starcevich who is actually under zero pressure but nevertheless then proceeds to kick the ball long and strong into the forward line to who, exactly? That would be grass. Zip in the skills department, unfortunately, and it shows.

 

[Black Magic 02]

On this, does anyone know if you cancel Kayo at the normal (expensive) rate and then sign up for the digital membership, would you still get the 12 months of Kayo? Or would they pick up your email address marked as a pre-existing customer and not give you that access?

Pretty sure the email address is checked.

Setting up a second email address should work though.

No need for shenanigans - cancel your Kayo and it will run 'til the end of whatever you've paid for.
Sign up for Lions digital membership and they will email you a voucher code to apply to your existing Kayo account. 12 months for $240 odd.
Source: cancelled my Kayo on 1st October last year and signed up for digital membership a month ago, on top of my full season Gold Lions membership. Good deal.