Review Round 6, 2024 - Brisbane Lions vs. Geelong

[KissKiss]

I must be the only one who doesn’t mind Gardiner forward…

I was happy to see him tried there as the logic has some merit. We needed a different style forward to provide some grunt compared to the more flanker styles of Daniher/Hipwood. We have been missing someone to do that role since McStay left and Oscar became the main ruck.

But at the moment I dont think its working. While we are losing games you have question if its worth it? He isnt providing a big difference or shutting down key intercepting defenders. He isnt massively showing signs of improvement and he isnt a long term option like a kid in his first few years. So what value is it really providing to the team in the short or long term?

 

[The Flying Belgian]

What part speaks like DT?

The random word(s) in all caps.

 

[Dalions]

Haven’t had time to read the full thread so sorry if it has come up.
When was the last time we have played and AFL game for 4 points when it was raining for the whole game?
Seems like it hasn’t happened in quite some time because I honestly can remember one.
We may have had wet periods in games but can’t remember a full game of rain.

 

[Elixuh]

The random word(s) in all caps.

Synergy is just a corporate buzz word hence the capitalisation. Nothing to do with my President.

 

[buttermuffs]

Haven’t had time to read the full thread so sorry if it has come up.
When was the last time we have played and AFL game for 4 points when it was raining for the whole game?
Seems like it hasn’t happened in quite some time because I honestly can remember one.
We may have had wet periods in games but can’t remember a full game of rain.

I may have forgotten other ones but that was our first at home since 2018 against Sydney. Though that game was a much lighter consistent drizzle than on Saturday.

Dizzy played a great game against Buddy that game. Went to a friend’s birthday dinner afterwards ecstatic that we only lost by three goals because we were improving so much.

Oh how the times change. I miss losing and still being able to appreciate the little improvements or great moments. I still try but obviously it’s just not the same.

 

[Dalions]

I may have forgotten other ones but that was our first at home since 2018 against Sydney. Though that game was a much lighter consistent drizzle than on Saturday.

Dizzy played a great game against Buddy that game. Went to a friend’s birthday dinner afterwards ecstatic that we only lost by three goals because we were improving so much.

Oh how the times change. I miss losing and still being able to appreciate the little improvements or great moments. I still try but obviously it’s just not the same.

I do remember that one because I missed it due to a daughter school function.
That is why I couldn’t really remember a game for a very long time.

 

[Gadzorks]

It’s never about effort with Gardiner, he always puts in everything he has. Great team man.

But the output is no good. Imo having a negative effect on our forward SYNERGY.

Don't agree he is a synergy problem. We are getting plenty of opportunities with him in the forward line, and locking the ball in the forward half - that's not a problem. His defensive efforts are helping with that.

Gardiner definitely needs to take shots instead of passing - those passes aren't in the shots on goal stats but at least one was a genuine chance.

Gardiner is not the reason the well paid, experienced forwards aren't slotting their opportunities. That's totally on them.

 

[Dalions]

Don't agree he is a synergy problem. We are getting plenty of opportunities with him in the forward line, and locking the ball in the forward half - that's not a problem. His defensive efforts are helping with that.

Gardiner definitely needs to take shots instead of passing - those passes aren't in the shots on goal stats but at least one was a genuine chance.

Gardiner is not the reason the well paid, experienced forwards aren't slotting their opportunities. That's totally on them.

From my viewing, I thought Darcy was actually ok on the weekend.
Presented well and didn’t slow the play down too much which has been one of my critical point about his play.

 

[Happy_Neale]

I was happy to see him tried there as the logic has some merit. We needed a different style forward to provide some grunt compared to the more flanker styles of Daniher/Hipwood. We have been missing someone to do that role since McStay left and Oscar became the main ruck.

But at the moment I dont think its working. While we are losing games you have question if its worth it? He isnt providing a big difference or shutting down key intercepting defenders. He isnt massively showing signs of improvement and he isnt a long term option like a kid in his first few years. So what value is it really providing to the team in the short or long term?

Seemed like he was doing a decent job on Stewart before he went off. It’s such a hard position to critique IMO as we don’t even really know what his main goal is. But I thought as a connector to the deep forwards he has looked okay and has done a decent job on the intercept defender as well. Seems to have footy smarts too which wasn’t that obvious when playing backline

 

[Elixuh]

Did you see the footy shows last night where they showed a fair bit of damning footage which really had nothing to do with the conditions and demonstrated we were either out coached or the players refused to adhere to Fagan’s coaching (damning if that is the case) or a combo of the two, but to simply dismiss the Cats game because of the conditions when you see many of the examples shown is putting your head in the sand.

Was that the one where the first clip they showed to prove our structure wasn’t right was Lachie shanking a kick at right angles into the I-diddle-diddle where no one expected the ball to go straight to a Geelong player? That’s the one I saw.

There were examples of the players not being set right, but plenty where they were. To put that substantially on the coaches is rough.

 

[Happy_Neale]

Worst skills I’ve seen us display under Fagan. Couldn’t believe the turnovers at times. Did not adjust to conditions at all

 

[Grasshopper17]

Little things count. Missed kicks in the warm up last nite in front of me.
40m run ups from hipwood that look absurd.
Before the bounce v freo few weeks ago with freo in the shade and us in the blaring sun
Ill discipline from our leaders giving away stupid free kicks

We are miles away from a geelong or sydney in terms of systems. We have v little plan b's and coaches refuse to be proactive and adjust eg cats player playing as a spare defender and rebounding. Players badly out of form still playing.

 

[Ray Button]

Greens suspension upheld.

 

[Grasshopper17]

So much great analysis here! I can't quote everyone but shout out to RandomPest, KissKiss, DreadBat5701894, PTizzle, LionKing, JasRulz63, Section 5, Elixuh and Squizz89 for highlighting pretty much everything I'm touching on here.



You know it was a long night when the same passage of play (Neale's errant scrubber kick to our 50 which gets cut off and Stengle rebounds on the open side for a goal) gets highlighted on both Bounce (the clanger segment) and then immediately after on First Crack.

(Yes, I watched Bounce this week I needed cheering up and watching Gazey whinge about walking and hopping across Lego like it was a fire pit laced with shards of glass helped to some extent.)

But what a mystifying performance. We played the conditions so badly, which seemed bizarre given (a) how well we had played in wet conditions in the past (think the Essendon game in 2021, the Adelaide away game last year, where the only time we looked vulnerable was when the rain STOPPED, 90% sure there are others) and (b) the amount of rain we have experienced here in Brisbane during summer.

It was the sort of performance that almost makes you ask "why" rather than "how", and I think our ex-captain did a pretty good job of summing that up the other day:

Videos | AFL, AFLW, VFL, Pressers & More | Brisbane Lions

After the loss to Geelong in Round 6, Dayne Zorko talks to the media about the energy and feeling within the group.

www.lions.com.au

His "take what your opponent gives you" I thought was a pretty good explanation. Which begs the question so many of us are asking here... WHY did we decide to try to outnumber around the ball and gift Geelong those spares in defence? Maybe we thought given (a) and (b) above, our skill level would hold up sufficiently in the wet. If that was the reasoning is backfired spectacularly!

Obviously it's all very easy in hindsight but in a wet weather game we really should have equalised the numbers and just gone man on man. If this meant that Geelong still tried to play extra numbers in defence, this may have congested our forward line and still left theirs open. But I still think this would have been a worthwhile Plan A; it would have made Geelong's exits out of our front half far more difficult. Then if we did find we were still being hurt on the rebound, we could drop a spare back ourselves, and turn it into a game of kick to kick.

Certainly in wet weather, playing an extra number around the ball became almost completely redundant, and actually invited our overuse, as Zorko mentioned, leading to many many skill errors.

It's not an excuse, but I think it's being underestimated just how much having no ruckmen messed with our structure. The difference between our side before and after Big O went off was huge.

I think this is a great call and was thinking about it during the game. The common perception is that big men are largely useless in big games, and it is better to go small. I completely disagree with this and pretty much always have. The fact the game becomes almost 100% about territory instead of possession means your big men become even more important, to provide you with structure and long targets. When we lost Oscar it basically meant we lost Joe from our forward line which robbed us of our structure.

It was the first time I've thought "we're really missing McStay here" because he would have provided that long kicking target. I felt we didn't get enough out of Gardiner after half time. He had an opportunity to step up out of the "defensive forward" role but perhaps that is asking a bit much only 4 or so games in to playing this role. Also our insistence on letting Geelong drop spare men back into our forward line hardly helped him, and I don't think it helped any of our small forwards either, who were almost completely unsighted, in sharp contrast to Stengle and Ollie Henry at the other end.

Ultimately, lacking our normal forward line structure, given the conditions we probably needed to resort to a Richmond style of game, of 90%+ forward movement, and by that I mean kicks, handballs, knock ons, the works. Play in straight lines, minimise your lateral ball use, make it all about territory. Combined with a more man on man approach I think this would have been a better strategy on Saturday night.

I'm serious when I say we HAVE to train in the rain or at least with sprinklers....our players are so used to hot dry weather, Vic clubs are used to the cold and wet, particularly Geelong. They have always played well when it's raining. We don't.

Where do we train when its pouring rain up there? I'm tipping we stay inside. Get them outside every time to learn to cope with it.

We already have the problem of the MCG and lack of regular games there.....would be good if we can get on a better playing level by at least being able to be competitive if wet.

Something that imo needs addressing.

Totally agree with this. Long range forecasts are not always 100% reliable, but they're not too bad, and I think they give an opportunity for our coaches during pre-season. They should earmark a single week during preseason, when it's most likely to bucket down, and say "righto boys, this week we are practising our wet weather game". And for that week, the focus is 100% on the style(s) of play I suggested above. Either long kicking to our forward "structure" targets, and/or the fast, forward momentum ground-based game in their absence.

Then, when the rain comes in-season, that acts as a bookmark and we can say "right, remember that week we had in January when it rained for 4 days, that's the way we need to play tonight".

Oddly enough, one of our intra-clubs this year was played in pretty wet and sodden conditions, and I can't really remember that we changed up our game plan at all that day either. This does make me think we thought we could get away with it to some extent.

Hopefully we do take the "learnings" out of this game, but the most frustrating thing for me is that there shouldn't have had to be any learnings necessary to play wet weather footy. You basically go back to the way you played your junior footy. It's the easiest, most braindead, basic way to play that requires almost zero complex decision making. And yet we somehow stuffed it up. Quite bizarre, and it's disappointing that nobody at any press conference since has tried to find out whether the way we played was a coaching instruction or whether the players went rogue as Squizz89 suggested.

 

[Nathan Barley]

What interested me was when Fages said we played the wet well at the start of the game but didn’t adjust when it got really wet.

Which really made this more complex to think there’s wet weather footy and wet weather footy.

Frustrating though when the third quarter was our worst IMO. Would have hoped at half time they would’ve been given the direction required to adjust. Maybe this was the impact of Oscar going down. Still would’ve preferred Payne to ruck and Dizzy shift down back

 

[Grasshopper17]

What interested me was when Fages said we played the wet well at the start of the game but didn’t adjust when it got really wet.

Which really made this more complex to think there’s wet weather footy and wet weather footy.

Frustrating though when the third quarter was our worst IMO. Would have hoped at half time they would’ve been given the direction required to adjust. Maybe this was the impact of Oscar going down. Still would’ve preferred Payne to ruck and Dizzy shift down back

I actually thought Payne did alright on Hawkins. Obviously he had his general coordination and brain fade issues, but in a one on one capacity against Hawkins I thought he held his own.

If Dizzy had moved down back he probably would have had to play on Cameron which then begs the question who plays on Hawkins?

I think overall we got our defensive match ups pretty spot on. Andrews didn't really have an ideal matchup which is why we need to put better pressure on their ball movement further afield, and make his one on one contests more aerial/overhead. Our lack thereof also cast Starce in a poor light I felt, when often it wasn't his fault.

 

[Nathan Barley]

I actually thought Payne did alright on Hawkins. Obviously he had his general coordination and brain fade issues, but in a one on one capacity against Hawkins I thought he held his own.

If Dizzy had moved down back he probably would have had to play on Cameron which then begs the question who plays on Hawkins?

I think overall we got our defensive match ups pretty spot on. Andrews didn't really have an ideal matchup which is why we need to put better pressure on their ball movement further afield, and make his one on one contests more aerial/overhead. Our lack thereof also cast Starce in a poor light I felt, when often it wasn't his fault.

Andrews on Hawkins. With wet conditions he was never going to do much. Plus Henry was looking dangerous on Andrews

 

[Elixuh]

So much great analysis here! I can't quote everyone but shout out to RandomPest, KissKiss, DreadBat5701894, PTizzle, LionKing, JasRulz63, Section 5, Elixuh and Squizz89 for highlighting pretty much everything I'm touching on here.



You know it was a long night when the same passage of play (Neale's errant scrubber kick to our 50 which gets cut off and Stengle rebounds on the open side for a goal) gets highlighted on both Bounce (the clanger segment) and then immediately after on First Crack.

(Yes, I watched Bounce this week I needed cheering up and watching Gazey whinge about walking and hopping across Lego like it was a fire pit laced with shards of glass helped to some extent.)

But what a mystifying performance. We played the conditions so badly, which seemed bizarre given (a) how well we had played in wet conditions in the past (think the Essendon game in 2021, the Adelaide away game last year, where the only time we looked vulnerable was when the rain STOPPED, 90% sure there are others) and (b) the amount of rain we have experienced here in Brisbane during summer.

It was the sort of performance that almost makes you ask "why" rather than "how", and I think our ex-captain did a pretty good job of summing that up the other day:

Videos | AFL, AFLW, VFL, Pressers & More | Brisbane Lions

After the loss to Geelong in Round 6, Dayne Zorko talks to the media about the energy and feeling within the group.

www.lions.com.au

His "take what your opponent gives you" I thought was a pretty good explanation. Which begs the question so many of us are asking here... WHY did we decide to try to outnumber around the ball and gift Geelong those spares in defence? Maybe we thought given (a) and (b) above, our skill level would hold up sufficiently in the wet. If that was the reasoning is backfired spectacularly!

Obviously it's all very easy in hindsight but in a wet weather game we really should have equalised the numbers and just gone man on man. If this meant that Geelong still tried to play extra numbers in defence, this may have congested our forward line and still left theirs open. But I still think this would have been a worthwhile Plan A; it would have made Geelong's exits out of our front half far more difficult. Then if we did find we were still being hurt on the rebound, we could drop a spare back ourselves, and turn it into a game of kick to kick.

Certainly in wet weather, playing an extra number around the ball became almost completely redundant, and actually invited our overuse, as Zorko mentioned, leading to many many skill errors.



I think this is a great call and was thinking about it during the game. The common perception is that big men are largely useless in big games, and it is better to go small. I completely disagree with this and pretty much always have. The fact the game becomes almost 100% about territory instead of possession means your big men become even more important, to provide you with structure and long targets. When we lost Oscar it basically meant we lost Joe from our forward line which robbed us of our structure.

It was the first time I've thought "we're really missing McStay here" because he would have provided that long kicking target. I felt we didn't get enough out of Gardiner after half time. He had an opportunity to step up out of the "defensive forward" role but perhaps that is asking a bit much only 4 or so games in to playing this role. Also our insistence on letting Geelong drop spare men back into our forward line hardly helped him, and I don't think it helped any of our small forwards either, who were almost completely unsighted, in sharp contrast to Stengle and Ollie Henry at the other end.

Ultimately, lacking our normal forward line structure, given the conditions we probably needed to resort to a Richmond style of game, of 90%+ forward movement, and by that I mean kicks, handballs, knock ons, the works. Play in straight lines, minimise your lateral ball use, make it all about territory. Combined with a more man on man approach I think this would have been a better strategy on Saturday night.



Totally agree with this. Long range forecasts are not always 100% reliable, but they're not too bad, and I think they give an opportunity for our coaches during pre-season. They should earmark a single week during preseason, when it's most likely to bucket down, and say "righto boys, this week we are practising our wet weather game". And for that week, the focus is 100% on the style(s) of play I suggested above. Either long kicking to our forward "structure" targets, and/or the fast, forward momentum ground-based game in their absence.

Then, when the rain comes in-season, that acts as a bookmark and we can say "right, remember that week we had in January when it rained for 4 days, that's the way we need to play tonight".

Oddly enough, one of our intra-clubs this year was played in pretty wet and sodden conditions, and I can't really remember that we changed up our game plan at all that day either. This does make me think we thought we could get away with it to some extent.

Hopefully we do take the "learnings" out of this game, but the most frustrating thing for me is that there shouldn't have had to be any learnings necessary to play wet weather footy. You basically go back to the way you played your junior footy. It's the easiest, most braindead, basic way to play that requires almost zero complex decision making. And yet we somehow stuffed it up. Quite bizarre, and it's disappointing that nobody at any press conference since has tried to find out whether the way we played was a coaching instruction or whether the players went rogue as Squizz89 suggested.

By outnumbering around the ball and allowing a spare in those conditions I assume we thought even if their spare got it when we went forward they would kick back out to an outnumber in conditions where a mark won’t be taken. So we can press and lock it in our forward half and then try to break lines when we get the ball back on turnover.

Obviously not how it worked out. But that’s the only reason I can see as to why you’d do what we did? Or I’m missing something?

 

[martinson]

I can't have Dizz forward in any respect. Given that was my steadfast opinion before the year started and seen nothing to change my mind.

But we're going to keep playing him there until it works in a game and then say how he fits in like a glove.

As to the many facets of the debate over our wet weather tactics we encounter conditions like that once in a blue moon so when it happens again hopefully the players and coaches will know what to do.

I have seen GF's played in similar conditions.

 

[Grasshopper17]

By outnumbering around the ball and allowing a spare in those conditions I assume we thought even if their spare got it when we went forward they would kick back out to an outnumber in conditions where a mark won’t be taken. So we can press and lock it in our forward half and then try to break lines when we get the ball back on turnover.

Obviously not how it worked out. But that’s the only reason I can see as to why you’d do what we did? Or I’m missing something?

I get it. The problem was that it meant they either marked the ball or got it in enough space to have time to make good decisions. Which often meant shifting play to the open side and to their forwards' advantage, away from our own spare(s), where it didn't matter so much how accurate their disposal was.

 

[Elixuh]

I get it. The problem was that it meant they either marked the ball or got it in enough space to have time to make good decisions. Which often meant shifting play to the open side and to their forwards' advantage, away from our own spare(s), where it didn't matter so much how accurate their disposal was.

Yeah I feel that at a point it becomes clear it isn’t working and they should have tried to even numbers.

 

[martinson]

Players and coaches aren't robots .

I'm sure after the game they would've thought there were things we should've done differently.

I take Fagan's point that we handled conditions well particularly in the first quarter and the conclusion from that is that either the players or the coaches or something in between didn't adapt to the deteriorating conditions after that.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Interesting to hear Luke Hodge today chatting with Corey Parker and Ian Healy. Among other things he dropped in "trust me, I've spoken to a lot of the coaches, their message was simplify it and just kick the bloody ball... stop handballing"

I guess that settles it

He's still pretty positive about our prospects. So is Daniel Hoyne for that matter.