Doctor Feel
Shitposter In Chief
As far as Jarrod's comments are concerned, he nailed one aspect of our playbook for last year. We were predictable and easy to stop. Hinkley came from the Geelong game-plan which was move the ball forward at all cost but put relentless pressure on the opposition. Too many teams train for this style of play. We have set mids, set defenders and set forwards. The idea of expanding the midfield makes us much better at attacking from our back half.
The other thing is training standards. I think we try to bring the pressure but pressure can can be sacrificed for skills. Jarrod came from the Williams, Clarkson, Bailey and Walsh era. There was always a high attention to detail on how we execute the game-plan from these coaches. It was nice to hear that Schofield expected that when the senior players came to training the standards were meant to increase. This is an indictment on whoever was in charge of the midfield before. But I have to hand it to Hinkley. I don't think that he is too proud not to change and take on new advice. I believe he loves tactics and is willing to rip up the play-book and start again.
Things to look forward to. Seeing Bonner, Johnson or Garner being thrown on a wing to play that Peter Burgoyne sweeper role. Better rebound from defense. Better handball skills since the essence of quick ball movement is hand speed and not just foot speed and spread. Less reliance on too few players such as Wines, Ebert, Boak and Powell Pepper. It is too easy to shut our team down.
Training standards is a big thing for mine. It's work, you're a professional. When you are out on the track, you work. Too often I see gaggles of players having a chat, standing around etc.
Some of that comes from the drill setups which require players to sort of wait in line. Very old school in my opinion, they should always be in motion. Don't so much as give them time to slack off. If they can't focus for a 1 hour main training session or a 1 hour weights session from start to finish, how do they expect them to focus for a two hour game. A core issue with our players, and clearly learned behaviour.
Additionally, i'm told that our list has historically not enjoyed the weights room and their attitude to it is abysmal. This has to change. This is where we need to draft some committed fiends to help correct and compensate.
As Schofield said in his presser, if you are an AFL footballer and you are not constantly trying to improve yourself - you are in the wrong job.
There is a reason our kicking hasn't improved. Our guys expect the burden to be completely shouldered by the clubs system. They never go away themselves and work on their shortcomings. The minute they leave the club for the day, their kicking issues don't exist. They are not doing enough to improve themselves, particularly in the off-season. I'd love for them to spend some time working on their deficiencies themselves rather than accepting a skills session here and there as the catch all. If you know your disposal needs work, ******* work on it. You don't need the clubs guidance to do that.
Oh and the high performance guys with their obsessive limitations on the number of a kicks a player can take during training needs to be lifted, or modified. A lot. There is absolutely no point keeping a list ultra healthy if they can't ******* kick.