A critical assessment - where are we going wrong?

[Angelus512]

Probably reading too much into this but.....could just be the GF win of 2010 and malthouse leaving. They figure hey, we won a flag, one of us won a brownlow, our old coach is gone. Whatever we did good.

Wellingham is busy looking pretty and hanging with lance Franklin. Daisy is busy talking and focusing anything that's not footy aka golf. Swan is his usual amusing self but probably has drank his own koolaid after last years brownlow.
Cloke and woody and possum are too busy with their little clique man love #thebeakes

I watched them all on twitter last year a lot and their was always a fair amount of talk about footy. This year it's all personal life postings or basically anything non footy related. Gives anecdotes for concern.

 

[PieNSauce]

Probably reading too much into this but.....could just be the GF win of 2010 and malthouse leaving. They figure hey, we won a flag, one of us won a brownlow, our old coach is gone. Whatever we did good.

Wellingham is busy looking pretty and hanging with lance Franklin. Daisy is busy talking and focusing anything that's not footy aka golf. Swan is his usual amusing self but probably has drank his own koolaid after last years brownlow.
Cloke and woody and possum are too busy with their little clique man love #thebeakes

I watched them all on twitter last year a lot and their was always a fair amount of talk about footy. This year it's all personal life postings or basically anything non footy related. Gives anecdotes for concern.

The problem with reading anything into what people tweet is that people use such things to convey only what they want to convey. It doesn't necessarily reflect reality. No doubt many of the players are struggling with the changes at Collingwood as would only be human and it's highly likely that they would be avoiding comment for fear of being misconstrued or quoted out of context. We have seen so many examples of those things in the past. I would read nothing at all into it!

 

[Trojan Pies]

Buckley wouldn't have changed much in the centre bounces and we couldn't buy a centre clearance all game. When you are that unmercifully smashed out of the middle, you simply can't win games of football. Our decimated backline is just a postscript.

Spot on Sean - I noted that we did not reassess our centre bounce set up despite constantly being beaten in the ruck. Carlton and Collingwood essentially structured up the same way with both playing a sweeper defensive side of the bounce. This is fine if the ruck contests are 50:50 but when we are getting butchered, adjustment needs to be made. Inevitably, Hampson or Kruezer would win the hitout backwards to the sweeper who would be under little pressure do to his opponent being the opposing sweeper 10m away. From here Judd/Murphy would squirt out left or right to recieve the ball at full tilt and clear of conjestion (essentially rendering our sweeper position useless). What this meant is clear, unpressured entries into the Carlton forward line time after time. Our back line stood no chance at all.

In 2003 we made it to a GF by roving to the opposition ruckman (we had Fraser and McKee). In 2007 we made it to the PF and one straight kick from the GF (Fraser and Richards - Richards only in the PF) with the same tactic -reading opposition hit outs AKA sharking the ball. Pendlebury and Swan were absolute maestros at this and I wonder why they weren't smart enough to take intiative themselves. Also, the finger must be pointed squarely at Robert Harvey and Nathan for the set up remaining the same through the whole match....I hope that they have reviewed and acknowledged this because it was the first serious black mark on Buck's coaching career in my eyes.

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

Sorry but the midfield situation had ntohign to do with setups.

If players aren't going in, and the ruckmen are being slaughtered, then setups will change nothing.

Our number 1 problem on Friday was intensity. Carlton had tonnes of it, we had less than none of it.

 

[Trojan Pies]

Sorry but the midfield situation had ntohign to do with setups.

If players aren't going in, and the ruckmen are being slaughtered, then setups will change nothing.

Our number 1 problem on Friday was intensity. Carlton had tonnes of it, we had less than none of it.

Agreed - you can try every set up in the playbook but if the players aren't willing to put their body on the line you'll never make any headway. And agree that intesity was no.1 reason...couldn't agree more on this point.

Failing to bring intensity to the game is a failure on both players AND coaches. A major part of a coach's role is not only fitness, skills and strategy - it is motivating the playing group to bring intesity to the game - Getting them "up".

I was merely pointing out that this was one of the levers that the coaches could have pulled to try to make a difference. The "sharking" tactic is also a tactic that we have employed in recent years with success so it should be known to the coaches. Allowing a structure to be dominated continually without trying to amend the situation is a failure on the match day coaching staff.

 

[Trojan Pies]

We also find ourselves in a position where the rucks are giving us nothing, it's like sharking opposition taps from Fraser's ruck work all over again.

Just read this post now - agree it is exaclty like that but why didn't we adjust to their dominance and employ the sharking strategy/tactic?

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

Failing to bring intensity to the game is a failure on both players AND coaches. A major part of a coach's role is not only fitness, skills and strategy - it is motivating the playing group to bring intesity to the game - Getting them "up".

If that's the case, then write the year off.

Buckley, the players and even the administrators have said that the biggest difference between Mick and Bucks, is that Bucks firmly believes in the players motivating themselves.

Which I agree with.

If you need to be 'motivated' to play in front of 90,000 people, playing in the black and white, being paid 200K plus a year, then you shouldn't be playing football.

These are grown men we're talking about. Not kids.

 

[Old Spice]

Just read this post now - agree it is exaclty like that but why didn't we adjust to their dominance and employ the sharking strategy/tactic?

Well if they start getting into position to shark the opposition tap and we win it and are out of position, not a good look.

We'll have to see whether Jolly is injured, in a form slump or on the way down before can start doing it.

 

[loki04]

If that's the case, then write the year off.

Buckley, the players and even the administrators have said that the biggest difference between Mick and Bucks, is that Bucks firmly believes in the players motivating themselves.

Which I agree with.

If you need to be 'motivated' to play in front of 90,000 people, playing in the black and white, being paid 200K plus a year, then you shouldn't be playing football.

These are grown men we're talking about. Not kids.

Think self motivation to the point were u eek out an extra % in performance is almost impossible for 99% of humans, something I hope Buckley re thinks over time some players need a gee up at times.

Every AFL footballer would be self motivated to an extent but a good rev up from a coach can be the difference at the start of the game between starting flat or fired up, to run through a brick wall for EACH other.

 

[dubber]

Think self motivation to the point were u eek out an extra % in performance is almost impossible for 99% of humans, something I hope Buckley re thinks over time some players need a gee up at times.

Every AFL footballer would be self motivated to an extent but a good rev up from a coach can be the difference at the start of the game between starting flat or fired up, to run through a brick wall for EACH other.

Yep spot on. Buckley needs to be able to deal with each player individually, some will require the rev up regularly, others will manage themselves. Its people management 101.

 

[Steeleyourself]

Guys, I think this needs a bump, to remind us just how far we've come, it may only have been 9 rounds since this loss, but I think it might be critical just to see how we felt then, and how we look now.

 

[Nicco_jj]

Guys, I think this needs a bump, to remind us just how far we've come, it may only have been 9 rounds since this loss, but I think it might be critical just to see how we felt then, and how we look now.

No doubt.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

A lot of panic on this thread from the unlearned after one poor game.

 

[Pie eyed]

We need to stop winning so many games so we can stand back and have a good look at ourselves.
We just cannot see the deficiencies for the success.

There is no point just endless winning if we are not improving and to do this we need to critically analyze the crap out of the side.