Scorpus
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Analysis Adelaide’s Game Plan (or lack thereof)
- Thread starter Rory Walkerfield
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We keep playing a forward up around the ball and then we are out numbered when we bomb it into the forward line.
But the stupid thing is, we did for the whole night, we change our set up at all.
NTRabbit
Brownlow Medallist
Our attacking gameplan is disposal and wing/corridor agnostic, it's entirely about gaining field position by whatever disposal type is available at any given possession, with the purpose being to push the ball into the forward line where scoring (theoretically) becomes inevitable thanks to our multiple small and tall attack avenues. That's why you see them switch between short chips and long kicks without apparent reason, and I would say also running the ball but we seem largely incapable of that both in terms of precise hand skills and pace to break lines.
I've no idea who came up with it, but it's pretty bad, even taking into account that the players don't quite know what to do and are achingly slow at decision making.
Our defensive gameplan, whatever it might be, is routinely being undone by part lack of foot speed from our one paced side, and part certain players not working hard both ways.
I've no idea who came up with it, but it's pretty bad, even taking into account that the players don't quite know what to do and are achingly slow at decision making.
Our defensive gameplan, whatever it might be, is routinely being undone by part lack of foot speed from our one paced side, and part certain players not working hard both ways.
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Ham
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So just reading this article - King getting frustrated by Hawthorns game style - made me wonder about Nicks - remember someone posting Tex saying his biggest attribute is understanding the modern game - just copied in key parts below.
Play like that doesn’t help – we’re in an entertainment industry. Who is going to watch that rubbish?
Former Hawthorn sharpshooter Ben Dixon posed whether Mitchell was “trialling” different strategies while the Hawks are still in development mode.
King also scoffed at suggestions Mitchell is developing a brand for where the game could be in several years when his side is ready to challenge for the top eight.
“I don’t think that’s the responsibility to try and work out where the game’s going in four years’ time when the list is right. There’s half a dozen other teams at the same point right now. If you’re playing the futuristic game, that’s dangerous,” he said
On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
Play like that doesn’t help – we’re in an entertainment industry. Who is going to watch that rubbish?
Former Hawthorn sharpshooter Ben Dixon posed whether Mitchell was “trialling” different strategies while the Hawks are still in development mode.
King also scoffed at suggestions Mitchell is developing a brand for where the game could be in several years when his side is ready to challenge for the top eight.
“I don’t think that’s the responsibility to try and work out where the game’s going in four years’ time when the list is right. There’s half a dozen other teams at the same point right now. If you’re playing the futuristic game, that’s dangerous,” he said
On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
It’s hard to know what to make of this, but anyway. The Age got some data on how teams defend opposition transition from d50 to f50. According to this data, we are among the best. I don’t know if it covers both games, or only one. If it covers both, the data might be skewed by the wet weather game in rd1.
- Jul 6, 2017
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Thats putting it in a very civil polite manner Scorpus. If we used the appropriate language about how Nicks allowed it to happen, it would be thread bans and suspended accounts all the way
Lies. Olsen told me that he believed that Nicks has the game plan to win finals. It must be true, look at the results...........
oh wait.
Not true, we deliberately put pedlar on him to man him up according to Nicks.
I mean, that is a ridiculous thing to do to begin with, but by 10 mins into the 2nd qtr when stewart has 12 possessions and 6 or 7 marks and pedlar 0 possessions, surely then you'd change the match up? Well no, instead apparently the solution was to let stewart run free for the rest of the ******* MATCH
Master coach.
Telling everyone the whole preseason we expect to make finals this year instead of doing the work to make it happen really paying dividends
Given we have a potent forwardline and an inexperienced defence... you'd think this is the worst possible game plan for our team.
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As funny as it will sound, I don't blame the players too much for Friday night. They can't go off road mid game if they have been instructed to play a certain way and from the way it looked in Bay 303 which gave a good overhead view, the game plan was kick long down the line..repeatedly.
Had the game plan be, play on at all costs, be daring and move the ball through the middle and look to quickly switch play and make sure you outwork an old geelong side, I think we would see a different team performance. I blame that loss entirely on Nicks unless I am dead wrong and the players totally ignored his instructions to try the above.
Brett Cummings
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Get on the Legs
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1st year coach takes more responsibility than senior coach, go figure
Ham
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Our gameplan hasn't changed from 2 years ago, to last year to this year, other than minor tinkering around the edges.
Last year we got better results because we were more experienced at the gameplan, more experienced in general, were probably a bit fitter and so got the game on our terms a lot more.
This is noting that we were 0-2 last year as well. With poor games for large stretches in those first two matches.
We have the most complex and unique and difficult to execute gameplan in the AFL. It does not surprise me that it takes us two or three (or four or five maybe) rounds to get going. (Note that I don't necessarily support this gameplan, im just a messenger trying to help you guys understand it.) We need to see other teams gameplan and set plays, that helps. In the first couple of rounds there's still a few things hidden and we can be beaten by that. By four or five rounds in most teams have done their full repertoire of tricks and we can be ready for them.
Back to us.
Our gameplan is pretty simple, others on here have already called the most noticeable part - we keep an extra at the contest and this tends to leave an extra defender in our forward line and so our forwards are outnumbered and we keep that extra at the contests, even in our defense, so we never have the oppo forwards outnumbered, at best we have even numbers.
We expect to win the contests. When we do tho, we have to run it out. The hack kick forward hurts us far more than it does with other teams because we always allow the aforementioned extra in our forward line. Even a non hack, deliberate kick into our forwards is often difficult to do because 1) we'll be normally exiting an area of tight congestion where we just had a contest, so the kicker wont have a lot of time and space and will still be pressured somewhat (not helped by our relatively slow mids too) and 2) thanks to the extra numbers that can put blocks on, come in and intercept, go third man up etc, its hard for us to get marks.
Which then leads to why our defense looks slow compared to the oppositions. If the opposition do get a turnover in our forward line, thanks to the extra number they had, this now means, if we man the mark, they've got a free person somewhere. And so they can rebound it far easier than for us, since we only ever have even numbers, if we get the mark in defense, all our defenders are manned up, the only person likely to be free is our extra mid where the last contest was, which is likely to be in congestion and of no help.
Our gameplan is especially susceptible to being disrupted if the oppo can
-win a fair share of the contests despite our system of trying to dominate at them and especially if that can be converted to scoreboard pressure since our gameplan is not scoring friendly (gold coast did this)
We often go better against good teams since those good teams (which play with an extra numbers in defense gameplan - which every team in the comp besides us does) know that if they don't have a reasonable balance of offense they'll lose to the other good teams. So they don't go as defensive against us. They also take us on in the contests and since we can often do well in that we'll often go well against them. Its the mid table teams that aren't afraid to go extra defensive that we really under perform against. There were times in the last two games that there were two, three and four extra defenders more than our forwards inside the forward 50. That works well against us if you can put the pressure on around the midfield and GC and the conditions and Geelong both did that.
There are other aspects to our gameplan that are difficult for our players too. Since our game is based around winning the inside, we can have a tendency to, around and in contests, to be drawn into the contest, not leaving enough "player density" out further and then when we get the ball we've got no one in the clear anywhere to give it to or if it accidentally gets to the outside the oppo are all free on the outside and its off to the races for them.
Due to our gameplan, we are hurt far more badly when we give free hits to the opposition. Things like intercept marks, the ball getting over the back of a pack especially when the oppo are moving forward and especially when its just near the boundary and we could've knocked it over, or out of bounds on the fulls. These are some of the things we've been terrible at in the past two weeks and some things that are pretty easy to fix that would help enormously.
When things arent going well for us, since we know we can't score quickly when they aren't, if we get 3 or 4 goals behind, it builds enormous anxiety in our players and then they make all the horrendous mistakes that we see where they do things you wouldn't even expect an amateur league b grader to do. That is one part I hate about the gameplan. Nicks needs to add some ways of getting easy scoring. In last weeks game I'm sure ROB could've easily done some taps to a mid running past on the outside for a quick easy forward entry, which under 6 6 6 means we don't have the outnumber for once. But no, kept with the instruction to ROB, tap it down, tap it down.
These are all the exact same things as last season. Just last year, after the first couple of games, we got the contest side sorted well enough that we could have the game on our terms for long periods and then you saw the results. That was helped by the confidence from the win in round 3. This year, if we don't get that early win and its round 5 or 6 before we do, well, despite our likely improvement from more experience, the confidence sapped by early bad performance is likely to lead to a bad year.
Last year we got better results because we were more experienced at the gameplan, more experienced in general, were probably a bit fitter and so got the game on our terms a lot more.
This is noting that we were 0-2 last year as well. With poor games for large stretches in those first two matches.
We have the most complex and unique and difficult to execute gameplan in the AFL. It does not surprise me that it takes us two or three (or four or five maybe) rounds to get going. (Note that I don't necessarily support this gameplan, im just a messenger trying to help you guys understand it.) We need to see other teams gameplan and set plays, that helps. In the first couple of rounds there's still a few things hidden and we can be beaten by that. By four or five rounds in most teams have done their full repertoire of tricks and we can be ready for them.
Back to us.
Our gameplan is pretty simple, others on here have already called the most noticeable part - we keep an extra at the contest and this tends to leave an extra defender in our forward line and so our forwards are outnumbered and we keep that extra at the contests, even in our defense, so we never have the oppo forwards outnumbered, at best we have even numbers.
We expect to win the contests. When we do tho, we have to run it out. The hack kick forward hurts us far more than it does with other teams because we always allow the aforementioned extra in our forward line. Even a non hack, deliberate kick into our forwards is often difficult to do because 1) we'll be normally exiting an area of tight congestion where we just had a contest, so the kicker wont have a lot of time and space and will still be pressured somewhat (not helped by our relatively slow mids too) and 2) thanks to the extra numbers that can put blocks on, come in and intercept, go third man up etc, its hard for us to get marks.
Which then leads to why our defense looks slow compared to the oppositions. If the opposition do get a turnover in our forward line, thanks to the extra number they had, this now means, if we man the mark, they've got a free person somewhere. And so they can rebound it far easier than for us, since we only ever have even numbers, if we get the mark in defense, all our defenders are manned up, the only person likely to be free is our extra mid where the last contest was, which is likely to be in congestion and of no help.
Our gameplan is especially susceptible to being disrupted if the oppo can
-win a fair share of the contests despite our system of trying to dominate at them and especially if that can be converted to scoreboard pressure since our gameplan is not scoring friendly (gold coast did this)
- if pressure can be put on around our mids and contests, which results in poor quality clearance and disposals, turnovers etc (gc and geelong did this)
- if we can be denied scoring by them being extra defensive, often with extra numbers, since we'll build pressure on ourselves since we know we can't score quickly unless we get our system going and dominate at the contests. (gc and geelong did this)
We often go better against good teams since those good teams (which play with an extra numbers in defense gameplan - which every team in the comp besides us does) know that if they don't have a reasonable balance of offense they'll lose to the other good teams. So they don't go as defensive against us. They also take us on in the contests and since we can often do well in that we'll often go well against them. Its the mid table teams that aren't afraid to go extra defensive that we really under perform against. There were times in the last two games that there were two, three and four extra defenders more than our forwards inside the forward 50. That works well against us if you can put the pressure on around the midfield and GC and the conditions and Geelong both did that.
There are other aspects to our gameplan that are difficult for our players too. Since our game is based around winning the inside, we can have a tendency to, around and in contests, to be drawn into the contest, not leaving enough "player density" out further and then when we get the ball we've got no one in the clear anywhere to give it to or if it accidentally gets to the outside the oppo are all free on the outside and its off to the races for them.
Due to our gameplan, we are hurt far more badly when we give free hits to the opposition. Things like intercept marks, the ball getting over the back of a pack especially when the oppo are moving forward and especially when its just near the boundary and we could've knocked it over, or out of bounds on the fulls. These are some of the things we've been terrible at in the past two weeks and some things that are pretty easy to fix that would help enormously.
When things arent going well for us, since we know we can't score quickly when they aren't, if we get 3 or 4 goals behind, it builds enormous anxiety in our players and then they make all the horrendous mistakes that we see where they do things you wouldn't even expect an amateur league b grader to do. That is one part I hate about the gameplan. Nicks needs to add some ways of getting easy scoring. In last weeks game I'm sure ROB could've easily done some taps to a mid running past on the outside for a quick easy forward entry, which under 6 6 6 means we don't have the outnumber for once. But no, kept with the instruction to ROB, tap it down, tap it down.
These are all the exact same things as last season. Just last year, after the first couple of games, we got the contest side sorted well enough that we could have the game on our terms for long periods and then you saw the results. That was helped by the confidence from the win in round 3. This year, if we don't get that early win and its round 5 or 6 before we do, well, despite our likely improvement from more experience, the confidence sapped by early bad performance is likely to lead to a bad year.
We've played 10 minutes of great footy this year - balls out against GC, led by the youngsters.
We played 15 minutes of reasonable footy this week - second quarter, we attacked and went after it.
Second half of 2023, we played attacking, aggressive footy, and it was bloody fantastic.
Why we decided to go away from that, and play this absolute s**t, is beyond me.
We played 15 minutes of reasonable footy this week - second quarter, we attacked and went after it.
Second half of 2023, we played attacking, aggressive footy, and it was bloody fantastic.
Why we decided to go away from that, and play this absolute s**t, is beyond me.
I think it’s got us all bewildered, I even think the players would prefer to play that way
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It’s because we identified defence where we needed to improve. The way they’ve decided to do that is try and keep the ball and reduce being scored in transition from turnovers when are taking the game on.
The idiocy of this is we eventually bomb it or we shank our passes and get scored against anyway.
To watch Sydney run, attack and kick with exquisite skills is depressing, remember when they used to be defensive? Draft well and have a decent coach who changes with the times and bang, you win and are a premiership threat.
Rabish Binney
Left out overnight
Nicks must have watched replay's of Neil Craig's brainless move to leave Kris Massie on Buddy in that elimination final all those years ago.....
