AFL Round 17 - Postmatch autopsy - Coll vs Hawks

[Stripes B and W]

The argument that Maxwell and others are hopeless and get exposed playing man on man defence is rubbish, as pointed out by Checkside. I wonder how many Collingwood matches the Hawthorn pundits watch?
Its the simplistic fodder of the ill informed.
If it were that easy, why have Collingwood been so successful in recent seasons?
If it is that easy to unravel us, why do we win any games?

Talking of better quality players playing half back roles is lovely notion, given the season long absence of Ball, McCaffer, Krak, Johnson, Didak and now Williams our options for medium sized skilled players is somewhat limited. The availability of even two of the mentioned players would allow a significant amount of flexibility in players like Fas, Sidey, Thomas and Wellingham.

Fact is, they are not available so you compete with what you have

 

[forwardflanker]

The problem with going with a tall forward line is that currently our small forward are bad crumbers. In 2010 we had Davis, Blaire, Beams and Sidebottom (who is now playing midfield). Last year we had several of those + Krakeour who is one of the best crumbers in the AFL. On to 2012 we have Elliot and Fasolo - both of them are much better marking players and the fact they're not great at crumbing is a huge deficiency in their game giving the position they're playing.

The issue every time we play Hawthorn is that we crushed in the clearances.For a side that supposedly has the best midfield in the game it just isn't good enough to get consistently owned in the center the way Hawthorn has done to us in recent times.

It seems for some reason that tagging has become a bad word for us in recent years. I don't know if it's arrogance or perhaps they think it's two difficult given the amount of rotations. However in the last month we have been crushed by Mitchell and Judd through the midfield - not doing anything about it is just not good enough. If we stop one of them we go a long way to winning the game, or in the case of the weekend reducing the margin. Our biggest strength is our midfield depth this should in theory enable us to ask any of our midfielders to put on a hard tag and not be to hurt by it.

 

[MinerBoy]

I've always been surprised at the amount of latitude you guys have given Mitchell over the years.

 

[forwardflanker]

I've always been surprised at the amount of latitude you guys have given Mitchell over the years.

yeah it's ridiculous, no surprise that he cuts us up every time. Our reluctance to tag the best mids in the comp is really pretty arrogant imo

 

[SuperSub17]

Would someone please explain how % works. It doesn't matter what order you play it is averaged out over the entire season. Points for divided by points against and x 100 to give you a percentage. It depends on how much you win by and what the other team scores. It's not that hard to work out. We have nearly played every team now except gold coast and essendon. We also only play gold coast once and gws so they can't bump there percentage up. They have played Collingwood twice now. So with 150 odd % id say they have had a great year so far. Do you understand now

Ffs that's not what I'm saying, in my example above both teams have the same % at the end, but halfway through one team will be higher than the other.

 

[Hawkas1988]

yeah it's ridiculous, no surprise that he cuts us up every time. Our reluctance to tag the best mids in the comp is really pretty arrogant imo

I think because yours mids are so good, 5 guns (beams swan pendles, sidey and thomas) then you probably have the right to just go head to head with any midfield in the comp and you win most of the time. I think 1 of those players ay have to play a bit more of a run with role whilst still getting lots of the ball. Problem is not sure who, maybe Sidebottom?

Sewell is that type for us, he will get lots of the pill himself but also sometimes runs with an opponent, going head to head but also playing defensive when needed.

Still at the end of the day, your midfield is far and away the best midfield in the comp IMO.

 

[MinerBoy]

Ffs that's not what I'm saying, in my example above both teams have the same % at the end, but halfway through one team will be higher than the other.

I believe the point being made was that there is no longer any discount for who has had an easy run, hard run or whatever.......we are now at a point in time where everyone has more or less played everyone and as such we are no longer half way through and the %s are therefore a reasonable indication right now.

 

[Rioli magic]

I'll throw in my 2c with the Maxwell/Shaw thing.

I think a lot of you are perhaps missing the point. It is not about their ability to defend, they can defend fine, but they also take risks. I think the real "win" of playing through their men is not that you're exposing the accountability etc. it's actually when going the other way.

By forcing them to second guess a little, play a little tighter than normal, you actually reduce the drive from half back. This slows the ball movement down, increases the pressure on the ball carrier and makes your forwardline seem incompetent, when half the work is already done as numbers push back while the ball movement is slow. That's my take on where it's most effective playing through their men, not that they can't defend, but that they have to defend which takes away another strength.

 

[Wayne Arnold]

^ That is a very good analysis. Hope Bucks takes note. Thanks Clarko!

 

[Kirby]

Yeah that's a good post Rioli Magic.

 

[Somebody]

Maybe goldsack should play this role instead

I think they need a tank type player for this role. Alternatively a bean pole like Hale - too bad Wood is not coming up as hoped, maybe could try to develop him more as a forward then could play the forward and 2nd ruck role, I think he has shown potential as a marking forward.

 

[Somebody]

Yeah that's right. There were so many players who lost to their opponent it was ridiculous. I really hope it's training load. Taz back to defence. We need to find another solution to the forward line.

I'd be inclined to give him another chance to adjust to the role - was just that foot/half second off in a number of contests from creating scoring opps. He'd need to kick a bag next week vs GWS. Then see if he has improved against a mature side the week after.

 

[Somebody]

it is hardly panic stations yet gents. you may recall that at about this stage last year, we absolutely destroyed the hawks in front of 80,000+ at the G on a sunday arvo. 9 or so weeks later they were all over us in the prelim and should have beaten us very easily that night. so, alot can change in the space of 10 weeks or so.

the hawks cannot improve on their current level - they are the best team in the comp playing their best footy at the minute. can they sustain that for the next 2 and a bit months? maybe they can, maybe they can't. pies in 11, saints in 09, cats in 08, crows in 06 litter recent years as examples of dominant teams at this stage of the season who did not win the flag

yes we have issues that were exposed for all to see on saturday. we have 10 weeks to address them them. pretty confident we have the talent on the list to do so. for starters, our 22 in a big final will not be as inexperienced as that which took the field on saturday. elliott (as good as he was early) mooney seedsman young will all clearly make way for the likes of didak wellingham sinclair clarke buckley and the man i'd love to see back in johnson (as unlikely as that seems at the minute)

the other glaring issue from saturday was the tactics employed - i'd be surprised if there wasn't some element of keeping something up our sleeve for sept on this front. we only need to beat the hawks once this year, and it isn't in round 17. the hawks were pretty much allowed to play their style and dictate terms - we never really genuinely tried to apply the clamps and go man on man for any extended of period of time. the only way to beat their style is to man up and pressure the kicker. maybe it was just lack of effort on our part, but they were allowed to run free as they pleased. i doubt that will occur in sept - at least you would anticipate that we'd try and lock down on the more. maybe we're not good enough to do so, but we will at least try. there was no point in showing our hand on this front on saturday

alot of footy yet to be played in 2012

good optimistic post and yes there's plenty of hope left. You have to admit though, if Collingwood had played like the Dawks on SAturday we'd all be very happy and anticipating a flag this year. They played devastating footy.

 

[Mame]

Does anyone else want to see Thomas run with/tag Mitchell next time we play them? He did well on Ablett and Danger. I think it has to happen.

 

[forwardflanker]

Does anyone else want to see Thomas run with/tag Mitchell next time we play them? He did well on Ablett and Danger. I think it has to happen.

I'd prefer we use someone less talented. It doesn't have to be the same player all match, players can switch top have breaks but we can't afford to let Mitchell play with freeedom with have given him in recent matches. Benny Johnson, Toovey, Goldsack are the type of guys we should be looking at imo.

 

[SuperSub17]

Does anyone else want to see Thomas run with/tag Mitchell next time we play them? He did well on Ablett and Danger. I think it has to happen.

Something has to be done, he carves us up every time, that was the best 29-possession game I have seen in a while.

In patches our pressure was pretty good, we forced a few goals through turnovers in their back half, imo if we can lift that just another notch if we play them again it will be a very different story.

 

[Miss_Hawk_Fan]

Next time we meet Carlton and Hawthorn we must must MUST go smaller. There needs to be heaps more pressure than what there was.

I think the Pies are good enough to pick there best players available and make other teams march to the beat of there drums!! the Hawks can almost do that again as well!