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Coach Fages and the coaching group

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Kickback Flip said:
Do you think the reason Daniel Rich and the Brisbane Lions have parted ways is because of the trip?
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I think that’s the insinuation Landsberger wants people to make, but honestly I have no idea. I think it would be unlikely but who knows what to believe right now.
 
briztoon said:
They were the best players we had. We were very light on talent back then.

Pretty much why draftees walk in to the best 22 of every club at the bottom.
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I looked back to our Round 1 2017 team and this is very insulting to Rohan Bewick, Tom Bell, Sam Mayes, Michael Close, and Ryan Lester.

Also I believe only three players have debuted in round one in their first season under Fagan. Rayner, Robertson (who was dropped next game after the big Covid break), and Ashcroft. Berry and McCluggage debuted in Round 3 2017, Bailey in Round 4 2018, Starcevich in Round 20 2018. They still didn’t walk in under Fagan, just had a lot less competition after performing in the reserves.

All these guys had moments of playing in odd positions they probably didn’t play in before. Ashcroft is an outlier, his skills are as an inside midfielder and was just incredibly good at it.
 
BangyBangy said:
Yes, absolutely!!!! I saw Daniel Rich & ten of the Brisbane Lions' players from the Las Vegas trip in the closet making babies. And I saw one of the babies, and the baby looked at me.
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Start fracking them all for father sons / daughters. Priorities ppl !!
 
buttermuffs said:
I looked back to our Round 1 2017 team and this is very insulting to Rohan Bewick, Tom Bell, Sam Mayes, Michael Close, and Ryan Lester.

Also I believe only three players have debuted in round one in their first season under Fagan. Rayner, Robertson (who was dropped next game after the big Covid break), and Ashcroft. Berry and McCluggage debuted in Round 3 2017, Bailey in Round 4 2018, Starcevich in Round 20 2018. They still didn’t walk in under Fagan, just had a lot less competition after performing in the reserves.

All these guys had moments of playing in odd positions they probably didn’t play in before. Ashcroft is an outlier, his skills are as an inside midfielder and was just incredibly good at it.
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Valid points- Fagan developed that initial core between 2016/17/18. But the challenge is once the core developed n settled - he's so wedded to his preferred players that its pretty hard for the also rans to get look in. Lyons got a really long run when out of form, Gunston/Rich had to drop themselves last season, Rayner has never played in 2s etc. While Fagan deserves the credit for what he has built and even got us to a grand final, he is not beyond criticism for his resolute backing of a bunch of players unless they become injured or unavailable for other reasons. It has held the coach back to a degree of realizing the full potential of this squad.
 

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Seeing this is the coaching thread I'm not too much interested in what they did or didn't do or what the legacy is. The most important issue is what do we do now and what's best for our prospects for 25/6.

The first thing is to get cohesion and loyalty within the group if that doesn't exist in totality and start winning some games. We're getting it i/s 50 often enough to be winning already so I'd be working on what's preventing us from putting the score on the board aside from the obvious skill errors.

Second thing get our smalls to play as genuine crumbing smalls with someone in front of the pack ( anyone remember Lethal's message ,get Aker in front of Lynchy ??) and not flying for marks when we already have a tall up.
 
martinson said:
Seeing this is the coaching thread I'm not too much interested in what they did or didn't do or what the legacy is. The most important issue is what do we do now and what's best for our prospects for 25/6.

The first thing is to get cohesion and loyalty within the group if that doesn't exist in totality and start winning some games. We're getting it i/s 50 often enough to be winning already so I'd be working on what's preventing us from putting the score on the board
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The way we put it inside 50, and the work the forwards do, or do not do, to create space for easy marks. It shits me big time at how easy teams like Geelong mark the ball inside their forward 50, and in the 5 years of us being good, we haven't improved in this aspect one iota.

martinson said:
aside from the obvious skill errors.

Second thing get our smalls to play as genuine crumbing smalls with someone in front of the pack ( anyone remember Lethal's message ,get Aker in front of Lynchy ??) and not flying for marks when we already have a tall up.
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This too.
 
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briztoon said:
The way we put it inside 50, and the work the forwards do, or do not do, to create space for easy marks. It sh!ts me big time at how easy teams like Geelong mark the ball inside their forward 50, and in the 5 years of us being good, we haven't improved in this aspect one iota.


This too.
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It's a source of frustration for me how clogged up our forward line often is so we just bomb it and hope. We have talls who aren't particularly strong overhead yet they rarely lead or dummy lead. As to your point Hawkins seems to find space on his own multiple times a game, Is he that good ?

You can go into all the technicalities and players back and whatever other issues are behind it but the fact remains it keeps happening and there seem very few creative attempts on our part to undo the problem.

We should've won 2 games already that we just butchered once we got forward of centre.

It was all fine in the first quarter against Carlton before they realised there was a game on.
 
martinson said:
Seeing this is the coaching thread I'm not too much interested in what they did or didn't do or what the legacy is. The most important issue is what do we do now and what's best for our prospects for 25/6.

The first thing is to get cohesion and loyalty within the group if that doesn't exist in totality and start winning some games. We're getting it i/s 50 often enough to be winning already so I'd be working on what's preventing us from putting the score on the board aside from the obvious skill errors.

Second thing get our smalls to play as genuine crumbing smalls with someone in front of the pack ( anyone remember Lethal's message ,get Aker in front of Lynchy ??) and not flying for marks when we already have a tall up.
Click to expand...
I think a lot of this speaks to the "fundamentals" Craig McRae was talking about this time last week.

Craig Bellamy is to me the best example of this, certainly in Australian sport, in my lifetime. In an era of salary cap restraints, his teams have backed up and been at the pointy end year after year after year. And the vast majority of the time their play has been solid without being spectacular. Don't forward pass out of dummy half, get through your sets without errors, kick well, chase well, don't miss tackles, pressure their kicker, defuse the kick, rinse and repeat. Do that often enough and you eventually score. You beat teams with less talent and you also beat teams who have more talent but less of that discipline. None of that is very exciting and doesn't require a great deal of skill and instinct, but every year, there's the Storm, in the top 4.

After Thursday night I've done a bit of thinking about what is the "fundamentals" in Aussie rules? It's probably a bit trickier to nail down given the more 3D nature of the sport, and Fly will probably list different things on his Collingwood whiteboard, but here's my attempt at it.

  • Don't miss tackles (yes, I copied this one)
  • If you miss a tackle, fix it up. Chase and pressure. The guy with the ball has to bounce it at some stage and this will slow him down.
  • If we're not in possession, find an unmarked opponent. Ideally one who's a similar build to you, but not always possible immediately. Always know where he is. Keep him in your vision or maintain touch if he's behind.
  • If you can't find an unmarked opponent (this is where the 3D comes into it - it's a complicated/chaotic game), flood back to fill up space. Fill up the defensive 50, then fill up the centre square. Like water into a bucket.
  • When the ball comes your way, compete hard in the air. Don't get out marked. If in doubt, spoil. Preferably boundary side.
  • If we win possession, don't miss targets less than 30m away. If in doubt, boot the stuffing out of it, long and slow down the line.

You will note that 5 of these 6 principles are all about defending. Watching this team would be incredibly boring. But I tell you what else, any team that adheres to these principles as the fundamentals of its game beats any team with less ability, and will also beat teams with more talent but less work rate. This team will play finals more often than not, regardless of any draft and salary cap restrictions. This team will be criticised on one hand for lacking dare and imagination, while being lauded and admired on the other for never giving up and getting the most out of themselves.

Right now these are the "fundamentals", the basics we need to go back to. Our guys are lacking confidence and trust in themselves and each other, probably for a whole host of reasons, so we need to strip everything right back and simplify the whole plan. This will mean being predictable to our opposition. But this a far lesser evil than being unpredictable to our team mates.

We are at this stage because we got over-confident in the 2nd quarter of the Carlton game. We flirted with our form and now we're finding it hard to get it back. This is why I've been at pains over the last few years to stress the importance of playing a full four quarters, particularly finishing games well. To be honest, I'm surprised we haven't been in this sort of mess more often, during that time.

Hopefully we are able to re-find our mojo. But you can't put the infinity pool on the roof if the foundations at ground level are rotting. And that's how the house looks right now. Just like any strong building, the foundations always need to be the priority.
 
briztoon said:
The way we put it inside 50, and the work the forwards do, or do not do, to create space for easy marks. It sh!ts me big time at how easy teams like Geelong mark the ball inside their forward 50, and in the 5 years of us being good, we haven't improved in this aspect one iota.
Click to expand...

martinson said:
It's a source of frustration for me how clogged up our forward line often is so we just bomb it and hope. We have talls who aren't particularly strong overhead yet they rarely lead or dummy lead. As to your point Hawkins seems to find space on his own multiple times a game, Is he that good ?

You can go into all the technicalities and players back and whatever other issues are behind it but the fact remains it keeps happening and there seem very few creative attempts on our part to undo the problem.
Click to expand...
I agree with all this, but right now I believe we need to crawl before we try to walk again (RE my previous post). There were too many things I saw on Thursday night where it looked like the left hand wasn't talking to the right hand. Across the whole field.

I thought last season our ball movement going inside 50 was as good as it had been under Fagan. Which was probably reflected by our high conversion rate of inside 50s to scores. But I agree with you both: that has certainly not been the case this season.
 
Grasshopper17 said:
I think a lot of this speaks to the "fundamentals" Craig McRae was talking about this time last week.

Craig Bellamy is to me the best example of this, certainly in Australian sport, in my lifetime. In an era of salary cap restraints, his teams have backed up and been at the pointy end year after year after year. And the vast majority of the time their play has been solid without being spectacular. Don't forward pass out of dummy half, get through your sets without errors, kick well, chase well, don't miss tackles, pressure their kicker, defuse the kick, rinse and repeat. Do that often enough and you eventually score. You beat teams with less talent and you also beat teams who have more talent but less of that discipline. None of that is very exciting and doesn't require a great deal of skill and instinct, but every year, there's the Storm, in the top 4.

After Thursday night I've done a bit of thinking about what is the "fundamentals" in Aussie rules? It's probably a bit trickier to nail down given the more 3D nature of the sport, and Fly will probably list different things on his Collingwood whiteboard, but here's my attempt at it.

  • Don't miss tackles (yes, I copied this one)
  • If you miss a tackle, fix it up. Chase and pressure. The guy with the ball has to bounce it at some stage and this will slow him down.
  • If we're not in possession, find an unmarked opponent. Ideally one who's a similar build to you, but not always possible immediately. Always know where he is. Keep him in your vision or maintain touch if he's behind.
  • If you can't find an unmarked opponent (this is where the 3D comes into it - it's a complicated/chaotic game), flood back to fill up space. Fill up the defensive 50, then fill up the centre square. Like water into a bucket.
  • When the ball comes your way, compete hard in the air. Don't get out marked. If in doubt, spoil. Preferably boundary side.
  • If we win possession, don't miss targets less than 30m away. If in doubt, boot the stuffing out of it, long and slow down the line.

You will note that 5 of these 6 principles are all about defending. Watching this team would be incredibly boring. But I tell you what else, any team that adheres to these principles as the fundamentals of its game beats any team with less ability, and will also beat teams with more talent but less work rate. This team will play finals more often than not, regardless of any draft and salary cap restrictions. This team will be criticised on one hand for lacking dare and imagination, while being lauded and admired on the other for never giving up and getting the most out of themselves.

Right now these are the "fundamentals", the basics we need to go back to. Our guys are lacking confidence and trust in themselves and each other, probably for a whole host of reasons, so we need to strip everything right back and simplify the whole plan. This will mean being predictable to our opposition. But this a far lesser evil than being unpredictable to our team mates.

We are at this stage because we got over-confident in the 2nd quarter of the Carlton game. We flirted with our form and now we're finding it hard to get it back. This is why I've been at pains over the last few years to stress the importance of playing a full four quarters, particularly finishing games well. To be honest, I'm surprised we haven't been in this sort of mess more often, during that time.

Hopefully we are able to re-find our mojo. But you can't put the infinity pool on the roof if the foundations at ground level are rotting. And that's how the house looks right now. Just like any strong building, the foundations always need to be the priority.
Click to expand...
Totally onboard with point 4. Run back twice as hard to defend. It'll solve a lot of issues.
If unsure just watch Papley before and after he kicks a goal. You'll 100% see him run faster during celebration than goal kicking. That's what we need to do for defending.
 
martinson said:
I agree with most of what Buttermuffs posted and tbh anyone could see Coleman ,Payne ,Wilmot and Bailey were going to be Senior players and that Answerth was a bit of a liability.

Overall Fagan has done a really good job with what we had and been successful in recruiting some guns . We probably haven't been so successful in bringing on some players. But we've been in contention and when that's the case you play your best team. It's also conjectural whether they were/are any good anyway.

When you get injuries you find out about your depth. None of it's an exact science . It's easy to be critical. I just wish we'd won the flag last year and no one would have a problem. What we are missing are a couple of good solid second stringers who you know can plug holes when you cop injuries and maybe even become regulars. We need another Cal Ah Chee and Ryan Lester.
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I think we’re another A grade mid and an A grade winger short of winning the whole lot. Don’t think we’ll win it all with that.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
BangyBangy said:
Sorry Sizey, but that's a harsh take.

Why hasn't he pumped games into youth that deserve it? We got within a kick of a premiership last year.

Give the guy some credit. In seven years we've gone from absolute laughing stock to grand final.
Click to expand...
What does that mean? Just because he won a few finals that he has the job for life?
 

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Grasshopper17 said:
I think a lot of this speaks to the "fundamentals" Craig McRae was talking about this time last week.

Craig Bellamy is to me the best example of this, certainly in Australian sport, in my lifetime. In an era of salary cap restraints, his teams have backed up and been at the pointy end year after year after year. And the vast majority of the time their play has been solid without being spectacular. Don't forward pass out of dummy half, get through your sets without errors, kick well, chase well, don't miss tackles, pressure their kicker, defuse the kick, rinse and repeat. Do that often enough and you eventually score. You beat teams with less talent and you also beat teams who have more talent but less of that discipline. None of that is very exciting and doesn't require a great deal of skill and instinct, but every year, there's the Storm, in the top 4.

After Thursday night I've done a bit of thinking about what is the "fundamentals" in Aussie rules? It's probably a bit trickier to nail down given the more 3D nature of the sport, and Fly will probably list different things on his Collingwood whiteboard, but here's my attempt at it.

  • Don't miss tackles (yes, I copied this one)
  • If you miss a tackle, fix it up. Chase and pressure. The guy with the ball has to bounce it at some stage and this will slow him down.
  • If we're not in possession, find an unmarked opponent. Ideally one who's a similar build to you, but not always possible immediately. Always know where he is. Keep him in your vision or maintain touch if he's behind.
  • If you can't find an unmarked opponent (this is where the 3D comes into it - it's a complicated/chaotic game), flood back to fill up space. Fill up the defensive 50, then fill up the centre square. Like water into a bucket.
  • When the ball comes your way, compete hard in the air. Don't get out marked. If in doubt, spoil. Preferably boundary side.
  • If we win possession, don't miss targets less than 30m away. If in doubt, boot the stuffing out of it, long and slow down the line.

You will note that 5 of these 6 principles are all about defending. Watching this team would be incredibly boring. But I tell you what else, any team that adheres to these principles as the fundamentals of its game beats any team with less ability, and will also beat teams with more talent but less work rate. This team will play finals more often than not, regardless of any draft and salary cap restrictions. This team will be criticised on one hand for lacking dare and imagination, while being lauded and admired on the other for never giving up and getting the most out of themselves.

Right now these are the "fundamentals", the basics we need to go back to. Our guys are lacking confidence and trust in themselves and each other, probably for a whole host of reasons, so we need to strip everything right back and simplify the whole plan. This will mean being predictable to our opposition. But this a far lesser evil than being unpredictable to our team mates.

We are at this stage because we got over-confident in the 2nd quarter of the Carlton game. We flirted with our form and now we're finding it hard to get it back. This is why I've been at pains over the last few years to stress the importance of playing a full four quarters, particularly finishing games well. To be honest, I'm surprised we haven't been in this sort of mess more often, during that time.

Hopefully we are able to re-find our mojo. But you can't put the infinity pool on the roof if the foundations at ground level are rotting. And that's how the house looks right now. Just like any strong building, the foundations always need to be the priority.
Click to expand...
I was thinking about your post which on paper at least makes perfect sense.

Everyone seems to think we need a winger or another midfielder or whatever else.

What we actually need is a few players who think they're stars to adhere strictly to the fundamentals that you outlined and our method and results would improve . Maybe dramatically

We have some otherwise good offensive plyers who give up when they don't have the ball ,or some hope of getting it.

I remember my great friend and colleague Mighty Lions saying our forward line was easily the best in the game ,no one could stop them . One of the problems could be that by thinking that they're stopping themselves.

Back to basics when you're a bit all over the place as we are now isn't a bad recipe for renewal.
 
McIvor said:
I still remember the great Leigh Matthew’s during our glory years is that everyone just had to play their role. Know your role, nothing more and execute it. Same for when the irregular players would get a game. They were simply asked to play their role.

I’m not sure that’s the case because going back to grasshoppers well thought out post and your martinson, which I agree with both, I think we have to get back to Leigh’s philosophy which I don’t see occurring particularly our forwards who all want to do everything. Perhaps that’s too simplistic but it worked back then for all players as individual which then fed into the overall teams objective.
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McCarthy and Ah Chee when he's there play like that.

The others see themselves as offensive weapons. Or at least they play as if they do.

I've seen forward lines function well with just one gun player. The rest focused on feeding him or stopping the opposition from taking it away . And making the most of their own offensive opportunities if they presented. They're probably extreme examples but we need more of that . Even the coach has said certain players are just out of form ,well the best way to get back into form is to stop worrying about what you're doing for yourself and just try at all times to do the team things . The smaller guys flying for speccies does my head in . You can see Charlie's not happy because he's not kicking goals , so just focus on your opponent not taking it away and sooner or later you'll get the opportunity to kick a goal.
 
Fagan was at the St.Kilda v Collingwood game taking notes and pretending to be a tactician. Then against Collingwood he goes tall at selection and we spend the game playing with a congested forward line, which was the exact opposite to how St.Kilda beat Collingwood.

Hopefully he is watching the Richmond v Sydney game today with someone who can explain what Sydney are doing with their second string midfield today. Perhaps he might think about adopting their game plan. Also noticing Sydney’s nice open forward line, with players who make space for each other and can hold their marks. It really makes a mockery of the time Fagan put into engineering a forward role for Darcy Gardiner, one of our most experienced defenders, in the preseason.

Look and learn Fages.
 
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3KZ is Football said:
Fagan was at the St.Kilda v Collingwood game taking notes and pretending to be a tactician. Then against Collingwood he goes tall at selection and we spend the game playing with a congested forward line, which was the exact opposite to how St.Kilda best Collingwood.

Hopefully he is watching the Richmond v Sydney game today with someone who can explain what Sydney are doing with their second string midfield today. Perhaps he might think about adopting their game plan. Also noticing Sydney’s nice open forward line, with players who make space for each other and can hold their marks. It really makes a mockery of the time Fagan put into engineering a forward role for Darcy Gardiner, one of our most experienced defenders, in the preseason.

Look and learn Fages.
Click to expand...
Maybe this question has already been answered but where the hell is Brandon Ryan?

After all this hype of him during pre-season, the guy hasn’t played in either of our reserves side but isn’t injured.
 
Cubs2Lions said:
Maybe this question has already been answered but where the hell is Brandon Ryan?

After all this hype of him during pre-season, the guy hasn’t played in either of our reserves side but isn’t injured.
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Not sure where Ryan is but only a few posters were praising his footy.
He is a good mark and reasonable kick for goal.
But he is very slow getting around the ground.
We will just have to wait and see how he goes at VFL level.
 

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BETTER STILL! Take a look at Richmond’s pressure!! Maybe Fages can ask Yze for a copy of his half time speech!! Fages put the boys to sleep at half time agaist Collingwood!
 
“Against the Magpies, the Lions dropped several contested marks inside 50m after getting their hands to the ball first, but the fact they took only six marks inside 50m, despite having Eric Hipwood, Joe Daniher and Darcy Fort forward also indicates their ball movement was off. And with those three giraffes inside 50, locking the ball in the forward half is harder.

The lack of pace through the arcs and behind the ball to create overlap is also a concern that needs addressing.

Being without Will Ashcroft hurts too, as there is an over-reliance on dual Brownlow medallist Lachie Neale at stoppages. The champion midfielder was brilliant against Collingwood but given he is battling a sore ankle, he needs support.


Working out how to do that is Chris Fagan’s job.


He, too, had an emotionally distracting week after his appearance at the Australian Human Rights Commission as a result of the investigation into racism during his time at Hawthorn (he has always denied any wrongdoing), which would not have helped. But now is the time to listen to the suggestions of his senior players.

He needs to accept suggestions of how best to stop the run-ons that have bedevilled the Lions so far, with eight unanswered goals ruining opening round and round one, while the Magpies kicked four straight at the end of the first quarter to open up the eventual margin.
If the leaders’ advice also means making hard calls on players, that’s what needs to be done as Fagan’s loyalty to players – ordinarily a great strength of his – is not an asset right now.

He must consider some hard calls on players who are out of form and replaceable, such as Jarrod Berry, Callum Ah Chee, Hipwood and Jack Payne.
Kai Lohmann could start after being the sub on Thursday night, Darcy Gardiner can return as a forward or defender, and youngsters Logan Morris and Jeremy Sharp could regenerate the team if selected. Although that represents a risk, it’s better than taking no risk.
Players who get the team going in the front half need to find form quickly too. Charlie Cameron, Cameron Rayner, Hipwood, Zac Bailey (although he was better against Collingwood) and Daniher have all been disappointing so far this season.

Whatever is ailing this team, the time has arrived to employ a tactic former Bulldogs’ skipper Bob Murphy used to humorously describe as the best response to a crisis: circle up and put everything on the table so everyone inside the club knows exactly what is relevant to their current performance and what is not.” - Peter Ryan, The Age. 31st March 2024.
Click to expand...

Absolutely.
 
which would not have helped. But now is the time to listen to the suggestions of his senior players.

He needs to accept suggestions of how best to stop the run-ons that have bedevilled the Lions so far, with eight unanswered goals ruining opening round and round one, while the Magpies kicked four straight at the end of the first quarter to open up the eventual margin.
If the leaders’ advice also means making hard calls on players, that’s what needs to be done as Fagan’s loyalty to players – ordinarily a great strength of his – is not an asset right now.
Click to expand...
Do coaches listen to senior players in such situations as we find ourselves in now?
 
briztoon said:
Do coaches listen to senior players in such situations as we find ourselves in now?
Click to expand...
I would have thought their opinions would be canvassed.
 

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