Game Analysis

[Lach72]

As a blatant rip off from the Hawks board D Thanks Phil) we are beginning a series of pre game analyses using one respected (Ha - most of the time!) poster from both the home and away team to do a more in-depth analysis of the game to come.
It will be based on footy only and is meant to inspire some debate about footy.
Those who wish to be a little more willing and indulge in the "your dad is nowhere near as huge as mine" bs in this thread will be carded (Right Rip? ).
As I only organised it today, we may not get it off the ground this week, but Scotland has agreed to do it for the Eagles this week and if he ever logs on, I am hoping estibador will do it for us.
I will send out requests for participants on the Monday before each game and if you can send me a yay or a nay by PM and then send the analysis i will put them up.
Ripper has said he will stickie them for us for the week until the game and then they will be replaced by the next week's analysis.

If you want to have a look at one previously here's a link for the one I did with the Hawks last week.
It's good fun and makes you really think about the things you put out there.

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=425567

Hope you can give it a shot...if I think you're good enough...mwahahahahahaha

Edit: esti's in and Scotland is in so they will post there stuff here by tomorrow morning.
In the future though, please send to me by PM.

 

[estibador]

I'll give it a shot (even though there's far better football analysts on this board than me.)

But since Lachy sprung this on me at the last minute I probably won't get time until later tonight sometime.

 

[DockerNJL]

Nice work Lach, Esti + scotland.

It would be good to have a proper footy chat area without the bs.

There is more than enough of it on bay 13 and threads on our board.

 

[Lach72]

Lach, I would like to nominate for the Round 4 pre game analysis

Let me think about that for a while...

 

[Scotland]

Hola, como estas?

PRE-MATCH ANALYSIS
Head2Head.
West Coast vs Fremantle Sat 5th April 2008

OVERVIEW

Derby number 1 for 2008, and the 27th overall. Normally the state would be a buzz, but the build up to this game has seemed abnormally subdued compared to previous years. When you look at the current predicaments of both clubs, it’s entirely understandable. West Coast have lost 2 Brownlow medallists and over 800 games of experience in the off-season, are coming of a drubbing at the hands of their one time bitches, the Adelaide Crows. Fremantle failed to live up to expectations in 2007, and are staring down the barrel of starting the season 0-3 for the second year in a row.

The spoils from the matches between the two sides over the last few seasons have been shared pretty much equally, with Fremantle winning the last contest 124-97 towards the end of last season. Aside from first derby of 2006, there haven't been many overly memorable contests, but there has been plenty of spice, and no shortage of individual brilliance.

You would expect both teams to come out fired up for this one. West Coast, while sitting one win ahead of Fremantle, have been far from impressive in 2008. Should West Coast win, the blowtorch will be well and truly on Fremantle at 0-3, however should we see a repeat of last week’s insipid effort from the Eagles (ie a flogging), expect the microscope to find its way up Stirling Highway to the blue and gold camp, despite both teams sitting at 1-3. Fremantle have not been as bad as has been reported, and have come up against two good sides, however coming up against another side that punters really aren’t sure of should act as somewhat of an acid test.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Both sides forward lines are struggling. West Coast’s has never been rated anyway, and is without its best quality small in Mark LeCras. The delivery into the West Coast forward 50 has been atrocious, and the structure within the forward line has been non-existent. Lynch, Hansen, Kennedy, Seaby and Staker have all been named. If goals were awarded for cumulative height and weight we’d be an unbackable favourite to win, however they are not and the fact remains our forward line is too tall, and has little to no defensive focus. Hansen’s opponent Bock had 19 touches to half time in Round 2, while Johncock and Mcleod ran amok for 4 quarters. Ben Mckinley booted 7 goals for East Perth last week and is named as an emergency, along with Masten & Macnamara. A late small-fo-tall change with Hansen going out would be a wise move in my opinion.


Fremantle are too Pavlich conscious, and their delivery to their key man doesn’t do him any favours. The out-of-form Tarrant has been retained with Campbell dropped to the WAFL for Duffield, while Murphy remains out of the side. The delivery to Pavlich needs to improve, and Tarrant need to offer more. Expect to see Tarrant pushing further up the ground to create space for Pavlich to lead into. Should Tarrant lead up the ground, expect Hunter to play him fairly loosely and float forward. Close to goal Glass will blanket Pavlich, while if he moves up the ground or into the midfield, Hunter, Brett Jones or possibly even Staker will run with him. Mcpharlin is a difficult forward matchup for West Coast, so it is in their best interest to see him stay in defence, which I expect him to do with our giant forward line, unless our midfield is being pounded.


In the centre of the ground the ruck battle will be interesting. Warnock remains outside the Fremantle side, and Sandilands faces a tall order (pun intended) up against Cox & Seaby at the centre bounces. I’m unsure how Fremantle will use Gilmore, whose mobility and endurance are outstanding, but whose genuine rucking ability is poor and who is undersized compared to West Coast’s duo. Whether Fremantle will attempt to tag Cox or force accountability by hurting him the other way remains to be seen. Should they do neither, they are well and truly rolling the dice.


The midfield is a plodder’s convention. Other than Daniel Kerr, I am not seeing any genuine A-grade midfielders. The brothers Carr will no doubt be focused on roughing up a few feathers and limiting Kerr’s influence, so it’s up to the likes of Priddis, Stenglein & Fletcher to win the ball out of the centre. Priddis had something like a dozen tackles in the corresponding fixture in 2007, and a repeat of that will go a long way to seeing the Eagles win. West Coast’s experienced ‘outside’ midfielders in Braun and Embley need to find more of the ball. They are tough nuts who can be thrown into the centre square and this needs to happen for West Coast to exploit an advantage, as they are both also quality users of the ball. I would back these guys in the middle of the ground over the likes of Peake, Headland and Schammer. West Coast’s midfield is notoriously unaccountable, so regardless of how slow & unskilled the Fremantle midfielders allegedly are, expect to see them running free in a lot of space.


With Mayne, Palmer, Ibbotson, Ebert & Scott Selwood all playing, there is a grand total of 5 games of experience between them. How much time these guys get in the middle and how well they perform under pressure be something to keep an eye on. Ebert was very impressive in his debut, and form all reports Palmer was outstanding.

The Expectation

We will not win this game unless our forward line functions a lot better than it has in the first two rounds, and our players from full-forward to full-back are more accountable. We need to come out and put Fremantle under pressure all over the ground from the first bounce. I can handle Josh Carr trying to be a tough guy (provided it’s in play and the umpires penalise him when he breaks the laws of the game), but when I see him rack up 30 touches and 3 goals, I start to get angry. Josh Carr is a great player, but would never rack up those sorts of numbers if he was tagged as closely as he tags others.


Our forward line is too tall. Freo have a good mix, it’s just that Tarrant isn’t delivering and the setup with and delivery to Pavlich isn’t up to scratch. At least with Farmer down there, there is a creative and defensive influence. Two talls/four smalls or two talls/three smalls/one mobile tall (Staker/Hunter) needs to be the setup or we are just playing into Freo’s hands.


No focus on improving accountability equals game over West Coast. Keeping the ball in the forward line needs to be a focus. Not allowing Headland, Peake, Palmer etc. 15m of space needs to be a focus. Dodd, Johnson, Grover, Black (should he play), Mundy & Hayden will be the real match-winners should Freo get up. Run and carry from defence kills West Coast, just ask Port Adelaide, they have killed us with it for years, and other sides are only just catching on.

Key Match Ups

Hansen/Seaby/Embley vs Grover/Dodd/Johnson
Lynch vs Mcpharlin
Pavlich vs Glass
Tarrant vs Hunter/Jones
Cox & Seaby vs Sandilands & Gilmore
Carr(s) vs Kerr
Farmer vs Nicoski/Jones

Prediction

Fremantle by 2-3 goals, should West Coast line up as named. I still expect us to win the centre square battle (not by heaps) and Cox, Kerr & Priddis to win a heap of the ball but our forward line will be too tall and Fremantle will rebound the ball from one end to the other enough times to kick a winning score, regardless of any midfield dominance we may have. Should West Coast drop one more tall and play no more than 2 of Kennedy/Lynch/Seaby/Hansen in the forward line at a time, then the game reverts to a coin-toss contest, and I’ll back our boys by a kick.

 

[Lach72]

Sweet!
Lets see what esti comes up with.

 

[Scotland]

Sweet!
Lets see what esti comes up with.

And who should I bill my time to, Lachy? BHP? I'm thinking BHP...

 

[DockerNJL]

Well done scoltland good read champ

 

[estibador]

Geez, no pressure having to follow that up is there?

 

[FD369]

Geez, no pressure having to follow that up is there?

You will be right esti.

If you are doing it tonight it should be a slightly bourbonised summary eh?

 

[Lach72]

Geez, no pressure having to follow that up is there?

We set high standards around here matey...

 

[Seadog]

Nice work Scotland.
Pretty much on the money I reckon.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Hola, como estas?

PRE-MATCH ANALYSIS
Head2Head.
West Coast vs Fremantle Sat 5th April 2008
...

Bloody hell Scotland, who says there's more work on in WA than the workforce can handle?

Great writeup. A little pessimistic but I think it's probably warranted. I was disappointed the match committee didn't appear to learn much out of the Adelaide game. Both Kennedy and Selwood deserve a debut at some point, but they're not really addressing our needs at the moment. McKinley should have been given a game (and may yet be) following his big haul for the Royals and Rosa served his penance at Peel, for what crime I'm not quite sure, and should have been an automatic recall in my book. Instead, he's not even in the 25.

For Freo, I was surprised that they left Warnock out against the Hawks, but at a wet Subiaco this week I feel Gilmore is a better option than going in with two (nearly-)7 foot giants. With all the pre-game emphasis on Tarrant he'll be raring to go and could be the dangerman for Freo.

The game will be won and lost in the centre though. Both WA sides have been guilty of not making decent use of their respective ruckman's dominance so far this season. The team to correct that this week will win.

 

[Belnakor]

I have a good feeling about the derby this week - i think we're on the cusp of something big.

 

[DockerNJL]

Bloody hell Scotland, who says there's more work on in WA than the workforce can handle?

Great writeup. A little pessimistic but I think it's probably warranted. I was disappointed the match committee didn't appear to learn much out of the Adelaide game. Both Kennedy and Selwood deserve a debut at some point, but they're not really addressing our needs at the moment. McKinley should have been given a game (and may yet be) following his big haul for the Royals and Rosa served his penance at Peel, for what crime I'm not quite sure, and should have been an automatic recall in my book. Instead, he's not even in the 25.

For Freo, I was surprised that they left Warnock out against the Hawks, but at a wet Subiaco this week I feel Gilmore is a better option than going in with two (nearly-)7 foot giants. With all the pre-game emphasis on Tarrant he'll be raring to go and could be the dangerman for Freo.

The game will be won and lost in the centre though. Both WA sides have been guilty of not making decent use of their respective ruckman's dominance so far this season. The team to correct that this week will win.

That and ball movement 5strings,

Both sides have struggled so far this year to do decent passages of play without a clanger popping up somewhere.

Clean ball movement will be the key for me

Freo by 23 points

 

[Lach72]

That and ball movement 5strings,

Both sides have struggled so far this year to do decent passages of play without a clanger popping up somewhere.

Clean ball movement will be the key for me

Freo by 23 points

This is the key for mine.
The side in the paper this morning had Headland on one wing and Peake on the other.
I would ditch Peake for Black if he's fit...also gives flexibility at the back with Hayden being able to be moved through the middle

 

[Avid_Avenger]

Both sides have struggled so far this year to do decent passages of play without a clanger popping up somewhere.

Clean ball movement will be the key for me

Precisely - precision is key.


Lets hope everything starts to click on saturday, for us, not for them.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

That and ball movement 5strings,

Both sides have struggled so far this year to do decent passages of play without a clanger popping up somewhere.

Clean ball movement will be the key for me

Freo by 23 points

Yeah, that too.

For us the problem has been continually breaking down across half-forward and entering into the forward 50. Whether our forwards are not working hard enough to create space or whether the midfielders are lacking the skills to hit targets, or a combination of both, I'm not sure but we definitely need to address it tomorrow.

 

[freo4eva]

Great work Scotland

Props to Lachy for keeping this idea going. Top work mate


Make us proud Esti !

 

[Quinz]

Good to see some intelligent debate, rather that the shit slinging (mostly from Dockers supporters it must be said ) that we usually see about this time of year.

With the poor start from both teams this season, it's a fairly subdued Derby week as Scotland said, both sides not too willing to talk up their chances after poor starts to the year. Should be a great game anyway, a decent match that really , last year's second Derby was one of my favourite games of the year despite the fact that we lost.

I said on the main board before that I'd like to see the Derby drowd split more evenly, each member gets a notice at the start of the year if they are allocated to the first or second Derby of the year, and so each team gets about 20k or more packed into the stadium. I think it would be a fantastic way to increase the atmosphere at the derby and change it from a one sided boo fest to an even pie throwing competiton. I emailed the Eagles about it, i'm not sure if they've thought about it before or what the AFL thinks, but you never know.

 

[Freodoc]

Quinzy...if 5000 Freo supporters can drown out 36000 Chardonnay sipping Eagles fans, can you imagine what 20000 Freo supporters would be capable of ???

 

[Quinz]

 

[wce4premiership]

I think the eagles midfield will win the clearances, we have big bodied players. Stenglien is probably our smallest but our forward line will be r*ped again i think. Everything is riding on glass in this match and i'm not so sure his knee is 100%.

 

[hawkeye23]

IMO, the key will be in WCE's senior players - yes Embley, Hansen and Hunter, I'm pointing at YOU - stepping up and grabbing this game by the balls, rather than prancing across half back/forward as the case may be. How about running Hurn in the middle and have Wirra at the feet of our forwards crumbing (because he's too bloody slow now to be playing unaccountable backline footy)? How about our mids creating a screen for Kerry so that he can at least try to work in some space? And let's have our mids roving to Coxy, rather than crushing him by letting him win the ruck knock, only to have Dockers roving to him! I dunno, I just want to see something, ANYTHING, better than what I saw last week. [/rant]

 

[Frigate]

I just get that feeling in the air that West Coast know the match ups are not going to favour them. They are a big and tall team overall and quite top heavy. If Cox and Kerr are negated I think we could have a 40 plus margin tomorrow. I will of course happily take a 1 point win!

Good work Scotland, looking forward to your magic workings esti.

I like your* idea Lach and will enjoy reading both sides POV.