Game Style

[believe_it]

The most disturbing aspect of today's loss is the similarity and effectiveness of the opposition tactics over the last month. Forget Port but the rest have used number superiority at contests and stoppages to win possession.

Sandiland's dominance is well known by other teams and they will have been searching for ways to break this. Direct competition has failed so now they are using tactics to remove the consequences of his skill and the way we play. Even if we had him today the result would have been the same.

Against WC and today overwhelming numbers around the contest would extract the ball from an outnumbered Freo player and then as a group run off in support of their own ball carrier.

Numerous times today and last week a Freo player was being set upon and had one or no options given to him for disposal by teammates. Pav had 4 Saints converge on him in a marking contest -where were the corresponding Freo players supporting Pav? Today deBeor had 5 Saints closing him down at one stage when running into the centre. They had all come from a ball up contest - where were the Freo players who were at the same contest helping de Beor? Answer still at the contest.

Freo needs to recognise whats going on and take countermeasures. Fight fire with fire if necessary. Changing the lineup wont do much

 

[Dockernut]

The most disturbing aspect of today's loss is the similarity and effectiveness of the opposition tactics over the last month. Forget Port but the rest have used number superiority at contests and stoppages to win possession.

Sandiland's dominance is well known by other teams and they will have been searching for ways to break this. Direct competition has failed so now they are using tactics to remove the consequences of his skill and the way we play. Even if we had him today the result would have been the same.

Against WC and today overwhelming numbers around the contest would extract the ball from an outnumbered Freo player and then as a group run off in support of their own ball carrier.

Numerous times today and last week a Freo player was being set upon and had one or no options given to him for disposal by teammates. Pav had 4 Saints converge on him in a marking contest -where were the corresponding Freo players supporting Pav? Today deBeor had 5 Saints closing him down at one stage when running into the centre. They had all come from a ball up contest - where were the Freo players who were at the same contest helping de Beor? Answer still at the contest.

Freo needs to recognise whats going on and take countermeasures. Fight fire with fire if necessary. Changing the lineup wont do much

Yeah, I agree with this. It seems pretty obvious when you watch teams roll us like today. I think our players need to get a bit smarter around stoppages when they get hold of the pill. You see other teams do it all the time where the player is over the ball in tight and dishing out to a teammate almost instinctively, so that he avoids the tackle or it resuls in a late tackle by one of our boys so we give away a free. The alternative play seems to be accepting contact from a tackler and just holding it in but making it look like they're making an attempt to get rid of it. Umpire balls it up. We seem to get it panic send out an errant disposal and turn it over time and time again. Happened to De Boer today and it resulted in a goal for the Saints. To my mind it all comes down to time and space, which you get from teammates blocking and positioning for you, which comes from players knowing the game plan committing to it and implementing it.

 

[Clay Davis]

When the contest goes up, our players go missing. I said a while back that there was evidence of this in the Sydney game at Subi last year.

Essentially, we play soft football.

 

[Admiral Byng]

I think that is what happens with lack of effort.

Also, the number of times we turned the ball over with one of those dicky over-the-shoulder handpasses in hope to a player standing 5m away behind the contest - handpasses that got picked off by St Kilda and sent away into their forward 50. Those sort of handpasses indicate to me that not enough players are working hard enough to get to the contest and help out.

 

[Scham]

The most disturbing aspect of today's loss is the similarity and effectiveness of the opposition tactics over the last month. Forget Port but the rest have used number superiority at contests and stoppages to win possession.

Sandiland's dominance is well known by other teams and they will have been searching for ways to break this. Direct competition has failed so now they are using tactics to remove the consequences of his skill and the way we play. Even if we had him today the result would have been the same.

Against WC and today overwhelming numbers around the contest would extract the ball from an outnumbered Freo player and then as a group run off in support of their own ball carrier.

Numerous times today and last week a Freo player was being set upon and had one or no options given to him for disposal by teammates. Pav had 4 Saints converge on him in a marking contest -where were the corresponding Freo players supporting Pav? Today deBeor had 5 Saints closing him down at one stage when running into the centre. They had all come from a ball up contest - where were the Freo players who were at the same contest helping de Beor? Answer still at the contest.

Freo needs to recognise whats going on and take countermeasures. Fight fire with fire if necessary. Changing the lineup wont do much

You're right. Added to what you say, is that we don't clear the contest. We piss around with little handpasses trying to find a player in a perfect position and don't actually move anywhere, which is fine some of the time but not all of the time. The opposition is well and truely on to it and like you said, get large numbers to the contest and we fold under the pressure and away they go - in numbers. That one with Deboer and the 5 Saints summed it up perfectly. When things are turning pear shaped inside the contest then they need to have faith in their team mates and get the ball on the boot and heading our way and start a new contest. We just surrender the ball too easily.

The other frustrating area is the obvious instruction to not under any circumstances kick the ball inside 50 unless you are under absolutely no pressure. We have no faith whatsoever in our forwards to win contests and I suppose the way Mayne went today that's justified. But why don't we have a strong marking key forward down there???

Clay's right on this one, we are playing weak, soft footy. We try at all cost to avoid a contest because we don't have anyone that can take a contested mark so therefore we play stagnant and so very indirect.

 

[longsuffreosupp]

We cant play 1 on 1 contested football. We're always a good chance of winning against a running side or an out of form side, but if they really come to play then the odds are stacked against us.

 

[Lach72]

Ibbotson was running through the center under no pressure. Mayne took off and was leading his man by 2 meters.
Ibbotson looks up evaluates the situation.
Then does a dinky handball, which he ****s up, turn over, goal.

Dumb as dog shit

 

[Lach72]

One thong I noticed today was we were dropping deeper when they were coming out of their backline, so they ran it to 50 really easily.
According to Harvey players weren't following instruction and that allowed them to get easy goals over the back

 

[Rob]

It's the old Cuddles style - soft at the ball, soft at the opponent, but create a good zone around the field. It simply doesn't work. It didn't when Cuddles was coach, and doesn't now.

It's not like St Kilda sprung some new game plan, they've played exactly the same every week for the past 3 seasons. Stack numbers around the contest, hack it forward and hope someone gets on the end of it. We persisted with trying to mess around with it in the clinches despite them stacking numbers around the contest instead of just getting it forward. We paid with it by consistently turning the ball over through dinky little handballs to the opposition, and that's when we actually got hold of the ball in the first place. Which was less likely given we were almost always 2nd to it in the contests.

Harvey reckons the players didn't follow the game plan, I hope for his sake he's right, because the game plan demonstrated today was just thick. And that's without going after the marshmallow soft effort of the players.

 

[esquilax]

In the press conference, Harvey said there was a plan to counteract St Kilda's game style, but our players didn't do what they were told.

If there was a plan, it wasn't bloody obvious what we were doin'.

 

[Admiral Byng]

In the press conference, Harvey said there was a plan to counteract St Kilda's game style, but our players didn't do what they were told.

If there was a plan, it wasn't bloody obvious what we were doin'.

Maybe the plan had something to do with clean handling of the ball, getting numbers to the contest, sticking tackles... etc

 

[believe_it]

We cant play 1 on 1 contested football. We're always a good chance of winning against a running side or an out of form side, but if they really come to play then the odds are stacked against us.

We play our best when we are running and I love watching it when its working. However we need space for that and its been taken away from us. We are being suffocated. Somehow we need to get the ball out quickly and decisively away from congested areas and get it forward.

 

[Sman-21]

K.I.S.S should be our gameplan
Whatever our gameplan has been all year it hasnt looked like working.
Go back to last years plan
or keep it simple stupid
Real midfieders play in midfield, they know where to run to find space an tell them get in there an win the hard ball,beat your opponent.
Forwards play forward
An guess what defenders defend an not their objective is to beat their opponent

Fix the basics like attitude an players out of position

 

[Freodoc]

We have no confidence in our forward line.

We do not demonstrate much forward pressure.

We piss around with too many handballs when going into F50 (see rant 1)

I want the game plan from last year to make a comeback.

I fear the season will only get worse, our draw is not pretty

 

[Latro]

The reason we handball around is because we cannot go long with our midget forward line. We should be playing Clarke to provide a target forward and to have 2 proper ruckman in the team. Look at Collingwood they have Cloke, Brown/Jolly and Dawes as long targets.

 

[purpleblood29]

It is clear what the problem is. The Players/Coaches aren't following "The Process".

 

[electricfeel]

The reason we handball around is because we cannot go long with our midget forward line. We should be playing Clarke to provide a target forward and to have 2 proper ruckman in the team. Look at Collingwood they have Cloke, Brown/Jolly and Dawes as long targets.

Exactly... who exactly do we have in our forward line when Pavlich is stuck in the midfield doing sweet F all (love him but it's just not suited to him). We have Mayne and Bradley and the rest are small forwards who, apart from Ballantyne, also do sweet F all. Mayne is down on confidence and Bradley is probably our most likely forward. But we need another tall forward down there who is actually capable of leading and taking marks. Thought it was a bit harsh to drop Anthony after one game, but if we don't want Anthony in our forward line then FFS put Pavlich back down there!

 

[Seppo]

Looking at the problem of not going hard at the ball/player I realised that without McPhee, Suban and Sandi it has made us look weak. All 3 of those players go hard and it would have been nice to have those guys out there today
I remember watching one point where both Mayne and Ibbo went for a sheppard at the same time and no one went for the ball while a 3rd Saints player waltz through to pick what should have been a cont posi.

We cannot have 1-2 inside mids against the bigger bodied Hawks next week. Our number one focus is to win the contested footy next week. Hopefully the changes to the team/structure allows us to play hard at the footy.

 

[believe_it]

The reason we handball around is because we cannot go long with our midget forward line. We should be playing Clarke to provide a target forward and to have 2 proper ruckman in the team. Look at Collingwood they have Cloke, Brown/Jolly and Dawes as long targets.

Agree . When Sandi comes back i would like to see Griffin stay as a tall forward. He seemed ok around the ground today.

If Harvey is right about players not doing what they have been told he has to be tough and axe a few particularly if they are mature.

If Bucovaz is fit He should come in. He is solid physically unlike some of our scrawny youngsters. Remember seeing a clip of him playing in a youth competition and he looked good and very composed. Also at the Doig he seemed a bit cocky and confident. Might be the sort who would thrive under the spotlight like Balla.

 

[Nickos66]

The players need to be instilled with the confidence to chase relentlessely, sheppard/protect our ball carriers & create options for them, provide 50/50 contests where there otherwise wouldn't be & play on as much as possible, this is what was done so well last year and it's not looked at all like happening this year.

This had bloody well better be our key focus in the offseason.

 

[Scham]

I remember watching one point where both Mayne and Ibbo went for a sheppard at the same time and no one went for the ball while a 3rd Saints player waltz through to pick what should have been a cont posi.

We've never been known for our football intelligence have we? That's why Barlow was such a breathe of fresh air - he was a smart footballer - one of the smartest. Currently our team is full of dumb footballers. The 2 you named above are just a couple of good examples.

 

[Rob]

We've never been known for our football intelligence have we? That's why Barlow was such a breathe of fresh air - he was a smart footballer - one of the smartest. Currently our team is full of dumb footballers. The 2 you named above are just a couple of good examples.

I wouldn't call either dumb footballers. Ibbo is a squib, and Mayne is a bit erratic, but neither are dumb. De Boer, Van Berlo, Johnson, even Duffield at times - they're dumb footballers.

 

[apuchar]

We play our best when we are running and I love watching it when its working. However we need space for that and its been taken away from us. We are being suffocated. Somehow we need to get the ball out quickly and decisively away from congested areas and get it forward.

Or learn to play hard football as well. you can't expect teams to just let us swan around as we like. Hard ball get, and then hard run on the outside.

 

[sdfc15]

We still are undone by the same game plan used against us since almost day one. Opposition play a spare man in defence, which allows our players to be unacountable ie which player am I on again - don't know so I will not bother manning up on anyone; the ball is then run up the ground and/or kicked over our zone allowing easy scoring!
Once or twice is annoying, over 10 years worth is pathetic. How hard is it to play man on man football.

 

[Dr Ralph Dagg]

In the press conference, Harvey said there was a plan to counteract St Kilda's game style, but our players didn't do what they were told.

If there was a plan, it wasn't bloody obvious what we were doin'.

That has to be post of the year surely. If players weren't following instructions, that plan might be a little hard to discern.

Clay and Rob have said it all. S-O-F-T. Even Greg Broughton said so much in his presser -- smashed at the contested possessions. It's been coming for a few weeks and got highlighted by WCE and Saints. If Port played like they did last night, it might have been a different result.

Remember last year (2010) Harvey spent the pre-season making them harder and more competitive. Back to the drawing board.