Leather Poisoning

[Convocation]

I'm not sure how much this topic has been bought up in the past, but the most frustrating thing about watching the eagles this year is the over possession football they have been playing.
This has been a style of football that we have been playing for a number of years, however over possession football only works when you have an elite midfield (Kerr, Cuzz and Judd), as elite midfields are able to push the limits and get the greatest rewards, be in the tightest, highest pressurised situation and rise to the top like the proverbial cream. A midfield which consist of players who consistently miss targets, put players in immensely "tight" situations invariably make numerous turnovers that result in easy goals and no 4 points.
Changing a game style can't happen overnight but backing in players who won't beat there direct opponent especially while playing a high/over possession game will make for a very long and frustrating year.
Geelong have built there game on what we developed years ago (play on at all costs, back yourself etc, however I don't think we have evolved any further then where we were 4-5 years ago. Same brand of football, the only difference is personnel that can't deliver the results others could.
People complain about out forward line, but if I played in the forward half west coast and had to watch 35 possessions happen in the back half before it made to the midfield I would be acting a little like ..... Mathew Richardson.
West Coast needs to look at getting back to kicking skills so the boys have enough confidence in their own ability to kick the football, something I'm sure all of us yell at the screen at least 10 times a game when watching. Anyway enough of my rant!!

 

[Lynch takes a mark]

Need a few things before we can improve the ball movement

Smaller forward line - Seaby, Hansen, Cox, Lynch & Staker rotating through there is a nightmare because of the lack of mobility. McKinley, LeCras will go a long way to improving the forward line and will have an effect on the others who play down there because of the increased space. 2 talls and 4 smalls max

Midfield - No problems apart from 2 players who can carry the ball, we win enough clearances but after that it falls down because of a lack of momentum around the stoppage - Judd & Cousins were masters of that but now it's just Kerr so he is getting thumped as soon as he gets it in his hands.

Kicking from defence - Mackie/Milburn/Hunt/Scarlett/Harley/Enright ect are all either good kicks or extremely good kicks - they hit big midfield targets (Bartel/Ling/Rooke/Mooney/Hawkins ect) who are in space and can give it to players with momentum like Ablett, Stokes, Chapman ect

A kick from a player with momentum is probably 5x more likely to result in a mark/shot on goal than a player kicking from a standing start - watch some games of footy and that will be very very evident.

you can pick the kick that will be a turnover or a dead ball before it even leaves the boot - standing start kick from a player without momentum. kick will go high and will drop like a rock making it impossible to mark and easy to spoil. Kicking without momentum forces you to kick the ball too hard, Stenglein/Nico/Priddis (especially from a clearance with pridda) are serial pests of the one step hard kick, kicking on the run allows low kicks with accuracy, longer distance and shorter time in transition.

It allows the player going for the mark to take the ball on the lead and at it's highest point, this means that the forward can leap at the ball and gives the defender zero chance of spoiling without giving away a free kick unless they have a 40cm reach advantage.

these are the vast minority of kicks that are going into our forward line at the moment but were far more frequent in the 06 finals series (watch the SF vs Bulldogs for the best display of it.

Handball is perfectly fine and would be very much encouraged at the club - they will want to do everything they can to get it to a player with momentum and time to kick. Kicking from a standing start is as close 90% turnover/dead ball rate as you can get and is a very very low percentage option for the midfield.

so

1. Ball carriers in the midfield and from defence - 5/6 of our defenders should be carrying the ball and kicking to the midfield.

2. Long, accurate kicking from defence to midfield/half forward targets who give the ball off instantly to players with momentum.

3. A smaller forward line - 3 natural smaller forwards, 2 tall forwards and 1 defensive small forward. the 5 natural forwards should be able to kick 2 goals per week on average, you then add the 4 goals from midfielders and you have 14+ goals per week, a good defence should be holding the opposition to about 75 points per game.

Game plan is fine - players to carry out the game plan are not

 

[Eagles!!!]

OK – my two cents worth……..

We are winning the ball in clearances, however, what we need is an outside mid with good pace (its not often that you have Judd in your team or Ablett), but with very good kicking i.e. very good disposal (Luke Hodge). Having said that, we have either tried to draft players (Ebert, Hurn) or tried to ‘manufacture’ them i.e. Rosa, Davis etc. We are on either end of spectrum – Ebert will need 2 years, Hurn can and should be played as an outside mid, but then who will take his spot?

Yes, the loss of two elites is given and will have an impact, but what I am not ready to accept is the fact that the players have lost their skills…………

Finally, structure the forward line a bit better – we need 2 talls (maximum – Lynch and Kennedy) and 3 mid size (LeCras, Waters and McKinley/someone else), 1 serious crumber who can put pressure on the opposition (don’t have it).

As far as tanking is concerned to get Rich – it is a shit thought. Carlton tanked for years and now they have Judd………..they are still loosing most matches. What we need is to trade players that are not useful for our game plan and have trade value.

• Hansen – Great guy, but very average. Hansen + 1 rounder may get us low to mid first rounder. (please for those who say Hansen will not be traded and I am being stupid, please rethink – we have Kennedy, not saying that Kennedy is going to be pav, Brown etc but he will be better and can take contested mark. We also have Notte to come in the next 2 – 3 years. We may change to put Mitch Brown their next year onwards)
• Jamie Graham – again provides us with depth, but we now have Matt Sphanger, Will Schofield, Eric Mckenzie etc. They provide us with more than what Jamie does. Graham + 2 rounder may get us high second rounder.
• Seaby – don’t crucify me, but if we really want to be aggressive in 2008 draft, provided that will sullivan is developing at a decent pace – we can offload seaby. He can play as number 1 ruckman (he will be happy) and we may get decent draft pick for him. We may add a sweetner too.

 

[Lion El'Johnson]

I'm going to crucify you. Seaby has developed heaps this past season, he can hold the ruck on his own now, and is handy up forward.

Getting rid of him and Cox goes down and we are screwed. You need 3 rucks in your team minimum.

 

[Eagles!!!]

I agree with you that Seaby has come a long way.........my reasons were:

- if we want to be agressive in the so called strong 2008 draft
- Provided Will Sullivan is developing very well
- we still have staker and lynch as someone who can ruck for a bit of time.

but again this is possible only if everything is in order

 

[Frigate]

I'm not sure how much this topic has been bought up in the past, but the most frustrating thing about watching the eagles this year is the over possession football they have been playing.
This has been a style of football that we have been playing for a number of years, however over possession football only works when you have an elite midfield (Kerr, Cuzz and Judd), as elite midfields are able to push the limits and get the greatest rewards, be in the tightest, highest pressurised situation and rise to the top like the proverbial cream. A midfield which consist of players who consistently miss targets, put players in immensely "tight" situations invariably make numerous turnovers that result in easy goals and no 4 points.
Changing a game style can't happen overnight but backing in players who won't beat there direct opponent especially while playing a high/over possession game will make for a very long and frustrating year.
Geelong have built there game on what we developed years ago (play on at all costs, back yourself etc, however I don't think we have evolved any further then where we were 4-5 years ago. Same brand of football, the only difference is personnel that can't deliver the results others could.
People complain about out forward line, but if I played in the forward half west coast and had to watch 35 possessions happen in the back half before it made to the midfield I would be acting a little like ..... Mathew Richardson.
West Coast needs to look at getting back to kicking skills so the boys have enough confidence in their own ability to kick the football, something I'm sure all of us yell at the screen at least 10 times a game when watching. Anyway enough of my rant!!

It is an interesting point you make, and the truth is that turnovers will lose matches as much as effective possessions will win you matches. Players like Kerr, Judd and Cousins were good at both - minimising turnovers and hitting targets. They made other players look good.

On the bolded section I think you are trying to flatter yourself. One could argue that Neesham actually invented that style of "possession footy", only as you pointed out without the skill set it does not quite get carried out. Don't get me wrong it has come along way since then. Geelong have developed on the evolution of AFL footy, not on a revolutionary game plan that Worsfold invented - it was nothing new - it was just that you had one of the best midfields the competition has seen.

 

[wce4premiership]

Frigates point is good. We don't really have the skill levels anymore. Judd and cousins made things happen, only kerr can really do that now.

 

[Convocation]

Admittedly Worsfold didn't invent the style of play, and he certainly hasn't been a revolutionary of the game, he did as we have both suggested have an extremely gifted midfield that was able to play and succeed at an "over possession game".

Agreed kicking from a standing start generally results in a turnover/difficult marking opportunity/dead ball etc however kicking to a player with momentum results in free space and time for more accurate kicking, much the same as a handball does/is supposed to do. West Coast skills in general are pretty poor at the moment and unless they improve dramatically (from Kicking/handballing to standing start players, kicking/handballing to opposition, just bad decision in general) we will have a very tough year in front of us.

Maybe its between the ears that west coast are having problems. Teams confident with their team mates always run forward as they know or will always back there team mate to win the ball, but confidence drops when targets are not hit. Having players named above that miss targets, or kick hospital passes after hard ball gets will always effect what happens between the ears.

There is a million and one different reasons for our average football this season, but I personally think skills are average (which doesn’t bode well for a high possession game) and because of below par skills confidence is low. Domino effect for a tough year.

Good news is we have a couple of youngsters coming through, some great trade bait (staker unless he does something this year - another thread I know), and something like the second youngest list in the league. All is not doom and gloom, but sitting at Homebush playing Sydney this weekend is not going to be fun and I’ll undoubtedly yell the same thing I have done in the first 3 games this year "kick the f*$king ball."