- Apr 1, 2017
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- North Melbourne
This happened many times versus * - in fact it was more obvious in that game than any other that we refuse to or unable to work hard both ways.I don't think it's been pointed out yet, but early in the year Noble found out that the young team he inherited didn't have the tank to play his gameplan and also run back to defend the opposing side.
What we've seen since then is a training wheels version of the gameplan with our main focus shifting towards being competitive for four quarters. This meant that we couldn't stream forward as aggressively, as it often resulted in us being abused on the turnover for an easy goal.
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Scenes like the above where it was a 2 on 5 running back were far too common the first month of the season, which is why the gameplan was tweaked to be more defensive. Since then our movement forward has been uninspiring, but Noble is of the belief that our combination of poor skills and poor running power necessitates keeping a numbers advantage behind the ball.
Since then we have more or less been consistently competitive, but at the expense of clean movement forward of the ball. He still has the players going into the corridor at all costs, likely to generate the instincts required to pull off his gameplan in a few years, but we don't have that next kick anymore since we now have the added defensive focus.
This was less the case yesterday but this is not a problem that has been rectified at all.