No run or spread.

[Damo80]

We seemed flat and tired after half time. Wonder if the "extra training work load" bit us on the bum. That and two soft, "nothing" games going into the finals doesn't seem like the best preparation to me.

 

[leemo]

I said this in another thread but what stood out to me at the game was this:
Anytime there was a marking contest, all of our players in the area were going up for the mark. We had absolutely NO crumbers. In the first half we were able to mask this as our players weren't too tired to put in second efforts and force a ruck contest but in the second half, murphy, Gibbs, judd and murphy were getting easy possessions out of loose balls as a result of a marking contest.
We restricted their rebound in the first half but in the second their smalls got time and space. I hate to say it but they exploited this and were the better team and deserved the win.
Don't know if you can put this down to a selection issue but losing conca early, white and foley out, Newman and s. Edwards underdone I feel really cost us.

 

[THE_GUN]

NO SPEED . NO BRAINS , ---------- 32 points up in the 3rd quater and to give it up just tells me 1 thing

No F***G Brains

 

[Rodney Dangerfield]

NO SPEED . NO BRAINS , ---------- 32 points up in the 3rd quater and to give it up just tells me 1 thing

No F***G Brains

I agree to an extent but as far as on field goes when fatigue sets in the brain packs it in too.
They went physically and mentally able to go on.

 

[NUFC Tiger]

We definitely missed White's pace and run and carry IMO - we definitely looked slow and you could probably make decent arguments that 3-5 players were underdone or hadn't had ideal preparation.

I would really like the club to target some outside runners in the upcoming draft/trade periods. Oh and give Matty White a new contract if we haven't already

 

[GroundhogDay]

We definitely missed White's pace and run and carry IMO - we definitely looked slow and you could probably make decent arguments that 3-5 players were underdone or hadn't had ideal preparation.
I would really like the club to target some outside runners in the upcoming draft/trade periods. Oh and give Matty White a new contract if we haven't already

More outside runners? Matt White.... Really? That guy makes horrible decisions and has almost as bad disposal as Foley, I'll grant you he is fast but more often than not he gets a holding the ball or turns it over. Trade bait!!

 

[Greggy]

If we kicked straight we would've won.

 

[Stitch]

David Mackay

 

[partycorolla]

More outside runners? Matt White.... Really? That guy makes horrible decisions and has almost as bad disposal as Foley, I'll grant you he is fast but more often than not he gets a holding the ball or turns it over. Trade bait!!

Wrong....perhaps go back and watch the highlights and replays from this year. He was very good this year, best season of his career.

 

[aislegi]

it is truly becoming groundhog day watching them against decent opposition......

This is what I told everyone after seeing us capitulate first-hand against Sydney at the end of July and was accused of being a bad fan and of being too negative. Lo and behold, two more capitulations. Each a near carbon copy of the last. Our gameplan is hopeless against well-coached, even moderately-skilled sides. Your post gave a great exposition as to why. And to top it off, we have a Coleman Medalist who can't take a grab any more, doesn't kick goals, and doesn't provide any structure.

 

[Dusty Cotch]

What I observed was once we started to slow the Tempo towards the end of the 2nd qtr holding the ball in the air etc .. That it worked it really worked...it stopped the momentum...Of US!..It Bloody stopped our run. We got out to a 32 point lead by playing attacking football. It was like once we decided to slow the game down it was a sign for the Blues to make their charge & attack us. It was like we handed them the momentum. We have gone to far with the Tempo crap in my opinion. I have no doubt the Blues would have sensed at half time that we had slowed down & seized their chance despite Cotchys goal after the siren.

 

["The Roar Is Back"]

With have the speed and spread players they are just being played inside as we don't have the inside mid depth . Our work around stoppages especially late in games has been very poor . Lids and SEdwards are run and spread players not inside mids , when they can solely play those roles we will dominate sides . Arnott , Vlas , Conca and Martin's ability to step into inside mid roles is super important going forward .

 

[Damo80]

Looked to me to be very much a fitness issue. Not sure if we play a game style where we spend too much energy in the first half, whether we're just not fit enough as a group, or whether perhaps we never really freshened up again after that period of heavy training about a month out from finals (not sure how significant that really was).

Spewing we couldn't convince the guy from Liverpool FC to move to Melbourne, rather than back to Adelaide. Seems to have a big impact on Port's ability to run out games. It was clear to me when the Blues got a run on through-out much of the second half that our boys looked tired... some almost out on their feet (Vlas I thought was one of our best, but he clearly couldn't go with Judd in the latter parts of the game). It was obvious that we were trailing behind our opposition, and allowing them to get out into space, whereas in the first half we were dominating this aspect.

 

[Dr Tigris]

Looking at games where we were badly beaten there is a common thread. Fast outside run and carry destroys us. The team doesn't slow the game down and gets caught in a fast faster style. We suck at that and lose big time. When we slow it down we win again. Why are we so bad at the fast (slingshot) game style? I have no idea? But when our inside players start losing and the opposition is good enough to provide good ball outside we defend very poorly. Then our attacking approach seems to become fast break. And we aren't good at that if our structures aren't in place. Is this because we aren't fit enough? Or we only have one game plan and can't adapt when the game changes? Or is it because we aren't mature enough, with strong enough leadership to stop another team's run on? Or all three???

Anyway, the biggest problem I see is that when teams get a fast paced game going we suck badly. It is now an obvious problem and the few teams that can do this style have it over us. Slow teams like the Hawks and Freo are OK for us. They can't exploit our inability to defend against speed. What I don't understand is why for a half (and a bit) against the Blues we could stop them, and for about a quarter and half against the Swans we stopped them. But when they get going we can't slow it down again and play our game style. Anyway, to me, this is a really obvious problem that has to be dealt with over the off season. maybe gettgin spefici player types, maybe drills to stop run ons, maybe just maturity and leadership. But when we can play our style we will beat anyone. However for the top 8-10 teams that is truism. It's the ability to stop other teams game styles that differentiates the best from the rest. Right now we are one of the rest.

 

[NUFC Tiger]

More outside runners? Matt White.... Really? That guy makes horrible decisions and has almost as bad disposal as Foley, I'll grant you he is fast but more often than not he gets a holding the ball or turns it over. Trade bait!!

Not sure if serious? White was very good this year - his best to date. There was even talk of him being an AA if they selected a specialist sub. He definitely impacted games with his run and carry and is one of our best players at kicking on the run.

 

[GroundhogDay]

Damo - It is the combination of a one size fits all play style and fatigue that all players get as the game goes on. What I have been saying is that our style seems to work brilliantly early but with reduced effectiveness as the game goes on.

Dr Tigris - Spot on! The slower teams eg. Freo and Hawks who move the ball slowly allow us to reduce fatigue through the game and not punish overly offensive attacks. Our defensive structures are able to be set and we fare very well.

So in essence the Fast break play style + Fatigue + Fast opposition ball movement will result in regular second half fade outs. I would love dearly for someone to tally up the points for and against per quarter for the year, it would be very interesting.

Time for some more adaptive structures at both ends. I'd say whilst Hardwick has produced a competitive team, he has under achieved in developing game by game strategies to mitigate opponents strengths. It is particularly damning how similar the elimination final was to the HA Carlton game a few weeks earlier. Surely the coaching staff identified the failings from that game?

 

[GroundhogDay]

Not sure if serious? White was very good this year - his best to date. There was even talk of him being an AA if they selected a specialist sub. He definitely impacted games with his run and carry and is one of our best players at kicking on the run.

What you are seeing is a fresh player coming on late in the game against fatigued opposition and still ranking in the bottom third of Richmonds disposal efficiency, with almost 2 clangers a game (in maybe a third game time). I'm sorry but it might be nice to have a fresh fast runner as sub but to me he doesn't rate.

 

[Dr Tigris]

Damo - It is the combination of a one size fits all play style and fatigue that all players get as the game goes on. What I have been saying is that our style seems to work brilliantly early but with reduced effectiveness as the game goes on.

Dr Tigris - Spot on! The slower teams eg. Freo and Hawks who move the ball slowly allow us to reduce fatigue through the game and not punish overly offensive attacks. Our defensive structures are able to be set and we fare very well.

So in essence the Fast break play style + Fatigue + Fast opposition ball movement will result in regular second half fade outs. I would love dearly for someone to tally up the points for and against per quarter for the year, it would be very interesting.

Time for some more adaptive structures at both ends. I'd say whilst Hardwick has produced a competitive team, he has under achieved in developing game by game strategies to mitigate opponents strengths. It is particularly damning how similar the elimination final was to the HA Carlton game a few weeks earlier. Surely the coaching staff identified the failings from that game?

Hogman, I completely agree. Although what looks like fatigue could be players working to structures that just aren't working. What bothers me is that we get nailed exactly the same way by the teams that can play that style. So either we aren't learning (coaches) or the players can't adapt. I'd go the second.

So why can't the players adapt? Speed and fitness - maybe. They do not have a game style they have practiced that deals with the slingshot - maybe. The players just don't have the leadership on field to adapt - hope not, but maybe. Dimma was cranky that the players didn't use the structures they were supposed to. So I presume that means as the game goes on and we are under pressure he and the coaching staff know what we need to do, but it doesn't translate to the team. That requires a lot of training and drills replicating the slingshot style whilst fatigued. It also may require more fitness to run it through. Although I felt that we just didn't have enough speedy players at times to cover a fast running wave. Sometimes teams learn how to fix a problem like this fairly quickly, sometimes it is just an achilles heel. But the big thing to me is that we are now getting beaten by a game style used by some of the better teams.
To progress further we have to learn how to stop the slingshot, run and gun style. Right now everyone knows we are vulnerable to it. We will require huge luck to not meet good fast teams in finals. Interesting to see what they do to fix this fairly major problem.

 

[tigs2010]

With have the speed and spread players they are just being played inside as we don't have the inside mid depth . Our work around stoppages especially late in games has been very poor . Lids and SEdwards are run and spread players not inside mids , when they can solely play those roles we will dominate sides . Arnott , Vlas , Conca and Martin's ability to step into inside mid roles is super important going forward .

Ellis is another run and spread guy. Carlton are the only side tagging him and we struggle when he's down.

 

[nut]

Martin, Lids, Edwards, Foley, Houli, Grigg, White...... how many more outside players you want???? We need more grunt in and under mids.

Speed and outside run is not our problem, anyone who thinks so is deluded.

 

[Kegguss]

Martin, Lids, Edwards, Foley, Houli, Grigg, White...... how many more outside players you want???? We need more grunt in and under mids.

Speed and outside run is not our problem, anyone who thinks so is deluded.

Yeah we do have plenty of run, I think the problem is we rely on Lids, Martin & Edwards too much inside. Add some more quality in and under players to allow us to use these guys for what they were bred to do!!

 

[Dr Tigris]

Martin, Lids, Edwards, Foley, Houli, Grigg, White...... how many more outside players you want???? We need more grunt in and under mids.

Speed and outside run is not our problem, anyone who thinks so is deluded.

Yes and no. We get beaten when teams run and carry against us. Does this mean we need more speedy players? Maybe fitter players? Maybe a different game plan? But we were chasing Carlton, and others when we lost. The big issue is that this is a recurrent pattern this year. For whatever reason we can't stop the slingshot style. That makes it look like we have poor run and carry. Maybe because we are poor in speed. I don't know. It might be gameplan, maybe personnel. But we can match and beat slow teams. We lose to fast ones.

 

[tigs2010]

Martin, Lids, Edwards, Foley, Houli, Grigg, White...... how many more outside players you want???? We need more grunt in and under mids.

Speed and outside run is not our problem, anyone who thinks so is deluded.

Edwards isn't very quick, Foley isn't quick anymore. Grigg isn't quick. Grigg needs to be upgraded on rather than adding another outside player. We need both.

 

[GordonBlue]

Hate losing to Carlton. Their supporters barely care if they win or lose. Just there to annoy. They are heartless and that's why only 20,000 of them showed up to our 70,000.

I totally agree.... we don't care if we win or lose... just here to troll Richmond. At least we're good at what we do.

 

[Damo80]

Although what looks like fatigue could be players working to structures that just aren't working. What bothers me is that we get nailed exactly the same way by the teams that can play that style.

The structures worked fine in the first half, against a team that can play that style.

Speed and fitness - maybe.

Again, if it was purely an issue with speed, wouldn't that mean that we'd struggle from the first bounce? The saying is "the tall guys don't get any shorter", not "the fast guys don't get any slower"... to me, it all points to fitness and fatigue. Possibly mental fatigue, but definitely physical fatigue is at play.

It is also exacerbated when the other team starts getting their hands on the ball first regularly, and you're doing all the chasing. So while it would be good to add a Freeman type from this year's draft, we would also benefit from a Taylor Adams type extractor. Losing Conca early killed us. Lose a man early, who also happens to be a good extractor, and fairly zippy getting around the ground.