tiggsy
Team Captain
Whenever a new coach comes on the scene I like to try and work out some of their skills/attitudes/beliefs and what it might mean for the club. When Walshy ( 
) joined the club, I noticed how he made really simple observations about the game where I'd think it was an obvious point but I'd never thought of it before. A sort of genius for making complex things into simple things. An example was when he said a long kicking team will tend to have a poorer disposal efficiency than a team that focusses on short kicks and handballs. So you would expect disposal efficiency to be affected by the game plan. With Walshy's focus on a long kicking game, our disposal efficiency was lower than other clubs. Comparing between clubs isn't really an apples to apples comparison as game style will influence disposal efficiency. Obvious when somebody says it but not something I'd realised before. Anyway, that was an example of Phil's thinking that I liked.
Now we have Don Pyke and I'm interested in what he brings to the table. A really interesting thing that I've heard him say a couple of times is that every player on an AFL list is very good at something. They wouldn't be there otherwise. So you need to work out what they are good at and how you can use that. It's a pretty different approach if you compare it to a coach developing a game plan and requiring the players to shape their skills to the plan. Don said some players can hit a target at 60 metres while others might only hit a target reliably at 40 metres. So the question that raises for me is why would you have game plan that requires players to hit targets at 40 metre or 60 metres when it would depend on which player had the ball? You reduce the effectiveness of long kicking players if you limit them to 40 metres and your disposal efficiency will suffer if your game plan requires players with shorter kicks to hit targets at long range.
Based on the above, Don Pyke's game plan would need to include flexibility to react to a situation depending on their unique skills. It was interesting to hear Brad Crouch say that Don encouraged flexibility in how players played and that was something Brad really liked. From a basic psychology point of view, people tend to be happy doing things that they are good at. Pyke has also said he wants the players to play what is ahead of them. This also seems to reflect a coach who encourages flexibility and creativity.
Anyway, given all of the above, it would be interesting to see what strengths people think some of our players have and how we might make better use of that strength. An example might be Jarryd Lyons who has beautiful hands in close and is great at clearances. But he isn't that fast which limits his ability to get to the contest and use his strength to best effect. So how do you shape his role so you get the best outcome from his strength? Do you put him in for centre bounces where you know his ability at the clearance is good? Do you then have him move into the forward line where you have players that aren't great contested marks but can bring the ball to ground so that you can again exploit JL's strengths? Anyway, interested in thoughts on my observations and any suggestions for how we might make better use of our players' strengths.
Sorry for the long post
) joined the club, I noticed how he made really simple observations about the game where I'd think it was an obvious point but I'd never thought of it before. A sort of genius for making complex things into simple things. An example was when he said a long kicking team will tend to have a poorer disposal efficiency than a team that focusses on short kicks and handballs. So you would expect disposal efficiency to be affected by the game plan. With Walshy's focus on a long kicking game, our disposal efficiency was lower than other clubs. Comparing between clubs isn't really an apples to apples comparison as game style will influence disposal efficiency. Obvious when somebody says it but not something I'd realised before. Anyway, that was an example of Phil's thinking that I liked.Now we have Don Pyke and I'm interested in what he brings to the table. A really interesting thing that I've heard him say a couple of times is that every player on an AFL list is very good at something. They wouldn't be there otherwise. So you need to work out what they are good at and how you can use that. It's a pretty different approach if you compare it to a coach developing a game plan and requiring the players to shape their skills to the plan. Don said some players can hit a target at 60 metres while others might only hit a target reliably at 40 metres. So the question that raises for me is why would you have game plan that requires players to hit targets at 40 metre or 60 metres when it would depend on which player had the ball? You reduce the effectiveness of long kicking players if you limit them to 40 metres and your disposal efficiency will suffer if your game plan requires players with shorter kicks to hit targets at long range.
Based on the above, Don Pyke's game plan would need to include flexibility to react to a situation depending on their unique skills. It was interesting to hear Brad Crouch say that Don encouraged flexibility in how players played and that was something Brad really liked. From a basic psychology point of view, people tend to be happy doing things that they are good at. Pyke has also said he wants the players to play what is ahead of them. This also seems to reflect a coach who encourages flexibility and creativity.
Anyway, given all of the above, it would be interesting to see what strengths people think some of our players have and how we might make better use of that strength. An example might be Jarryd Lyons who has beautiful hands in close and is great at clearances. But he isn't that fast which limits his ability to get to the contest and use his strength to best effect. So how do you shape his role so you get the best outcome from his strength? Do you put him in for centre bounces where you know his ability at the clearance is good? Do you then have him move into the forward line where you have players that aren't great contested marks but can bring the ball to ground so that you can again exploit JL's strengths? Anyway, interested in thoughts on my observations and any suggestions for how we might make better use of our players' strengths.
Sorry for the long post
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