Our Gameplan

[Dave The Man]

The Collingwood crowd actually booed our movement at 1 stage.

When we went Backwards they did

 

[hellfire]

tagging Mitchell out of the game had a lot to do with it.

Will never happen. And by the time we play them, they'll probably have a full squad. I just can't see us beating Hawthorn with the way we play.

 

[Rohan Coventry]

Interesting to see Scott Burns helping implement the rolling zone at WC.

 

[FuManchu]

How true. Now, can someone tell Mick "before" next weeks game that Geel might do the same thing? Or should we wait till 1/4 time, 1/2 way through the second?
The rolling zone, although defensive, positions defenders in an "attacking formation" across half back. Players are fanned out between the area that they "bottle neck" us (usually Clokey) on the boundary at 60mts, and our CHF position. It's like rugby, in that that move the ball quickly by hand/foot across to the corridor and there gone. It's a blatant trap the other clubs are obviously aware of (with us), and the better equipped will always expose this flaw.
And no, i don't want MM sacked, he's a terrific coach, but this area of our game mystifies and frustrates me.

Geelongs dont need to play the zone. Others play the zone to try and curtail them. They just need to move the ball like they do from HB to cut up most sides.

But yesterday was the second fade out they have had in a row, so who knows where their heads are at?

 

[rose jam]

Geelongs dont need to play the zone. Others play the zone to try and curtail them. They just need to move the ball like they do from HB to cut up most sides.

But yesterday was the second fade out they have had in a row, so who knows where their heads are at?

Geelong try and ride the ball through the corridor, so effectively our zone has to be the corridor. Force them wide and they get confused, because frankly their fringe players are robots who have no idea what to do when their midfield has to push the ball wide.

 

[goreds]

Just a question.

Didn't MM explain all of this on 'Footy Classifieds' last Monday night?

He stated that your side is 1 of 3 that played around the wings and that you played this way because your midfield was not as strong as other teams.

He also said that you don't have the clearance players that Geelong/Hawks and the premiership sides of the last 5 years have.

Did anyone watch it?

 

[FuManchu]

Geelong try and ride the ball through the corridor, so effectively our zone has to be the corridor. Force them wide and they get confused, because frankly their fringe players are robots who have no idea what to do when their midfield has to push the ball wide.

As we know from past experience (and forget what happened in the NAB, that was not an indication of nothing), to beat Geelong you have to hunt them. Man on man pressure. Which is OK if you are all, on message and physically able to match them. I reckon this will be our tactic this week, we have used it to some success.

I am not sure if we can hold the corridor like Hawthorn did in the GF, 'cos I dont think we know where it is. But Hawthorn did push them wide in that game and it did throw them. Altho they had 67 entries into the forward line, but they couldnt get it in deep fro being out so wide. Not many sides lose with 67 entries. It was a tactical masterpiece by Hawthorn

 

[Old Spice]

Like Pie Eyed, I thought the Sydney win was very interesting. They really wore Hawthorn like a glove in key positions - Kirk on Mitchell and Bolton on Buddy.

I only watched from the 2nd half, but Sydney were able to do some close checking as well as moving the ball along quickly when they had the ball.

 

[Quicky]

Like Pie Eyed, I thought the Sydney win was very interesting. They really wore Hawthorn like a glove in key positions - Kirk on Mitchell and Bolton on Buddy.

I only watched from the 2nd half, but Sydney were able to do some close checking as well as moving the ball along quickly when they had the ball.

Kirk is probably the best tagger in the competition and has the added ability of being a fantastic clearance winner too. We don't have anyone remotely like this on our list either in the tagging or clearance department.

Bolton is probably one of the best 6 or so defenders in the comp. Again we don't have a defender capable of keeping Franklin to two goals. Maybe Presti but doubtful.

That said it was very interesting to see how well Sydney wore them down.

 

[Old Spice]

How tall is Colton? I reckon he gave a few inches but had the pace to wear him like a cheap seersucker suit. Franklin so often burns off a defender that he has a metre or two to take a relaxed grab. If Colton is shorter, but managed to keep with him and get in some nettlesome fists, might suggest some experimentation at Collingwood. Presti is the frontrunner, but maybe a Toovey or some such could challenge Buddy.

Re Kirk, true, we don't have anyone quite like him but I'd unleash the man-crush Barham. Crack a stiffy.

 

[Pie eyed]

How tall is Colton? I reckon he gave a few inches but had the pace to wear him like a cheap seersucker suit. Franklin so often burns off a defender that he has a metre or two to take a relaxed grab. If Colton is shorter, but managed to keep with him and get in some nettlesome fists, might suggest some experimentation at Collingwood. Presti is the frontrunner, but maybe a Toovey or some such could challenge Buddy.

Re Kirk, true, we don't have anyone quite like him but I'd unleash the man-crush Barham. Crack a stiffy.

I gotta agree with you Spicey.
Bolton was the most unlikely looking player I would have picked to fix up "The Budmeister", but it worked.
A bit of lateral thinking from Roos. I don't think Buddy is used to the attentions of a player like Bolton, not so big but quick, manoeuvrable and tenacious. Sydney have a bit of a hold over the Hawks, a bit like us over them...maybe MM should throw Roos a bone for some insider info...lol

I've been thinking who, in our line up, is in the Bolton mould?

Maxwell had a good quarter on him last year (yes I know, 1 good quarter.), but I don't think he is the answer.
Whoever it is it only works in conjunction with strangling supply from the middle.

 

[Pie eyed]

As we know from past experience (and forget what happened in the NAB, that was not an indication of nothing), to beat Geelong you have to hunt them. Man on man pressure. Which is OK if you are all, on message and physically able to match them. I reckon this will be our tactic this week, we have used it to some success.

I am not sure if we can hold the corridor like Hawthorn did in the GF, 'cos I dont think we know where it is. But Hawthorn did push them wide in that game and it did throw them. Altho they had 67 entries into the forward line, but they couldnt get it in deep fro being out so wide. Not many sides lose with 67 entries. It was a tactical masterpiece by Hawthorn

It's is a little to the left of the "G" spot.
Sooner or later we are going to have to find it.

Does it strike anyone else as strange that a coach who has held his cards as close to his chest as MM for 20 odd years goes on National TV to tell the world "we don't play in the corridor because we are not good enough"?

It strikes my as very odd.

"The oxen are slow but the grey fox is one sneaky bastard."

Maybe?

 

[Quicky]

How tall is Colton? I reckon he gave a few inches but had the pace to wear him like a cheap seersucker suit. Franklin so often burns off a defender that he has a metre or two to take a relaxed grab. If Colton is shorter, but managed to keep with him and get in some nettlesome fists, might suggest some experimentation at Collingwood. Presti is the frontrunner, but maybe a Toovey or some such could challenge Buddy.

Re Kirk, true, we don't have anyone quite like him but I'd unleash the man-crush Barham. Crack a stiffy.

He's 190cm and 87kg. Maybe O'brien is a consideration although he probably doesn't have the same physical strength that Bolton does.

I think - as some people have suggested on here - that long-term Reed is being groomed to play as this sort of defender. I said this awhile ago suggesting he be developed into a Morris type defender. Morris was a similar build and playing style to Reed at his age and is now a very very good defender.

 

[WinOrLoseILoveEm]

Read it a again. You can't make a statement with one of these "?" on the end of a sentence mate.

Let me explain if for you. Malthouse hasn't got his contract renewed yet, which is highly unusual this time of year.

Maybe it's his last year?

Here's part of a transcript from On the couch last Monday. MS - Mike Sheahan, GH - Gerard Healey and JH- James Hird ( not in this part of the transcript.) MM and MS (more so) stutter and start a fair bit.

MS : At twenty five years on, you're in the last year of a contract, is it unnerving to be in the situation you havent been before in your tenure at a football club?
MM: Well I think I have Michael.
MS: Uh of recent .. West Coast and Collingwood havent you always had a rollover?
MM: Nah ...No I've uh very rarely signed a contract until later in the year and talk about unnerving, not a bit.
MS: So what did Eddie say to you? When uh he would have talked about it because there has been so much talk in the media about your future at Collingwood. Did Eddie have any instructions to you about how you would handle the fact that they were going to let this season unfold before recontracting?
MM: No no no ... as far as I'm concerned it's uh I dont really want to talk ... I'll talk to you about it.. but I didnt want to talk to the Club about that sort of stuff because at the end of the day I'm contracted til October. I dont see an issue with it. It's ah.. you just move on, you coach the way you coach and que sera....it's not an issue with me.
GH: You're not going to be able to tell us about uh whether you'd like to coach Collingwood or whether you will coach Collingwood. It's probably out of your hands. But if you're not coaching the Pies will you be coaching somewhere else?
MM: Well that is totally academic and again... there's an issue I'm not going to get involved with because I dont think more than coaching Collingwood. Now coaches dont determine whether they coach. You do your best. If a contract's in front of you and you want to coach and the board believe you can coach, you sign it. If for one reason or another there's a thing where .you feel as if you (pause) Leign Matthews.. You're finished. You close the bag and you get out. The other example is ah you want to coach and the board believe you should move on, then you move on. It's not an issue. I've never worried about a contract in my life.

MM is one of the highest paid coaches in the AFL. I think there is a very good chance that MM and whoever negotiates his contracts knows a bit more about negotiating his contract than you do. I suspect if he was scrambling for a renewal of his contract at this unusual time of year the Collingwood board would see this as a weakness. Not the way I would be negotiating a contract. Or would you be insisting on a contract now to show how strong you are?

 

[WinOrLoseILoveEm]

Just a question.

Didn't MM explain all of this on 'Footy Classifieds' last Monday night?

He stated that your side is 1 of 3 that played around the wings and that you played this way because your midfield was not as strong as other teams.

He also said that you don't have the clearance players that Geelong/Hawks and the premiership sides of the last 5 years have.

Did anyone watch it?

Thanks Gored. MM in the On the Couch interview made similar points to those he made on Footy Classified. He highlighted how there is a temptation for other clubs to try to emulate the game plan of the previous Premiers and this reactive behaviour can land a club in bother if they dont have the personel the premiers possessed.

If you do a patchwork of the commentaries regarding Collingwood's overall master plan you will see some common threads. The Pies are waiting for our extraordinarily even team, many still quite young, to rise to the next level. MM expects some of them to be superstars. We have the depth and we will have the personel. We are building a side that can play a variety of positons and as James Hird pointed out you can win a Premiership without an All Australian ruckman.

Our picks over the last three years have been particularly astute. Like many I believe we are currently at the perimeter of the premiereship window and I suspect we will be restocking in the areas that will winning us a Premiership next year or the year after and then it'll be interesting to see who owns the central corridor.

 

[Old Spice]

I think Harold would be stronger than Bolton, but Bolton I think was just an octopus. Harold closes fast and makes a good overhead spoil, but Bolton was like a Hindu god, with arms poking out in every direction - low medium and high. Harry should try that out.

I raised this on another thread, but I reckon Reid could be a good match. But given he is somewhat peripheral to selection, it wouldn't hurt to try a Toovey who could, like Bolton, stick with him for pace and manouverability. It might fail, but then you make the change. Our previous combinations have not worked well so worth a shot if Harry / Preston / $bags don't work out.

 

[mdc]

I think Harold would be stronger than Bolton

I'd take Bolton, and it's not close imo.

He gives away an inch to most KPF (yet still has an inch over H), but he has Presti-level trickery body-on-body.

Good player that Bolton, but still a besterd for stealing JC's All-Australian spot that one year (too late to remember which year).

 

[Old Spice]

How dare you - pistols at dawn sir!

 

[mdc]

I think MM would prefer boomerangs at dawn.

 

[Old Spice]

Does Harry throw a boomerang? how odd. Did you mean a yam-salsarang? I thought he would prefer a pie in the face.

 

[FuManchu]

It's is a little to the left of the "G" spot.
Sooner or later we are going to have to find it.

Does it strike anyone else as strange that a coach who has held his cards as close to his chest as MM for 20 odd years goes on National TV to tell the world "we don't play in the corridor because we are not good enough"?

It strikes my as very odd.

"The oxen are slow but the grey fox is one sneaky bastard."

Maybe?

I doubt it, its not a 9 year plan so that it can pay off in Rd 3 2009!

We dont play the corridor, for the very reason MM said. Its not exactly a secret. But then you have to investigate why those reasons exist. Thats when some get upset.

 

[YouBeauty]

I doubt it, its not a 9 year plan so that it can pay off in Rd 3 2009!

We dont play the corridor, for the very reason MM said. Its not exactly a secret. But then you have to investigate why those reasons exist. Thats when some get upset.

You seem to think its micks fault that we don't have the best midfield, its simply not, not everyone can have the best midfield, all coaches try to have the best, they try, believe me. It's just pure luck. Having another coach around 04-05 like you say, wouldn't have changed anything.

You really are disgraceful, you have a lack of knowledge, if anyone wants to see how bad this guy is, read his past posts, absolute lack of any footy knowledge and heaps of tripe which is written.

Please go support netball, you dead set disgrace.

 

[FuManchu]

And DL turns up, supporting the unsupportable.

 

[Barwick17]

We have a gameplan?

After watching saturday live, it became quite obvious that we NEED Anthony Rocca (which is what worries me). Kicking high to a contest in the forward 50 is useless unless we have a Rocca bringing the ball to ground at worst.

Why we can kick to a players advantage astounds me - even I can do that. Bombing to T Cloke and J Anthony with 5 around didnt work.

 

[Old Spice]

DL - same initials as yours truly. I thought CD was the nemesis FuMAn.