Our Starts

denicat

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Thread starter #1
Do we still have a problem? we did not start well last week a good side could have put us away early.hope its better this week as it was our problem last year
 

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sarah.13

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#2
Do we still have a problem? we did not start well last week a good side could have put us away early.hope its better this week as it was our problem last year
I actually think we started reasonably well last week given our first 4 scoring shots should have been goals instead of points.
 
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#4
I think the slow start against Hawthorn can be explained by the team make up.

We lacked a fit senior ruckman and the senior clearance and contested ball winners with our outs which Hawthorn exploited in the first half. Then in the second half it flipped and we exploited them for the pace with our runners when the fatigue started to set in and the game opened up.

We saw against Freo last year that you cannot give that sort of start to a structured side at the business end of the season so hopefully last week against Hawthorn was an exception and we don't make a habit of it like last season.
 

Partridge

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#9
I don't understand - we've got all out VETERANS playing. Aren't they all still great? Isn't it 2008 still?

Corey - FINISHED. Chapman - not a midfielder anymore. Kelly - try kicking it to Hawkins big chest instead of 10 metres in front of his feet. Bartel - you're not up to it in the midfield anymore.

There's some uncomfortable home truths that no one wants to face.
 

you pick one

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#10
I don't understand - we've got all out VETERANS playing. Aren't they all still great? Isn't it 2008 still?

Corey - FINISHED. Chapman - not a midfielder anymore. Kelly - try kicking it to Hawkins big chest instead of 10 metres in front of his feet. Bartel - you're not up to it in the midfield anymore.

There's some uncomfortable home truths that no one wants to face.

Duramale- Natural premature ejaculation pills


 

MC Extra Dollop

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#11
Yep, a definite issue. I don't think it's with the personnel though. We simply went in with a gameplan to play North one way (offer them the little 20m sideways passes and suffocate the inevitable long bombs into the forward line) and they just played completely differently to what they dished up last week. They were just picking apart the zone 30m at a time. You know when you do one of those drills at footy training where the whole team will be doing some variation of circle work and they'll get 4-5 guys to put a vest on and roam around, providing 'token' pressure. That's what we were offering in the first half: token pressure.

All the guys that Partridge mentioned stepped it up massively in the second half, but the conditions made it a totally different game (Brad Scott may not have been happy with that AFL official, but I could have kissed him). Somehow, we get out of jail again and we're undefeated. But I hope the team isn't kidding itself that it's playing like some sort of juggernaut right now. It hurts to say, but they play like a team that's not quite as good as it seems to think it is.
 

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vealesy

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#12
I don't understand - we've got all out VETERANS playing. Aren't they all still great? Isn't it 2008 still?

Corey - FINISHED. Chapman - not a midfielder anymore. Kelly - try kicking it to Hawkins big chest instead of 10 metres in front of his feet. Bartel - you're not up to it in the midfield anymore.

There's some uncomfortable home truths that no one wants to face.
Laughable drunken exploits.
 

Partridge

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#14
Laughable drunken exploits.
Stone cold sober. Just daring to voice a different opinion. Kelly stepped it up tremendously, and so did Selwood in the last. But if people think they're going to get out of jail every week playing first halves like that - then you're the drunken one.
 

cynical

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#15
I think it's because our defenders are fairly slow, so they get exploited when midfielders can pinpoint passes (which is more likely early in the game when they are fresh and getting easy clearances due to our lack of rucks)

As the game drags on and players get tired it's harder to hit up players so our defence gets on top.

I think we should pretty much always have a loose man in defense for the first half of the game and then back our superior endurance in the second half of the game.
 

FredLeDeux

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#16
Stone cold sober. Just daring to voice a different opinion. Kelly stepped it up tremendously, and so did Selwood in the last. But if people think they're going to get out of jail every week playing first halves like that - then you're the drunken one.
It's not as simple as saying "bad starts", you need to analyse the reasons.
In particular today, we need to work out why we ended up 7 goals down despite smashing them all day for Inside 50s. Something's not working with the forward set-up.
As to the midfield, a large part of the 1st half problem was that in that 1/2 we lost the hitouts by a ratio of more than 2 to 1, but West came back and finally we only lost 5 to 3.
 

MC Extra Dollop

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#17
It's not as simple as saying "bad starts", you need to analyse the reasons.
In particular today, we need to work out why we ended up 7 goals down despite smashing them all day for Inside 50s. Something's not working with the forward set-up.
Because their inside 50s were with absolute precision, because they either came from marks (so no pressure), or unencumbered clearances.
 

Partridge

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#18
It's not as simple as saying "bad starts", you need to analyse the reasons.
In particular today, we need to work out why we ended up 7 goals down despite smashing them all day for Inside 50s. Something's not working with the forward set-up.
As to the midfield, a large part of the 1st half problem was that in that 1/2 we lost the hitouts by a ratio of more than 2 to 1, but West came back and finally we only lost 5 to 3.
Combination of reasons of course. One was the pace they had from the contest, and just as crucially, they were working harder than us. It's awesome again that we lifted and got over the line but you can't count on that. You don't think the midfielders weren't hitting the packs much harder in the second half? Sure looked like it.
 

FredLeDeux

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#19
Combination of reasons of course. One was the pace they had from the contest, and just as crucially, they were working harder than us. It's awesome again that we lifted and got over the line but you can't count on that. You don't think the midfielders weren't hitting the packs much harder in the second half? Sure looked like it.
All 3 of those things you mention were true, as were the other 2 factors I mentioned.
Today, at least, it wasn't simply a question of intensity or mental preparation.
 

fpm84

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#20
How many uncontested marks inside 50m did North take in the first half? Our players weren't being beaten - they simply weren't there. I'm not sure what type of 'zone' we were playing but we were happy for North to chip the ball around with no pressure. A couple of times they took the ball from the kick in to a shot inside 50 with 5-6 chip passes and not even touching the ball.

There was a clear shift in intensity and gameplan at half time. Stokes coming on was crucial - our other mids bombed the ball on top of Hawkins and Pods' heads all day but Stokes repeatedly broke the times and hit up leading forwards.
 
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#21
It's not as simple as saying "bad starts", you need to analyse the reasons.
In particular today, we need to work out why we ended up 7 goals down despite smashing them all day for Inside 50s. Something's not working with the forward set-up.
As to the midfield, a large part of the 1st half problem was that in that 1/2 we lost the hitouts by a ratio of more than 2 to 1, but West came back and finally we only lost 5 to 3.
Our forwards werent the issue I felt, watching the game we got SMASHED in the clearances. Their midfielders were hitting the ball ups at pace and Goldstein would hit to advantage more than not which equal an easy clearance and uncontested run inside 50. Our mids were standing around flat fooded and being reactive to the north runners.
We changed that in the second half where we stopped their run and started to create it ourselves, aswell as shark from Goldstein instead of looking to West to win the taps.
The inside 50 count was huge yes, but I would look to the wayward entries and the kicks into contests in the pocket, aswell as north putting numbers back as the reason why we only won by 4 points. Of course norths unbelievable conversion for goal counted alot for the numbers mismatch.
 

FredLeDeux

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#22
Our forwards werent the issue I felt, watching the game we got SMASHED in the clearances. Their midfielders were hitting the ball ups at pace and Goldstein would hit to advantage more than not which equal an easy clearance and uncontested run inside 50. Our mids were standing around flat fooded and being reactive to the north runners.
We changed that in the second half where we stopped their run and started to create it ourselves, aswell as shark from Goldstein instead of looking to West to win the taps.
The inside 50 count was huge yes, but I would look to the wayward entries and the kicks into contests in the pocket, aswell as north putting numbers back as the reason why we only won by 4 points. Of course norths unbelievable conversion for goal counted alot for the numbers mismatch.
Yes, that's all true..
And, of course, in the third 1/4 West, after being smashed in the 1st half, actually won the hitout count, and broke even for the 2nd half, so that helped too.
As I said, it's a complex issue.
 

footscore

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#23
All 3 of those things you mention were true, as were the other 2 factors I mentioned.
Today, at least, it wasn't simply a question of intensity or mental preparation.
and credit needs to be given to North Melbourne, they really aren't that far away from becoming a top line team, just lack depth and quality of ourselves and a few other teams.

What needs to be highlighted though, we had 5 players who have played less than 30 senior matches, Blicavs, Caddy, Motlop, Smedts, Brown while West is still building his match fitness.
There will be a bit of inconsistency with so many youngsters so makes these kind of wins even more fantastic.
 
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