? re Defence

[Moo]

Hello Bombers and Bomberettes

Just a question from a deleted thread on the main board re Essendon.

Essendon had the most points scored against them of any team last year. If the reason was injury - who was missing that will be back?

On paper your defence does not look too shabby but in reality last year obviously was not crash hot.

I'm part of a work comp to make predictions about 2009 ranking For and Against is part of the criteria ...you guys are a little tricky in this regard.

Cheers

 

[yaco55]

Hello Bombers and Bomberettes

Just a question from a deleted thread on the main board re Essendon.

Essendon had the most points scored against them of any team last year. If the reason was injury - who was missing that will be back?

On paper your defence does not look too shabby but in reality last year obviously was not crash hot.

I'm part of a work comp to make predictions about 2009 ranking For and Against is part of the criteria ...you guys are a little tricky in this regard.

Cheers

I would hope that EFC can push up to having the 10th to 12th best defence.

There are several reasons for the points kicked against

- unaccountable midfield
- slow transition from attack to defence
- injuries
- skill level
- one lock down key defender

 

[Smyth94]

Hello Bombers and Bomberettes

Just a question from a deleted thread on the main board re Essendon.

Essendon had the most points scored against them of any team last year. If the reason was injury - who was missing that will be back?

On paper your defence does not look too shabby but in reality last year obviously was not crash hot.

I'm part of a work comp to make predictions about 2009 ranking For and Against is part of the criteria ...you guys are a little tricky in this regard.

Cheers

Yaco pretty much just nailed it with his response, whilst injury didn't help, it was really our unaccountable midfield which killed us in this regard.

 

[Moo]

Yaco pretty much just nailed it with his response, whilst injury didn't help, it was really our unaccountable midfield which killed us in this regard.

How will this be turned around i.e. by coaching or personnel changes?

 

[Smyth94]

How will this be turned around i.e. by coaching or personnel changes?

Injuries and our unaccountable midfield are/were somewhat related in 2008.

We seldom had our first choice midfield available, when we did, we started winning games, and our "score against" column decreased rapidly.

Also the game plan Matty Knights was instructing our young players to play had a significant impact, when we were getting pumped, we could've easily limited the damage by putting a player behind the ball but the coach was hellbent on teaching our young kids to play attacking footy.

Personally, I believe that in '09 a lot more attention will be given to our defensive actions, if pre-season training is anything to go buy, the coaching staff has placed a priority on this aspect, and hopefully this results in a more healthy "points against" column

Less injuries to key players (McVeigh, Davey and Winderlich), more development from our younger midfielders - Houli, Myers, Reimers, Lonergan; and the development of Ryder, Pears and Hurley will hopefully reduce the amount of goals teams put past us.

Our backline is relatively inexperienced and we still lack a key-lock down defender (hopefully Hurley will be the guy), so I would suspect we still need a lot of work in this regard.

 

[Moo]

Thanks for taking the time mate.

 

[Colin D'Cops]

To put it short, our midfielders did not do much to help out our defence and when your midfield lacks a defensive side to their game, the defence will always be vulnerable. In any side. I'm sure next year will be much better in that regard, Knight's couldn't introduce everything in his first year. It's virtually impossible to.

 

[ant555]

Agree with Smyth , the backline will struggle if we dont get a better control over the midfield. Have to get the defensive pressure up a bit and reduce the turnovers that killed our momentum in a number of games last year.
Chances are we will still get a lot of points kicked against us as we are stil very much a work in progress.

 

[warney7]

It's pretty much been answered already, but we conceded so many points because our game plan is based on attack and a defensive element did not appear to be fully implemented until half way through the season, which was what Matthew Knights said he had planned all along (although he probably didn't plan on us losing 8 straight games).

In a nutshell, our defenders weren't the cause of big scores against.

 

[Ben the Gooner]

Basically, we didn't have enough players running back to defend, and we had too many midfielders out. Pears and Hurley will play a fair few games as third tall defenders, leaving NatRat to defend less, meaning there's less unaccountability in defence.

I'm also expecting a less attacking game plan.

 

[Merv]

I disagree and don't put as much of the blame on the midfield as others do, although i concede they do play a part and a bigger part than other teams.

We don't have negatively minded defenders and our old and current gameplan and coaching doesn't encourage them to be.

Fletcher has had bags of goals kicked on him for over a decade in dominant midfields.

Ryder doesn't have a negative mindset either and doesn't pay enough respect to his opponent, thus has bags kicked on him.

Mal did have that mindset but the game had passed him by when he got to us, although he was solid enough.

 

[Jono B]

IMO it is not only midfield pressure that caused the high scores. The personel in the back-half were also a major problem. Nash was very poor defensively, Lovett-Murray was poor too, Ramanaskus was pretty ineffective, Michael was too. Too much defensive work was left to a 20 year old Ryder, a fading Fletcher and Slattery. To make matters worse the back half was rarely settled.

If we can put together a stronger and more stable back 6 we will see a large reduction in points against.

 

[SirJimi05]

I haven't got the stats in front of me so i could well be wrong but i believe that the defensive pressure certainly did improve in the latter part of the season. Obviously the StKilda game was the major exception (there may have been one other blowout?) but positives should be drawn from this. The accountability was there for the majority of the seconf half of the season. This is the most important thing, whether it be the midfield, defence and even the forward line. Knight's did say that they were working on the defensive aspects, but it will take time, and you could definitely see it taking effect in the second half of the season.

 

[Pevers-Legend]

In my mind - it is a combo of a few things:

- lack of midfield pressure
- lack of numbers behind the ball clogging up space
- lack of defensively minded backmen i.e. shutdown backmen.
- unsettled defence with a lot of chopping and changing

If we can rectify a few of those - we won't concede as many goals (partly due to the thumpings we copped). However, we will definitely still concede a lot of points as our style of game and personnel will ensure that.

 

[yodellinhank]

I disagree and don't put as much of the blame on the midfield as others do, although i concede they do play a part and a bigger part than other teams.

We don't have negatively minded defenders and our old and current gameplan and coaching doesn't encourage them to be.

Fletcher has had bags of goals kicked on him for over a decade in dominant midfields.

Ryder doesn't have a negative mindset either and doesn't pay enough respect to his opponent, thus has bags kicked on him.

Mal did have that mindset but the game had passed him by when he got to us, although he was solid enough.

It's a bit of chicken and the egg, but something that stuck in my mind when he played on Buddy Lance was the uncontested ball Franklin got when we turned the ball over. Ryder would run off to create an option, but not end up with the footy, which allowed Lance to not pay any respect the other way, and when we turned the ball over he caught Paddy out of position.

Of course its his responsibilty to ensure the forwards don't kick goals on him, but if he gets more of the ball himself, they will have to follow him up the ground, and thus be less of a danger themselves. Some full forwards will be happy to have a bloke sit on them all day, as they back themselves in a one on one and would prefer not to have to chase.

 

[DaSawx]

I'd like to see Pears play more and have Fletcher on the O'Loughlin's, Medhurts' and Motlops'.

Medhurst did nothing on Fletcher in the second game, Fletch is athletic enough to keep up with them and if the ball is popped up he will never lose a contest.