Analysis Ricks Analysis (The Shinboner Blog)

[Roostorm]

Love this footage…..after one preseason with Al. Can’t remember seeing anything like this for awhile…..sure there will be losses…but this is what lm looking fwd to seeing during the season..trying new things….

 

[Passmore]

Love this footage…..after one preseason with Al. Can’t remember seeing anything like this for awhile…..sure there will be losses…but this is what lm looking fwd to seeing during the season..trying new things….

I'm actually impressed that we could string a few passes together. It's seemed like we were 1 kick then turnover for a number of years.....

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[Rick18]

Lots of video to go through in the Fremantle post:

The study of a quarter: Round 2 v Fremantle

Today’s post will operate a little differently to normal.

theshinboner.com

Instead of the normal full game focus, I wanted to drill down on the third quarter specifically. So it's all about what happened there, with background on what changed from the first half from a team structure point of view.

 

[Its a Process]

Brilliant analysis as usual and helpful at a time of great distress! Our inability to adapt defensively has been our most obvious issue over the first 2 games.

We need more front half tackles as well IMO. Curtis, Stepho, Zurhaar, Jy and Charlie all very low tackle numbers and we need them resolve this. Switowski had 9 tackles yesterday.

 

[Only Forwards]

Rick18 what is the counter to when Freo held their forwards deeper?

If the defence pushes up doesn’t this open the door to merely kicking it back over their heads.

Also is it a coaching fail or an onfield leadership fail?

 

[Nylex]

Brilliant Rick. Clarko and co should read your analysis every week

 

[Themanbun]

Rick18 what is the counter to when Freo held their forwards deeper?

If the defence pushes up doesn’t this open the door to merely kicking it back over their heads.

Also is it a coaching fail or an onfield leadership fail?

Not Rick but four options:

• You don't counter. You take a calculated risk that the chance of the zone locking it in with pressure on the ball outweighs stretching the zone.

• You roll back harder. Needs a lot of fitness and takes a lot of fatigue as its price.

• You thin the zone lines by taking a player from one zone and creating a new zone line or a 'goal keeper' or two, for want of a better word. So 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 or whatever becomes 3 - 4 - 4 - 5 - 2.

• You stretch the space between the zone lines, effectively stretching the zone and losing that pressure on the ball, which I think Rick alluded to happening in his excellent blog.

Back to when Clarkson first started with us I suspect he looked at the stats of turnover to scoring shot conversion and realised his best option was creating the strongest zone to lock the ball in. If you don't turn it back over in your forward 60-70, then perhaps regardless of how you structure up your defence, the odds are stacked against you. That juice mightn't be worth the squeeze.

 

[shintemaster]

Interesting write up. I agree that Dawson is staking a real claim. Assuming Comben comes in and stays fit, when Logue is back and there are musical chairs games going on there will be at least 2 disappointed players down back. At the moment Dawson is the backman I'd most be inclined to keep which is a big win from a part time player a couple of years ago.

I felt in the 3rd quarter when they stretched us differently we also struggled to reset the target in the forward line - felt like a lot of kicks to the 35-40m zone where Fremantle had just set up a wall, we didn't get as many chances but the handful we did mostly went begging due to a skill error or bombing to the one zone they were completely ready to pick us off. To my eye even 1-2 extra kicks when in possession would have both slowed the game and given a genuine chance at goal.

 

[Rick18]

Rick18 what is the counter to when Freo held their forwards deeper?

If the defence pushes up doesn’t this open the door to merely kicking it back over their heads.

Also is it a coaching fail or an onfield leadership fail?

I was going to reply, but...

Not Rick but four options:

• You don't counter. You take a calculated risk that the chance of the zone locking it in with pressure on the ball outweighs stretching the zone.

• You roll back harder. Needs a lot of fitness and takes a lot of fatigue as its price.

• You thin the zone lines by taking a player from one zone and creating a new zone line or a 'goal keeper' or two, for want of a better word. So 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 or whatever becomes 3 - 4 - 4 - 5 - 2.

• You stretch the space between the zone lines, effectively stretching the zone and losing that pressure on the ball, which I think Rick alluded to happening in his excellent blog.

Back to when Clarkson first started with us I suspect he looked at the stats of turnover to scoring shot conversion and realised his best option was creating the strongest zone to lock the ball in. If you don't turn it back over in your forward 60-70, then perhaps regardless of how you structure up your defence, the odds are stacked against you. That juice mightn't be worth the squeeze.

...covers it all really and saves me some time ha.

I think it's an equal mix of part inevitable, part coaching, part on-field leadership, which is a cop out answer, but...

• Inevitability comes from a group needing to experience these types of things sometimes
• Coaching comes from a little bit of not having the cattle to change it, and probably - this part very much my opinion - wanting players to get the initial process right instead of changing on the fly. Kind of like basketball when a team doesn't take a time out when they're down, learning by playing through it
• On-field leadership cause it's still early in the process and ... there really aren't that many leaders at the moment. There's only so much they can do

 

[Its a Process]

I was going to reply, but...



...covers it all really and saves me some time ha.

I think it's an equal mix of part inevitable, part coaching, part on-field leadership, which is a cop out answer, but...

• Inevitability comes from a group needing to experience these types of things sometimes
• Coaching comes from a little bit of not having the cattle to change it, and probably - this part very much my opinion - wanting players to get the initial process right instead of changing on the fly. Kind of like basketball when a team doesn't take a time out when they're down, learning by playing through it
• On-field leadership cause it's still early in the process and ... there really aren't that many leaders at the moment. There's only so much they can do

I’d be very interested to understand how many front half tackles we are making compared with the best teams in the comp.

I note that Bedford/Daniels and Thomas had 24 between them for GWS. Bull, Curtis and Steevo would be lucky to have that over 4 games.

 

[Rick18]

We are live with the Carlton post:

Going too quick: Round 3, 2024 v Carlton

On a day where the Good Friday Appeal tends to crystallise what is and isn’t important in life, the actual football tends to feel secondary most of the time.

theshinboner.com

Four topics in this one:

• 'Going too quick' and what that actually looks like illustrated (with video)
• Unexpected turnovers and how they kill a team (with video)
• Half backs getting 'lost' (unfortunately without video)
• Outmatched key defenders, which is pretty self explanatory (unfortunately with video)

 

[Merlin007]

We are live with the Carlton post:

Going too quick: Round 3, 2024 v Carlton

On a day where the Good Friday Appeal tends to crystallise what is and isn’t important in life, the actual football tends to feel secondary most of the time.

theshinboner.com

Four topics in this one:

• 'Going too quick' and what that actually looks like illustrated (with video)
• Unexpected turnovers and how they kill a team (with video)
• Half backs getting 'lost' (unfortunately without video)
• Outmatched key defenders, which is pretty self explanatory (unfortunately with video)

It's a useful stepping off place to begin with Clarkson's comment about going too quick, but the other theme that dominated his press conference was that the opposition are bigger and stronger in the contest.

Greenwood is the only short term fix to that problem, and that's a concern

 

[Nylex]

Great work Rick, love it. The turnovers look glaringly bad when the focus is on them as you’ve highlighted. The one arm effort from Sheez looks unacceptable. I thought he was our best yday as well.
Clarko and co have plenty of work to do

 

[Rick18]

It's a useful stepping off place to begin with Clarkson's comment about going too quick, but the other theme that dominated his press conference was that the opposition are bigger and stronger in the contest.

Greenwood is the only short term fix to that problem, and that's a concern

My first draft actually had a part about this to be honest. But the tl;dr was basically 'mistakes made in list build and development, can't fast track time now' so I binned it. No one needs to be reminded about that again

 

[Nylex]

Sellers in fwd line. increase Zurhaar midfield minutes could be an option

 

[Krakoueraddict]

Great work Rick, love it. The turnovers look glaringly bad when the focus is on them as you’ve highlighted. The one arm effort from Sheez looks unacceptable. I thought he was our best yday as well.
Clarko and co have plenty of work to do

The handball from Simpkin was pretty disgusting there, behind him and at his feet it's a tough ask to do much more than throw out a hand and hope it bounces your way.

 

[Merlin007]

My first draft actually had a part about this to be honest. But the tl;dr was basically 'mistakes made in list build and development, can't fast track time now' so I binned it. No one needs to be reminded about that again

Yes of course, they're aren't many to chosen from the in the 2s to fix the 'big mid' gap. Like others, i fully support the club decision around Thomas, but there's no denying it's left a hole. The only possible options at the moment would be Greenwood as a defensive mid, and Shiels as the traffic-cop 'stop go' player (which he did really well in the first games last year, but that assumes he's fit enough, and that might be the issue)

 

[Rick18]

We are live with the Brisbane post:

Midfield movement lessons: Round 4, 2024 v Brisbane

Today’s post is probably going to be one of the most straightforward in 2024.

theshinboner.com

A pretty simple one, focusing on what happened in the first half. Then some odds and ends on McKercher, Scott, and Comben/Comden to finish off.

 

[Roosurgence]

We are live with the Brisbane post:

Midfield movement lessons: Round 4, 2024 v Brisbane

Today’s post is probably going to be one of the most straightforward in 2024.

theshinboner.com

A pretty simple one, focusing on what happened in the first half. Then some odds and ends on McKercher, Scott, and Comben/Comden to finish off.

Not sure how you can do it to yourself mate. Trying to make sense of what is essentially a dumpster fire must be draining?

 

[Merlin007]

We are live with the Brisbane post:

Midfield movement lessons: Round 4, 2024 v Brisbane

Today’s post is probably going to be one of the most straightforward in 2024.

theshinboner.com

A pretty simple one, focusing on what happened in the first half. Then some odds and ends on McKercher, Scott, and Comben/Comden to finish off.

Don't you start

 

[Themanbun]

We are live with the Brisbane post:

Midfield movement lessons: Round 4, 2024 v Brisbane

Today’s post is probably going to be one of the most straightforward in 2024.

theshinboner.com

A pretty simple one, focusing on what happened in the first half. Then some odds and ends on McKercher, Scott, and Comben/Comden to finish off.

Thanks so much Rick. Really good clips and analysis. I particularly like the Neale/Wardlaw one.

On the Wardlaw/Neale one, I think a lot of credit goes to Brisbane here too, and as you say, their experience.

When you look at the centre circle pie chart, North actually owns more of the pie. We've got the whole broadcast half of the pie with our two players on the inside. The pie between Wardlaw and our right is neutral, and the pie between Neale and the Lions player is owned by them, probably less than a third of the circle.

McInerney was always aiming to tap to that very small space and the Lions knew it. Look how early he jumps to guard space and help the ball into that really small part of the circle that they owned.

Our players were reading the tap itself, rather than anticipating that the moment the Big O got in the dominant position, the tap was always going there.

No one recognised what in hindsight was the obvious plan for the Lions, or else Wardlaw would have clamped on Neale and LDU would have closed down the first receiver. And it shows Xerri still has so much to learn on his tap work, he set up for that bounce in a position that made it hardest for him to tap to our dominant portion of the circle.

The clearest part about all of that is that our midfield aren't really working to a plan, yet the Lions were. Experience and coaching, coaching and experience.

---

The big question for me is what we do about the midfield mix. It needs a leader's brain in there.

 

[Nylex]

Nailed it Rick… Spot on about Bailey, get him back on the wing where he wins his position most weeks

 

[Rick18]

Not sure how you can do it to yourself mate. Trying to make sense of what is essentially a dumpster fire must be draining?

Whether anyone believes this or not may vary, but it actually helps me enjoy things more when I watch North.

Backstory is that as a kid/teenager watching games I used to get super angry whenever bad things happened. Then actually roughly when I started working at North I realised that anger came because I didn't really know why those bad things were happening. I found the more I learned (aka got taught by the coaches), the more I enjoyed* watching footy because I knew what everyone was trying to achieve.

(*Not that I didn't enjoy it before, but you know)

Thanks so much Rick. Really good clips and analysis. I particularly like the Neale/Wardlaw one.

On the Wardlaw/Neale one, I think a lot of credit goes to Brisbane here too, and as you say, their experience.

When you look at the centre circle pie chart, North actually owns more of the pie. We've got the whole broadcast half of the pie with our two players on the inside. The pie between Wardlaw and our right is neutral, and the pie between Neale and the Lions player is owned by them, probably less than a third of the circle.

McInerney was always aiming to tap to that very small space and the Lions knew it. Look how early he jumps to guard space and help the ball into that really small part of the circle that they owned.

Our players were reading the tap itself, rather than anticipating that the moment the Big O got in the dominant position, the tap was always going there.

No one recognised what in hindsight was the obvious plan for the Lions, or else Wardlaw would have clamped on Neale and LDU would have closed down the first receiver. And it shows Xerri still has so much to learn on his tap work, he set up for that bounce in a position that made it hardest for him to tap to our dominant portion of the circle.

The clearest part about all of that is that our midfield aren't really working to a plan, yet the Lions were. Experience and coaching, coaching and experience.

---

The big question for me is what we do about the midfield mix. It needs a leader's brain in there.

My hunch is they bump Simpkin's starting mid time up a touch next week given Friday was almost exclusively a start forward/come up job compared to previous weeks. Went from 9 CBA v Fremantle and 10 v Carlton to 1 v Brisbane, think the difference was noticeable too. I don't think Geelong's midfield is one that can physically overwhelm Simpkin, but then again maybe that's a reason they give the current mix a week to redeem themselves. Dunno.

 

[Passmore]

Not sure how you can do it to yourself mate. Trying to make sense of what is essentially a dumpster fire must be draining?

I'm sure he wouldn't do it if he didn't enjoy it. End of the day, it's just a game to treat how you want.

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[Luke72]

Yes of course, they're aren't many to chosen from the in the 2s to fix the 'big mid' gap. Like others, i fully support the club decision around Thomas, but there's no denying it's left a hole. The only possible options at the moment would be Greenwood as a defensive mid, and Shiels as the traffic-cop 'stop go' player (which he did really well in the first games last year, but that assumes he's fit enough, and that might be the issue)

I suspect the coaching staff have been reading this