Review Round 19, 2023 - Brisbane Lions vs. Geelong

[Sproj]

We’re building Nicely. Don’t want to play your best yet but be heading toward it and we are certainly doing that.

 

[dlanod]

It was interesting to listen to Jed Adcock in a recent interview talk about not just defending to stop the other team from scoring, but also focusing on positioning to help win the ball back.

The amount of times our guys have been able to rebound directly off Andrews' spoils in recent weeks has been a feature, and given its regularity I find it hard to put it down to random chance.

I think this has been a huge benefit of swapping Davis and Adcock... We're seeing both our forwards defend better and our backs attack better.

There are a few guys that do this - Taylor is good at targeting his spoils at well, Ben Brown is very good at "not taking a mark" but basically palming the ball to his feet for a Melbourne player to run on to. It's really underrated, but it really only works for those gifted with abnormal size/reach.

 

[KissKiss]

There are a few guys that do this - Taylor is good at targeting his spoils at well, Ben Brown is very good at "not taking a mark" but basically palming the ball to his feet for a Melbourne player to run on to. It's really underrated, but it really only works for those gifted with abnormal size/reach.

I know Melbourne specifically train Brown and I think Pickett on palming it down for the front and centre. Controlling how the ball ends up going to ground is definitely a poorly understood and underrated skill

 

[Nathan Barley]

I know Melbourne specifically train Brown and I think Pickett on palming it down for the front and centre. Controlling how the ball ends up going to ground is definitely a poorly understood and underrated skill

Something Hipwood and McStay try to do

 

[M Malice]

The Brisbane Lions have opted to give midfielder-forward Zac Bailey a second week on the sidelines to assist in his return from an injured calf sustained at training last week.

Although Bailey won’t line up in Saturday’s QClash with the Gold Coast SUNS, the 23-year-old was back running at training on Tuesday and took part in a skills session.

The Lions will assess Bailey further in the hope of being available for selection next week.

Fellow Lion James Madden will undergo shoulder surgery on Wednesday, putting an end to his 2023 campaign.

The Irish defender, who signed a one-year contract extension last week, made the decision to have the procedure now to be fully fit for the 2024 season.

INJURY LIST

Carter Michael - Quad - TBC

Noah Answerth - Facial Fracture – 3 weeks

James Madden - Shoulder – season

Will Ashcroft - Knee - season

Zac Bailey - Calf - 1 week
_________________________________
Makes sense to give Bailey an extra week off just to be sure, pity about Madden.

 

[Gibbo_88]

Agree with all of this. The way we are playing right now is absolutely premiership football. The way we cut off basically every attempt Geelong made to come back into the corridor was quite spectacular, on par with our ball movement against Melbourne the week prior.

I fear however it will all count for nothing given the growing issues with our last quarters. Yes, we all want to be able to sweep it under the carpet with cliches like "they're a good team, they were always going to come at us" or "we knew the game was over and we just put the cue in the rack".

But the fact is that our last quarters have been an issue all season, even last season as well, and unfortunately there appears to be a pretty strong correlation between teams who finish games strongly and teams who finish seasons strongly.

It'll be intolerable having to watch arguably the most talented playing group in the competition, combined with the best game plan in the comp, get brought undone by a lack of fitness. But I have an awful feeling that is what we're going to see.

This is my only concern I have now with the way we're playing. We literally tick every other box. No, it's not perfect all the time, but in a high intensity game played by human beings we can't ask for much more. It's infuriating that we're absolutely nailing all this really quite complicated stuff like game plans and real emotional buy-in from the whole playing group, yet the most straightforward ability to run out games doesn't seem to be there any more.

Maybe things like physical fitness and scenario training are things we sacrificed during preseason when we went to town on our defensive structure? Only so many hours in a day I suppose.

I don't have concerns about our fitness, it looks like a bit of composure/drop in concentration that means we aren't finishing games off as well as we could. Late game accuracy is a theme I've found looking back over our games a bit closer. This season, we've had more games (compared to Port and Collingwood) where statistically we are very unlikely to lose a game based on the score at 3 quarter time or early in the 4th. Anything less than 5 goals isn't enough as we've found out recently.

Is it better to have majority or half of your wins like Port and the Pies where the game is close in the 4th quarter and then they win or like us where we're pretty close to having the game done by 3/4 time?

There's also games that our scoring accuracy has reduced our winning margin or potentially cost us the game.. (A few of these are rushed behinds but they count as wasted opportunities)
GWS game we scored 2 goals 7 behinds to 3 goals 2 behinds in the 4th quarter.
Sydney game - we scored 3 goals 6 behinds to 4 goals 2 behinds in the 4th.
West Coast - we scored 3 goals 6 behinds to 2 goals 2 behinds
Hawks 4th quarter -we scored 1 goal 4 behinds to 4 goals 1 behind
9 goals 23 to 13 goals 7 for these games.

There's also games such as the Carlton game we had a 41 point lead at 3/4 time. They outscored us 5 goals 3 to 3 goals 1 in the last 1/4 which adds to our 4th quarters looking bad but the game was clearly over.

Having a look back over our season, the Adelaide game really stings. Adelaide we kicked 10 goals 18 behinds to their 14 goals 11 behinds. Almost 20 more inside 50's, yet only 3 more scoring shots and their inside 50 efficiency was 55% to our 40%. We kicked 10 goals 18 behinds, only Charlie kicked accurately, everyone else was 50/50 or worse.

We've only had two pathetic performances where the Hawks and Port smashed us are the only ones that stick out, Port has also now had 2 performances of the same level (Carlton and Pies). The difference between us and the Pies ATM is they have turned up and been competitive in their losses.

 

[p4p1]

To be fair, I think that's 3 ACL's across the AFL just this week. Lachie Weller redoing his as well as Nick Murray at Adelaide.

They seem to be becoming more and more common. I wonder if this is simply due to the increasing speed and physical nature of the game? It seems so odd that so many of these injuries are happening as a result of seemingly innocuous acts, just like Rayner and Hipwood's were.

I'm not sure that Footy is more physical than it was previously. For me the most physical footy was, outside of behind play hits etc was the 90s to mid 2000s. The speed though is so much quicker, and requires so much more high speed running, resulting in far more fatigue from what I see. Fatigue can often be a big contributer to injuries. A fresh Ashcroft maybe reacts differently to the situation or his body moves slightly differently and better, or his other legs aren't fatigued, so the same movement has more support from the surrounding muscles rather than all the pressure being put on the joint.

 

[Section 5]

Not sure what to make of our last quarters.
We have won 8 last quarters for 8 wins. Those wins against Pies, North, Dockers, Bombers, Suns, Saints, Tigers & Eagles.

Of the 10 last quarters lost, we have won 5 games. Wins against Demons, Giants, Blues, Swans & Cats. All reasonable opponents.
The other 5 losses were against Power, Dogs, Crows, Hawks, Demons. All away games.

The only take away i see is losing the last quarter at home did not change the result as we are undefeated at The Gabba.
However, if we lose the last quarter playing away, to date we have lost those games.
Hopefully these are correct as i did them manually.

Game Result	Margin	Opponent	Home/Away	Q4 Result	Margin
Loss	54	Power	Away	Loss	22
Win	11	Demons	Home	Loss	27
Loss	14	Dogs	Away	Loss	6
Win	33	Pies	Home	Win	3
Win	75	North	Away	Win	21
Win	21	Giants	Away	Loss	1
Win	48	Dockers	Home	Win	14
Win	26	Blues	Away	Loss	14
Win	42	Bombers	Home	Win	25
Win	43	Suns	Home	Win	32
Loss	17	Crows	Away	Loss	2
Loss	25	Hawks	Away	Loss	15
Win	16	Swans	Home	Loss	3
Win	28	Saints	Away	Win	1
Win	81	Tigers	Home	Win	9
Win	81	Eagles	Home	Win	10
Loss	1	Demons	Away	Loss	22
Win	11	Cats	Home	Loss	14
			9 Home 9 Away	8 Wins 10 Losses