Review Round 19, 2024 - Brisbane Lions vs. Sydney

[Grasshopper17]

Cmon; even if the ump failed to blow time back in, surely once the play starts the timekeeper just starts the clock; I mean as if play would ever go on without a clock rolling.

It looked to me as though the timekeepers thought the clock WAS running. Because when the ball went out of bounds next the clock started running again! For about 4 seconds. Then they realised their error and stopped the clock again.

By that stage they might as well have kept it running. Two wrongs make a right, right?

 

[Nathan Barley]

It looked to me as though the timekeepers thought the clock WAS running. Because when the ball went out of bounds next the clock started running again! For about 4 seconds. Then they realised their error and stopped the clock again.

By that stage they might as well have kept it running. Two wrongs make a right, right?

Wonder if this is serious enough to have an additional person monitoring the clock. 45 seconds could make a big difference in a final and if they notice a mistake they can adjust the time remaining to what it should be

 

[martinson]

I’ve never understood why they can’t just adjust the clock. My biggest bugbear is when an ump bounces the ball, it goes array, they recall it, and yet the clock still counts down. It happened at the start of the game on Sunday when ump #12 stuffed up his bounce and yet when he re-took it 3 seconds came off the clock. Therefore, why in instances like that is the clock just re-set or only start the clock when it touches a ruck man’s hand meaning the ball has been bounced effectively?

It seems a really peculiar part of the game that is just allowed to go on unchecked.

Maybe I'm expecting too much but in this day and age to have a couple of blokes with their hands on and off a clock seems a bit amateurish.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Grasshopper17 Good to see us finish a game strongly and run over the top for the second time in a month. I'm choosing to ignore that they were 2 rotations down, we count that performance!

Absolutely we do, it all counts towards the stats!

I think the injuries is all a bit of a beat up. West Coast had similar injury issues against us last week and that didn't stop them from looking considerably fresher against us.

Further to that, the Swans had an 8 day break coming into their game against us, coupled with minimal travel. So swings and roundabouts as far as I'm concerned. We started looking to be covering the ground better from about halfway through the third, similar to the Melbourne game.

So it's happened twice - this needs to become the norm rather than the exception or a pleasant surprise, and should not be solely dependant on being behind at 3 quarter time.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Totally agree......I'm not big on stats, I tend to go with what a player does when he has the ball and in Cal's case he saved the day right when it mattered.

I gave him a vote just for that reason.

Fages said in his presser that with the crowd roaring as Cal ran, he (Cal) thought he was about to be run down so he kicked the ball but missed.

He seemed to rush it as if he was about to get tackled.

I found this really interesting from Fages after my thoughts about our crowd and its impacts on our players a couple of weeks ago

But I have a bit of a theory as to why we've perhaps fluffed our lines a few too many times in front of goal the last couple of weeks. I wonder if our crowd noise is sometimes so overwhelming that our players get a bit overexcited and ahead of themselves, and it prevents them selecting the best option and executing accordingly. Takes me back to the 2019 Semi Final, which was so amazingly loud in our favour but I'm still not sure that was to our advantage! Similarly, whenever I go to Broncos games and the ground announcer starts a chant whenever we get inside the opposition 20, we invariably drop the ball

Yes, our Gabba only holds 30-odd thousand, but as Chris Scott has said, it's one of the loudest venues in the country when it's rocking and I wonder if that sometimes adversely affects our players. NFL teams of course make a point of asking their fans to be quiet when they have the ball - it's a stark contrast to here.

Compare that to the way our inside 50 conversion has been outstanding in our last two away games, against the Bulldogs and Port, where we had much less crowd support.

 

[Dalions]

I found this really interesting from Fages after my thoughts about our crowd and its impacts on our players a couple of weeks ago

Can certainly understand this in that situation on the weekend.
When those 2 Swans players fell over the crowd went psycho and I can understand his thought process that came out after the game.
Makes perfect sense.

 

[Grasshopper17]

As this year progresses what we are seeing from our team is some serious resilience and professionalism and a real fight to win when we still aren’t playing anywhere near our best football.

Walked away from the game happiest with the fact that we held Sydney, the most potent team of the year so far to under 80 points.
It was a fantastic effort defensively all bar the second quarter. Sydney noticeably changed their game after quarter time and it took us a fair length of time to adjust to their changed ball movement.
But once we adjusted we got the game back on our terms and Sydney struggled to penetrate.

If we can fix up some of our terrible decision making when moving the ball forward and stop the fumbles and be a bit more composed we are in a very good spot.

Hard to imagine McKenna getting back into the team over Brain, we look a much better defensive unit without him in the team.

I would be happy to drop Henry Smith and bring Reville into the 22, with McKenna as Sub for next week.
Also Happy for Logan Morris to stay in the 2’s for a freshen up as we will need him later in the year.

Harris not in the circle for the song is a little worrying.

Yes, defensively we looked as sound as we had for some time. Probably since the last time we played Gold Coast.

We won the inside 50 count by 8, but even when they went in they only managed shots at goal 47.9% of the time (23 from 48). And their expected score per shot was low also at 2.72, which is actually the lowest we've conceded for the year. This means even the shots we did allow Sydney to take were from difficult positions or under pressure. Obviously they made the most of their chances and that's why the game was so close despite the clear edge we had both with respect to territory and our ability to generate shots.

So all three areas of defence we give a tick to: restricting entries, limiting shots and making those shots difficult.

The flipside to that of course is our attack. We generated 31 shots from our 56 entries - this 55.4% looks pretty good, well above league average.

BUT they were astonishingly poor quality: only 2.58 points per shot, which was also OUR lowest for the year. We were only able to take 11 set shots for the game vs 20 in general play. Compare that to Sydney whose ratio of set shots to general shots was 11-12.

To me it looked like we intentionally slowed our ball movement in order to help our defensive setup. While it certainly worked in that sense, it also forced us to kick long to contests probably more than we would have liked, and given none of our key forwards were able to take a contested mark, this meant all our work had to be done at ground level. And the majority of set shots we did get were outside the corridor.

I'd like to think we could do more to move the ball quickly into an open forward line, without compromising our defensive structure in the event of a turnover. This may become a pressing issue as soon as this Saturday, given you would expect we would need to make the most of our chances when we attack, as well as Gold Coast's aerial prowess.

 

[Dalions]

To me it looked like we intentionally slowed our ball movement in order to help our defensive setup. While it certainly worked in that sense, it also forced us to kick long to contests probably more than we would have liked

I don’t mind this personally, it just shows that we are able to adapt our game to play under different circumstances.
More than likely something we will have to do when it comes to high pressure finals footy.
Sydney are currently the number one defensive team in the game so understandable for us to tread lightly rather than creating chaos footy as many teams attempt to do. I personally think that is what makes us such a good team, knowing when to go and when not to.

 

[dlanod]

To me it looked like we intentionally slowed our ball movement in order to help our defensive setup. While it certainly worked in that sense, it also forced us to kick long to contests probably more than we would have liked, and given none of our key forwards were able to take a contested mark, this meant all our work had to be done at ground level. And the majority of set shots we did get were outside the corridor.

You can see Sydney rebound in waves very successfully, even against us on the weekend, so it definitely seemed like a deliberate ploy.

 

[Tom14]

Yes, defensively we looked as sound as we had for some time. Probably since the last time we played Gold Coast.

We won the inside 50 count by 8, but even when they went in they only managed shots at goal 47.9% of the time (23 from 48). And their expected score per shot was low also at 2.72, which is actually the lowest we've conceded for the year. This means even the shots we did allow Sydney to take were from difficult positions or under pressure. Obviously they made the most of their chances and that's why the game was so close despite the clear edge we had both with respect to territory and our ability to generate shots.

So all three areas of defence we give a tick to: restricting entries, limiting shots and making those shots difficult.

The flipside to that of course is our attack. We generated 31 shots from our 56 entries - this 55.4% looks pretty good, well above league average.

BUT they were astonishingly poor quality: only 2.58 points per shot, which was also OUR lowest for the year. We were only able to take 11 set shots for the game vs 20 in general play. Compare that to Sydney whose ratio of set shots to general shots was 11-12.

To me it looked like we intentionally slowed our ball movement in order to help our defensive setup. While it certainly worked in that sense, it also forced us to kick long to contests probably more than we would have liked, and given none of our key forwards were able to take a contested mark, this meant all our work had to be done at ground level. And the majority of set shots we did get were outside the corridor.

I'd like to think we could do more to move the ball quickly into an open forward line, without compromising our defensive structure in the event of a turnover. This may become a pressing issue as soon as this Saturday, given you would expect we would need to make the most of our chances when we attack, as well as Gold Coast's aerial prowess.

Per Hoyney in his usual spot on sportsday yesterday - Swans ball movement is usually 25% down the line, 25% corridor. We forced them long down the line almost 50% of the time, and only let them change angles and go through the corridor 10% of the time.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Per Hoyney in his usual spot on sportsday yesterday - Swans ball movement is usually 25% down the line, 25% corridor. We forced them long down the line almost 50% of the time, and only let them change angles and go through the corridor 10% of the time.

Fagan the master tactician

 

[Dalions]

Per Hoyney in his usual spot on sportsday yesterday - Swans ball movement is usually 25% down the line, 25% corridor. We forced them long down the line almost 50% of the time, and only let them change angles and go through the corridor 10% of the time.

That 10% must have all been in the second quarter.

 

[Fluke]

Per Hoyney in his usual spot on sportsday yesterday - Swans ball movement is usually 25% down the line, 25% corridor. We forced them long down the line almost 50% of the time, and only let them change angles and go through the corridor 10% of the time.

Do you remember what the other 50% of their movement is?

 

[Sproj]

Do you remember what the other 50% of their movement is?

Bowel?

 

[Tom14]

Do you remember what the other 50% of their movement is?

No clue - he didn't talk about it.