Autopsy Round 2, 2023: Positives and Negatives vs GWS

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All my thoughts have been captured by others, but one thing that stood out to me yesterday was the number of players we now have who are able to put distance between themselves and an opponent from a standing start and/or sidestep people in traffic. Adding Hunt, Long and Ginbey to the side, as well as getting JJ settled in a role, makes us so much more dynamic and means we have players who can break lines in every third of the ground. Touch wood, we’ll get even more explosive if Yeo can get himself fit and Hewett and Burgiel come on over the year.
 

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You mean when he missed an easy shot on goal? Would have looked foolish wouldn’t it?

I think the fact he'd kicked 3 goals I the quarter would've covered me fine.
 
Couple of specific things I really loved
-Waterman leads straight at the ball carrier always, makes him such a dangerous prospect when we move the ball quickly
  • Ryan benefits enormously from the chaos of quick movement because he's the smartest and most skilful forward out there almost always. His vision when there's space to be found is out of this world
  • The clear directive to forward handball and move quick couldn't be missed by even the most obstinate observers
 
Couple of specific things I really loved
-Waterman leads straight at the ball carrier always, makes him such a dangerous prospect when we move the ball quickly
  • Ryan benefits enormously from the chaos of quick movement because he's the smartest and most skilful forward out there almost always. His vision when there's space to be found is out of this world
  • The clear directive to forward handball and move quick couldn't be missed by even the most obstinate observers

We've missed Jetta down back so much because of this skill too.
 
Couple of specific things I really loved
-Waterman leads straight at the ball carrier always, makes him such a dangerous prospect when we move the ball quickly
  • Ryan benefits enormously from the chaos of quick movement because he's the smartest and most skilful forward out there almost always. His vision when there's space to be found is out of this world
  • The clear directive to forward handball and move quick couldn't be missed by even the most obstinate observers
Watching from home EVRY TIME Ryan gets to the HF flank, and slows up, im wishing i could see a view of the i50, but i just know its about to go to some bloke in the middle of 4 Oppo players surrounding them quick enough that he can almost mark it uncontested. Or like yesterday, to the perfect leading space, demanding a forward get there. Even when i think he almost fell over kicking it.
 
Watching from home EVRY TIME Ryan gets to the HF flank, and slows up, im wishing i could see a view of the i50, but i just know its about to go to some bloke in the middle of 4 Oppo players surrounding them quick enough that he can almost mark it uncontested. Or like yesterday, to the perfect leading space, demanding a forward get there. Even when i think he almost fell over kicking it.
If you're ever able to get to a game it's great to watch him in space. Always thinking a step ahead.
 
Not sure what thread it was in, but I was backing Waterman (as I always do, I reckon we’re such a better team when he plays) and copped a bit from people bagging him and saying he’ll never make it. Hopefully yesterdays game showed them that he’s a solid player, and given a sustained run in the 22, he’ll produce more good than bad. Seems to be well liked within the team, and always puts in good effort. Like I said, he seems like he’s always good for a few goals a game in a short period of time, did it again on the weekend. Had a great quarter and continued to work all day. Could’ve kicked 6 easily. His ruck work was ok too, he’s never going to win heaps of taps but we seemed to do better out of the middle when he was in there compared to Williams, who just jumps at his opponent and hardly ever gets his hands on the ball.
 
That's right they got slammed for being the Rest Coasting Eagles. Might've hit home?
But whether that was the cause of tweaks in game plan or not, the coach was responsible for that change.
It seems he's damned if he doesn't change and damned if he does?

Hmmm… Try not to be that guy. Nobody’s damning Simmo for changing the game plan (I think “tweaking” it would be a hell of in understatement). As far as I can tell, almost every Eagles supporter has been aching for him to change it for a couple of seasons at least. Surely we’re allowed to say: “What took you so long?” But yes, better late than never. And as you say later in your post, the more direct, free flowing style will pay immediate dividends through excitement and positivity among the players. And the slow, halting, cautious style that we’ve played for so long must have been difficult to drill into players’ heads (especially those who normally play with dash and flair). Are we now going to move to the top of the ladder? No. Of course not. I foresee some absolute beltings ahead (look at our opponents for the half dozen games after the Derby), but at least we will be able to have a red hot go…


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Hmmm… Try not to be that guy. Nobody’s damning Simmo for changing the game plan (I think “tweaking” it would be a hell of in understatement). As far as I can tell, almost every Eagles supporter has been aching for him to change it for a couple of seasons at least. Surely we’re allowed to say: “What took you so long?” But yes, better late than never. And as you say later in your post, the more direct, free flowing style will pay immediate dividends through excitement and positivity among the players. And the slow, halting, cautious style that we’ve played for so long must have been difficult to drill into players’ heads (especially those who normally play with dash and flair). Are we now going to move to the top of the ladder? No. Of course not. I foresee some absolute beltings ahead (look at our opponents for the half dozen games after the Derby), but at least we will be able to have a red hot go…


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Do you think that Simmo came into the season with an approach, it didn't work vs North, Garry Lyon said some stuff on TV and Simmo's entirely redesigned the system in the week that followed?

Or is it more likely that the system we saw in Q1 vs North, and for all the best parts of yesterday, is what they've been working on regardless of what Garry Lyon thinks?
 

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Gov did that in round 1 too (both games being remarkably similar), yet he seemed to somehow get plaudits last week.

Not a great start for our key backs. I'm hoping for Bazzo to ramp up quickly to play more of a defensive role.
I think he may have misjudged twice but on the flip side stopped many entries. Jeessuus the man is not a robot
 
Hmmm… Try not to be that guy. Nobody’s damning Simmo for changing the game plan (I think “tweaking” it would be a hell of in understatement). As far as I can tell, almost every Eagles supporter has been aching for him to change it for a couple of seasons at least. Surely we’re allowed to say: “What took you so long?” But yes, better late than never. And as you say later in your post, the more direct, free flowing style will pay immediate dividends through excitement and positivity among the players. And the slow, halting, cautious style that we’ve played for so long must have been difficult to drill into players’ heads (especially those who normally play with dash and flair). Are we now going to move to the top of the ladder? No. Of course not. I foresee some absolute beltings ahead (look at our opponents for the half dozen games after the Derby), but at least we will be able to have a red hot go…


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A red hot go is good. I'm not here telling people what they can and cant say. Just saying we wanted changes and we got changes, we wanted visible evidence of progress and we got it. Can't we find a little joy in that?
But coach is criticised for not doing it soon enough? How soon is now?
There were signs in the 1st game, but it was an away game, against the little general and arguably a much improved Roos. Not being an apologist, but there were definitely signs of life in the 1st game.
And for the first time, yesterday, in good lengths of play we got to see what the plan looks like when it works.
I'm good with that. Do I expect more, of course...but now at least I can see a future.
 
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Was a good fun game to watch but lets not sign up Simmo for extended years just yet. We beat a bottom four team at home who were coming off a slog in 37 degrees with 3 of their top 5 players out. So we should have outworked them.

That said it was particularly nice to see a couple of lesser lights like JJ and Waterman have career best games and two of the youngsters have shown they belong for the second week in a row (Ginbey and Long). Building depth like that goes a long way to reversing the trend of us always having the worst 5 or so players on the park every week.

The main positive is a few blokes got their first big W (and got to hear a big crowd getting in behind them) and hopefully the buzz of that rolls into the Derby.
 
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Do you think that Simmo came into the season with an approach, it didn't work vs North, Garry Lyon said some stuff on TV and Simmo's entirely redesigned the system in the week that followed?

Or is it more likely that the system we saw in Q1 vs North, and for all the best parts of yesterday, is what they've been working on regardless of what Garry Lyon thinks?

And just one more to this....the bit that Simmo has been repeating in recent pressers is that we first need to win the football, which we didn't do in the past 2 games.
 
The clear directive to forward handball and move quick couldn't be missed by even the most obstinate observers
It's like they've worked out a 15m handball gains the same distance as a 25m kick after you've backed up 10m from the mark and takes 20s less to get there.

Astonishing. Almost as though a team won the flag over 15 years ago doing a similar thing.
 
Do you think that Simmo came into the season with an approach, it didn't work vs North, Garry Lyon said some stuff on TV and Simmo's entirely redesigned the system in the week that followed?

Or is it more likely that the system we saw in Q1 vs North, and for all the best parts of yesterday, is what they've been working on regardless of what Garry Lyon thinks?

Interestingly drafted questions, but I don’t think it’s necessarily one thing or the other. I’m not privy to the club’s inner workings, but I suspect what happened was actually closer to the former than the latter. I think Simmo had probably wanted us to gradually and cautiously transition to the more free flowing system (because people and organisations that are cautious and risk averse in one principal area of their life or business practices are usually cautious and risk averse in all other areas), but that his hand was forced by the enormous pressure brought about by the intense criticism heaped on the club by Lyon and many others. Put another way, I suspect (but cannot know) that the club radically accelerated the change process and – sort of – threw caution to the wind for Game #2. In spite of what you suggest in your second sentence, none of the quarters in Game #1 bore any real resemblance to the first half of yesterday. Nor did Simmo’s body language. Make no mistake: this was a major departure from established doctrine. If it wasn’t, all Simmo had to say – at any stage – in Game #1 was: “Kick or otherwise move the ball backwards and I’ll drag you” and we would have observed something like the endeavour we saw in Game #2 (during which we even soccered the ball forward whenever we could, for crying out loud!)

Over to you…


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Interestingly drafted questions, but I don’t think it’s necessarily one thing or the other. I’m not privy to the club’s inner workings, but I suspect what happened was actually closer to the former than the latter. I think Simmo had probably wanted us to gradually and cautiously transition to the more free flowing system (because people and organisations that are cautious and risk averse in one principal area of their life or business practices are usually cautious and risk averse in all other areas), but that his hand was forced by the enormous pressure brought about by the intense criticism heaped on the club by Lyon and many others. Put another way, I suspect (but cannot know) that the club radically accelerated the change process and – sort of – threw caution to the wind for Game #2. In spite of what you suggest in your second sentence, none of the quarters in Game #1 bore any real resemblance to the first half of yesterday. Nor did Simmo’s body language. Make no mistake: this was a major departure from established doctrine. If it wasn’t, all Simmo had to say – at any stage – in Game #1 was: “Kick or otherwise move the ball backwards and I’ll drag you” and we would have observed something like the endeavour we saw in Game #2 (during which we even soccered the ball forward whenever we could, for crying out loud!)

Over to you…


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Yeah that’s a big nah from me too.

The intent to go corridor and play on quickly was evident from the start of the North game and then we got punched in the mouth in Q2 and had to get back under any semblance of control again. Could barely control the footy for long stretches and finally got our hands back on the wheel in the second half.

You only need to see Jack Darling’s game in Round 1 to see how much they wanted to go corridor when we actually got our hands on the footy. Or the Oscar Allen first quarter goal born from Duggan running from behind for three possessions in the same chain. It’s all in Alesana’s clips in that review thread if you want to see.

The best this week looked much better than the best of the North game but the thought that they changed the season’s plan after SEN got some shots in is laughable. The first quarter of this game looked very similar to the first quarter of the North game. The second quarters were worlds apart and the best we’ve seen West Coast play in years. The structure wasn’t impacted by Garry Lyon.
 

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