Review Round 20, 2023 - Gold Coast vs. Brisbane Lions

[AFLQLD]

Very unlike the AFL regarding Miller. One of their golden children does something very no-go against a player that they dislike because he causes problems and doesn’t match the nice image they would like. (Not defending some of his past actions by the way.)

Quite surprised. There might have turned out to be some pretty good evidence and what could be considered sexual harassment wouldn’t look good on top of the ignoring concussion protocols saga.

Beating Barrett to the punch:
IF the AFL has too many scandals and dramas in a week to sweep them all under the rug…THEN they need to either deal with them properly or buy a bigger rug.

 

[martinson]

Miller's a complete grub. I wish he played for us.

I remember watching the Zorko/Miller game where Zorks refused to shake hands with a couple of hardnuts from the Fitzroy era and one of them said we should do whatever we can to get hold of that guy. Because he had the cohunas to take on the only guy in our team who was likely to do to them what he was doing to us.

A bit surprised he got caught in full view doing his thing. 1 match is a joke all things considered. If he did it and admits it how is 1 match adequate when you get a game or 2 for a legit tackle where no harm is intended.

But he's a great player to have on your team.

 

[PertRoosOsborne]

Miller is the real victim in all of this

 

[Pride of lions]

Seems like the AFL has really treated this "unbecoming" incident with far less diligence than what would seem appropriate. Zorko's on field communication to the umpires should have been the trigger to at least have the MRO report something about the incident. The one-match suspension seems grossly inadequate and smacks of a "negotiated" outcome that included a Touk Miller apology. I would love to know what the Club's internal take on it has been.

Reading the AFL statement about the suspension is comical. The MRO apparently only decided to relook at the vision after Zorko spoke out about it, in other words when they were embarrassed in the media. After relooking at the vision they suddenly saw it differently and decided it was worth one week,which is an absolute joke incidentally.

 

[martinson]

Miller is the real victim in all of this

He'll need counselling for what he did.

I hope the club wraps their arms around him and makes sure he's ok.

It must be traumatic to have this vision put up in the media.

Shame on them.

 

[Grasshopper17]

felt like nearly all gold coasts shots were high % ones whereas ours were closer to 50/50 ones

not trying to excuse poor kicking but we conceded marks / scoring shots from far more dangerous spots on the ground than the gold coast defenders did

Expected score 98-73. So yes, even tho we were inaccurate compared to expectations, so were Gold Coast. Despite kicking 15-6 they also missed a lot of shots completely that were quite gettable.

 

[bato]

Miller's a complete grub. I wish he played for us.

I remember watching the Zorko/Miller game where Zorks refused to shake hands with a couple of hardnuts from the Fitzroy era and one of them said we should do whatever we can to get hold of that guy. Because he had the cohunas to take on the only guy in our team who was likely to do to them what he was doing to us.

A bit surprised he got caught in full view doing his thing. 1 match is a joke all things considered. If he did it and admits it how is 1 match adequate when you get a game or 2 for a legit tackle where no harm is intended.

But he's a great player to have on your team.

I don’t think they’ve admitted it at all. Probably would’ve been more than a week if he did?

 

[Gibbo_88]

Not really, just don’t understand why the Suns always get a run on a Lions podcast and I get we played them but for Fish to bang on about them as long as he did in addition to most weeks I find odd. I couldn’t care less about them and if I wanted content about other teams I’d listen to a general afl podcast.

They generally talk about the opposition, this just happens to be a team that one of them knows quite well and sharing what King said after the match was good to hear.

The more I see of your posts the more I realise this must actually be trolling?
If not, don't listen to their podcast if it's such an issue for you. Impossible to please McIvor...

 

[Grasshopper17]

Collingwood, Richmond, Geelong, Melbourne, St Kilda, Carlton etc we clearly go in with a plan and comprehensively win (or should have won in the case of the Melbourne MCG game).

I said it a few weeks ago, but I have a feeling we’re focussing in on the big games against “good” teams and assuming the “easier” games will take care of themselves.

Which is all well and good except they’re not taking care of themselves. We’ve won all of our hard games this year so far, if we’d won even half of the “easy” games we should have we’d be on top. It’s the only thing that’s giving me hope for finals still, in that there won’t be any “easy” teams to get complacent against. I’ll reserve judgement until the Collingwood rd 23 game though

This is the difference between hunting and being the hunted which I have addressed on more than one occasion.

 

[Nathan Barley]

This is the difference between hunting and being the hunted which I have addressed on more than one occasion.

I think it contributes to the group think that our coaches aren't great strategically. We don't have to be to beat the bottom teams but the bottom teams do. Most weeks they can't execute but when they do their coaches look like geniuses and the coaches of the better team look like dummies

 

[Grasshopper17]

Some damning footage on The First Crack pointing out our inability to run on transition, Neale and McCarthy were highlighted, it didn't look like a lack of effort to me, they just did not have the pace or endurance to run long and hard, they were physically spent .... Touk Miller torched Lachie on transition.

Yep, glad you highlighted this.

Saturday's match was a glowing tribute to the raft of apologists within the club, on social media and on this forum who have spent much of the season spouting rubbish like "oh, the game was over so we put the cue in the rack in the last quarter" and "oh well, they're a good team so they were always gonna come at us".

By that very logic, we evidently are not a good team, because there was no "coming" at the Suns in the last quarter on Saturday. In fact it was quite the opposite... They ran all over the top of us.

Yes it is most likely true that the lack of a midfield rotation didn't help, which I addressed in the preview thread. But our growing body of work for season 2023 demonstrates pretty clearly that we are simply not fit enough to run out 4 quarters of footy. And it is just so stark when you sit up high behind the goals, and see it happen live in front of you, as I have for 19 games this season.

I like the 3 tall forward line setup from a structural point of view. But our players no longer have the fitness to make it work. This is not something that can be resolved between now and 30 September so will have to be top of the agenda from the first day of preseason, if not before.

Until then, we should be playing with 2 tall forwards and playing the extra small to allow us to cover the ground better.

 

[Grasshopper17]

I come in peace but wondering how you guys actually feel about the miller nut grab. It seems to me it was a tackle that went wrong not a premeditated squirrel grip. If it was under a pack and he's deliberately gone for that region I'd completely understand but watching the vision it seems like he's just grabbed onto whatever he could in the tackle. If you go for a mark and knee someone in the head it is deemed as a football act and I see this as similar. Yeah I might be biased just don't see the big deal.

I don't think you see too many tackles where one arm goes to a completely different part of the body than the other arm does.

 

[briztoon]

Yep, glad you highlighted this.

Saturday's match was a glowing tribute to the raft of apologists within the club, on social media and on this forum who have spent much of the season spouting rubbish like "oh, the game was over so we put the cue in the rack in the last quarter" and "oh well, they're a good team so they were always gonna come at us".

By that very logic, we evidently are not a good team, because there was no "coming" at the Suns in the last quarter on Saturday. In fact it was quite the opposite... They ran all over the top of us.

Yes it is most likely true that the lack of a midfield rotation didn't help, which I addressed in the preview thread. But our growing body of work for season 2023 demonstrates pretty clearly that we are simply not fit enough to run out 4 quarters of footy. And it is just so stark when you sit up high behind the goals, and see it happen live in front of you, as I have for 19 games this season.

I like the 3 tall forward line setup from a structural point of view. But our players no longer have the fitness to make it work. This is not something that can be resolved between now and 30 September so will have to be top of the agenda from the first day of preseason, if not before.

Until then, we should be playing with 2 tall forwards and playing the extra small to allow us to cover the ground better.

Careful now, you might get labeled as one of the negative nellies on here (gees I hope you don't, because you provide extensive data to back up your views), and there's a few posters who don't like others posting "I told you so" type posts.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Just imagine if Zorko had've done that.

SM and the footy media would've lit up . Including quite a few on this forum.

Usually those sort of actions are hard to get on film , it's mostly in the middle of a pack or Roger Merritt style behind play.

This is as clear as a bell with no mitigating circumstances. I'm dumbfounded he didn't get cited and sent straight to the Tribunal. Just no rational explanation for that

Especially given Zorko asked the umpire to put it in his match report.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Careful now, you might get labeled as one of the negative nellies on here (gees I hope you don't, because you provide extensive data to back up your views), and there's a few posters who don't like others posting "I told you so" type posts.

This is fair. Maybe my comments were a little strong. I still love you all, I'd still have a beer with you all, and I'm very aware that I spout more than my fair share of rubbish from time to time

 

[bato]

I like the 3 tall forward line setup from a structural point of view. But our players no longer have the fitness to make it work. This is not something that can be resolved between now and 30 September so will have to be top of the agenda from the first day of preseason, if not before.

It's attitude not fitness. Seem to be perfectly fine/full of run when things are going our way.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Well I’ll be!
They actually did it!

I must admit, I normally don't give a stuff what happens to opposition players at the tribunal after a game against us. The game is done, it doesn't affect us any more, end of story. I even wanted Patrick Cripps to get off after his hit on Ah Chee last year, cos I wanted Carlton to beat Melbourne the next week (that went well ).

But this was too far. Lucky to only be 1 week. Appalling behaviour.

 

[briztoon]

This is fair. Maybe my comments were a little strong. I still love you all, I'd still have a beer with you all, and I'm very aware that I spout more than my fair share of rubbish from time to time

No keep going. I agree with the majority of your posts. I've just reached the jaded stage of BigFooty.

 

[p4p1]

Grasshopper does some good analysis IMO. Even if you don’t agree with his opinions or consider them ‘negative’, he doesn’t come in a pop off shots against certain players that he doesn’t like. His criticism is usually backed up by facts, the validity of stats can be argued until the cows come home of course. But I have also seen him change his opinion when presented with new information, which is something many fans will not do unfortunately.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Some great points here. However with respect to Andrews,he is one of our captains who has played 150 games plus ,so surely he could see what was happening with King and made some adjustments on field. Simply playing off him and leaving it up to other defenders was just totally incomprehensible. King was just gifted goals by Andrews lack of leadership. No one seems to want to take any responsibility when we are under pressure and it is a major weakness imo.

What's everyone's thoughts on what we should have done here? I've been wrestling with this for a few days and I think it's trickier than it seems. David King nailed it on AFL 360 last night - essentially it's a battle of wills.

We (as in the club) wanted Payne to play on King and Andrews to play on Casboult. These looked like being good matchups for us given the success Payne had on Max against St Kilda and the troubles both Kings have given Andrews in the past.

The key difference between St Kilda and Gold Coast was that St Kilda didn't really have anyone else. Membrey was out, so King really had to play as their number one tall forward, closer to goal, suiting our plans for both Payne and Andrews.

But Casboult is a much more suitable close-to-goal player, given King's pace.

So King decides to go and play on Andrews. But Andrews is already on Casboult. So now Andrews is marking two players. This is a tricky position for a defender because even if you win the contest, all you have is the ball or a stoppage. But if you lose the contest, which is more likely, it's almost a certain goal.

Do we send Payne further up field to try and be the intercept marking player? This is something we probably need to add to his skillset, but that might take another preseason or two.

This might not solve the Andrews problem, unless Payne starts picking them off with ridiculous regularity and demands someone goes to man him up (this is the exact reason King went to Andrews in the first place).

But this is a high risk policy. It relies on pressure on their midfield, which we didn't have. Otherwise they simply bypass Payne and we still have the 2 on 1 problem. So we relent. Andrews says "fine, I'll play on King, but still try to zone off". Only it turned out to be anything but fine.

So do we simply say "ok, we'll do away with playing our zoning intercept defender, and simply play one on one in defence"? This is what Gold Coast want, and it relies on our midfield to drop back and fill up the leading lanes, or to exert more pressure around the ball. And on Saturday we had neither, for reasons already discussed.

I'm interested to know what others would do in this situation. 3KZ is Football, you're a coach. What would you do in this situation?

Bear in mind we need to be ready to expect the same thing again on Sunday. Maybe Amiss goes to Andrews. Maybe Fogarty goes to him when we play Adelaide. Mihochek. The other King. Some big challenges ahead potentially.

 

[Grasshopper17]

It's attitude not fitness. Seem to be perfectly fine/full of run when things are going our way.

When things are going our way, you say?

Oh, so you mean like the time we led the Giants by 41 points only to concede 6 of the last 8 goals?

Or maybe you mean like the time we led Carlton by 40 points at 3 quarter time, having conceded just one goal in two quarters, yet Carlton were still a slugger's chance of winning with 5 minutes to go?

Perhaps you mean like the time we had Melbourne absolutely shot to ribbons, having kicked 13 of the last 18 goals to the midway point of the third quarter.

Nah, you must mean like the time we led Geelong by 37 points, just the other day, having conceded just one goal to time on of the third quarter.

You're quite right. I relent.

 

[3KZ is Football]

Great post. I think calling me a coach is a bit of a stretch. My coaching experience extends to coaching the Second 22 at a fairly renowned Melbourne Private School with a long history as a feeder school for the VFL / AFL and my sons Under 11’s. Rather than COACH, I prefer the title, ‘Student of the Game’.

To your question though, I always encouraged defenders to pick up the player we want them to be on. Forwards don’t get to choose their defender. The fact that Andrews seemed at sixes and sevens last weekend was testament to a lack of footy IQ, confidence and poor coaching. Simply put, if Andrews wants to play on Casboult, he goes to him and stands on his toes. Payne does the same with King. Simple. The problem last weekend was that Andrews was refusing to man anyone up and was playing wide of everyone, hoping to pick up intercept marks and that meant that the Suns had a day out at his expense. Call me old fashioned, but in my world, defenders pick up forwards.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Great post. I think calling me a coach is a bit of a stretch. My coaching experience extends to coaching the Second 22 at a fairly renowned Melbourne Private School and my sons Under 11’s. Rather than coach, I prefer the title, ‘student of the game’.

To your question though, I always encouraged defenders to pick up the player we want them to be on. Forwards don’t get to choose their defender. The fact that Andrews seemed at sixes and sevens last weekend was testament to a lack of confidence and poor coaching. Simply put, if Andrews wants to play on Casboult, he goes to him and stands on his toes. Payne does the same with King. Simple. The problem last weekend was that Andrews was refusing to man anyone up and was playing wide of everyone, hoping to pick up intercept marks and that meant that the Suns had a day out at his expense. Call me old fashioned, but in my world, defenders pick up forwards.

Yes. I'm similarly old school. But King went to Andrews. This is new school. Therein lies the problem. It means Andrews is suddenly marking two players - Casboult, the guy he wants to be playing on, and King, the guy who wants to play on Andrews.

Should we just dig our heels in and say "righto, if that's how you want it, fine, we'll send Payne to King anyway"? And suddenly you have this rather unsightly grouping of 2 on 2 making their way around the Gold Coast forward line. On one hand it might not help their structure ahead of the ball if they are forced to kick long. But on the other hand, it would free up space for their other forwards.

It also takes away our zoning intercept defender. I'd point out that having one of those is now a source of attack for many teams - all of the top 4 at least. Removing that aspect of our game also removes one source of "getting the ball". Little wonder then that our "scores from turnover" stat was through the floor on Saturday, according to Daniel Hoyne from Champion Data.

I appreciate I've still offered no solutions here

Footy was simpler back in the glory days wasn't it!

 

[3KZ is Football]

Yes. I'm similarly old school. But King went to Andrews. This is new school. Therein lies the problem. It means Andrews is suddenly marking two players - Casboult, the guy he wants to be playing on, and King, the guy who wants to play on Andrews.

Should we just dig our heels in and say "righto, if that's how you want it, fine, we'll send Payne to King anyway"? And suddenly you have this rather unsightly grouping of 2 on 2 making their way around the Gold Coast forward line. On one hand it might not help their structure ahead of the ball if they are forced to kick long. But on the other hand, it would free up space for their other forwards.

I'd also point out that having a zoning intercept defender is now the source of attack for many teams - all of the top 4 at least. Removing that aspect of our game also removes one source of "getting the ball". Little wonder then that our "scores from turnover" stat was through the floor on Saturday, according to Daniel Hoyne from Champion Data.

I appreciate I've still offered no solutions here

Footy was simpler back in the glory days wasn't it!

Again, great post. Andrew’s needed to TOP DOG the situation, and he didn’t. Disappointing given he is a Co-Captain.

 

[p4p1]

When things are going our way, you say?

Oh, so you mean like the time we led the Giants by 41 points only to concede 6 of the last 8 goals?

Or maybe you mean like the time we led Carlton by 40 points at 3 quarter time, having conceded just one goal in two quarters, yet Carlton were still a slugger's chance of winning with 5 minutes to go?

Perhaps you mean like the time we had Melbourne absolutely shot to ribbons, having kicked 13 of the last 18 goals to the midway point of the third quarter.

Nah, you must mean like the time we led Geelong by 37 points, just the other day, having conceded just one goal to time on of the third quarter.

You're quite right. I relent.

I think when he says going our way he means running forward when you might get on the end of the chain for a goal.