Review Round 3, 2024 - Brisbane Lions vs. Collingwood

[Nathan Barley]

I'm a bit with Lionheart182 on this. I thought Thursday's game was as close as we've had to a 4 quarter effort for the season. Don't get me wrong, the performance was terrible, but the effort I thought was much better and more consistent quarter to quarter.

I mean, Joe Daniher laid a tackle. We smothered a set shot at goal late in the last quarter with the game basically gone. These are little things worth celebrating because right now they are about all we can hang our hat on.

Unfortunately on Thursday night we saw a side almost completely devoid of confidence, both in themselves and their team mates. This happens when you lose trust in what they are going to do, ie we become unpredictable to each other. This started in the second quarter of the Carlton game.

Ultimately, to regain that trust and confidence, we need to strip our game plan right back to the basics, the fundamentals, if you will. Yes, it does mean we have basically wasted 3 weeks of our season. We should be at the point now where we are able to focus on things like how we move the ball from one end of the field to the other in Coleman's absence, particularly inside 50. But instead we need to go right back to square 1, and get the basics right.

Obviously the dropped marks were to me a sign of a few blokes lacking confidence, but what really stood out to me was the amount of times we handballed to nobody in and around a contested ball situation. When we are up and about this is all pretty automatic, and I remember this "washing machine" drill used to be a staple of our training which would often appear on our social media pages.

(By the way this washing machine drill is where you have 4 or 5 blokes all inside a very confined space and it's basically a fast game of keepings off against 2 or 3 defenders)

I have no idea if this drill is still performed at training, but the game has largely moved past this. Our contested ball work often sees one or more handball backwards to a team mate who ideally has the time and space to make a good decision with the ball. Those handballs missed their target (if there was even a target there to begin with) countless times on Thursday night, and it gifted Collingwood's players at the contest all forward momentum. These were all pretty clear signs of players not knowing what their team mates were going to do, and to me it all comes back to trust and confidence. This can't be fixed by flicking a switch.

This backwards handball is a remnant of the old Essendon 2000 model, as well as the Bulldogs' 2016 flag, and the game has largely moved past this. This handball now really only serves to refer pressure from the disposer to the recipient, ie giving the problem to somebody else.

Instead the best teams, in fact many teams, are now embracing contact, accepting the tackle (if they can't break through it), then getting their arms free, and disposing effectively, either laterally or forward. This gives an attack a greater opportunity of bypassing the first line of defence, potentially creating a favourable outnumber further afield.

Unfortunately it seems to me that our players lack the conditioning to fully embrace this style of play in contested ball situations. We lack the size and strength to adequately absorb contact and still distribute effectively. (This also inhibits the effectiveness of our tackling) We also seem to lack the fitness to spread effectively away from those contested ball situations, either in attack or defence. These are not circumstances which are easily addressed mid-season however.

Going forward I simply want to see if we can improve the effectiveness of our tackling, and if we can improve the confidence of our key forwards by making sure they realise they won't have a team mate flying over the top interfering with their attempts to mark. Having an opponent hanging off you is enough to deal with, without also having to cope with your own team mates trying to take the ball off you. And if this also means that our non-marking forwards can get to the right place at the right time, ie at the front of the marking contest, that will be another step forward.

We've dug a bit of a hole for ourselves, largely of our own doing, and there's no way easy way back. So as supporters we need to disregard preseason expectations, not to mention the scoreboard, and take the small improvements as/if we see them.

Might have been in the Carlton or preseason games I posted that we seemed to be knocking the ball out of congestion to a teammates advantage rather than take the ball in a contested situation. Haven't noticed this since.

Wonder if we were doing this as we don't have the bid explosive mids to absorb pressure or break tackles

Something that doesn't help any of this is Oscar winning so many bloody clearances. We saw Fort giving more at ground level last week so a swap of rucks could help this. HSmith also excellent at ground level with his hands

 

[martinson]

Mate, you are wasted on BigFooty.

You should be making a living from your analysis.

We've been doing it for so long and getting away with it because we have good players who can turn it on when we need them to.

Likewise not much run and spread as you see most of the games won in this era.

Probably a coaching issue and the lack of cattle who would do this instinctively from their schoolboy days or have it coached into them.

If we hit form and win a few games we should be up there again but are always going to be susceptible to teams who have perfected what we don't do.

 

[Nathan Barley]

We've been doing it for so long and getting away with it because we have good players who can turn it on when we need them to.

Likewise not much run and spread as you see most of the games won in this era.

Probably a coaching issue and the lack of cattle who would do this instinctively from their schoolboy days or have it coached into them.

If we hit form and win a few games we should be up there again but are always going to be susceptible to teams who have perfected what we don't do.

Could also be a hangover from fixing the disastrous Leppa era when we were conceding 20 goals a game. Seems a lot of the focus when Fagan took over was to reduce scores against by switching to a low risk/ low reward gameplan which we seem stuck in.

Definitely something we've been trying to fix personnel wise but still not quite there

 

[Grasshopper17]

Might have been in the Carlton or preseason games I posted that we seemed to be knocking the ball out of congestion to a teammates advantage rather than take the ball in a contested situation. Haven't noticed this since.

Wonder if we were doing this as we don't have the bid explosive mids to absorb pressure or break tackles

Yes I think this would be preferable to the way we approach contested ball situations right now.

Indeed, Richmond created a dynasty on the back of that exact thing, largely without a big bodied midfield.

 

[Lionheart182]

I'm a bit with Lionheart182 on this. I thought Thursday's game was as close as we've had to a 4 quarter effort for the season. Don't get me wrong, the performance was terrible, but the effort I thought was much better and more consistent quarter to quarter.

I mean, Joe Daniher laid a tackle. We smothered a set shot at goal late in the last quarter with the game basically gone. These are little things worth celebrating because right now they are about all we can hang our hat on.

Unfortunately on Thursday night we saw a side almost completely devoid of confidence, both in themselves and their team mates. This happens when you lose trust in what they are going to do, ie we become unpredictable to each other. This started in the second quarter of the Carlton game.

Ultimately, to regain that trust and confidence, we need to strip our game plan right back to the basics, the fundamentals, if you will. Yes, it does mean we have basically wasted 3 weeks of our season. We should be at the point now where we are able to focus on things like how we move the ball from one end of the field to the other in Coleman's absence, particularly inside 50. But instead we need to go right back to square 1, and get the basics right.

Obviously the dropped marks were to me a sign of a few blokes lacking confidence, but what really stood out to me was the amount of times we handballed to nobody in and around a contested ball situation. When we are up and about this is all pretty automatic, and I remember this "washing machine" drill used to be a staple of our training which would often appear on our social media pages.

(By the way this washing machine drill is where you have 4 or 5 blokes all inside a very confined space and it's basically a fast game of keepings off against 2 or 3 defenders)

I have no idea if this drill is still performed at training, but the game has largely moved past this. Our contested ball work often sees one or more handball backwards to a team mate who ideally has the time and space to make a good decision with the ball. Those handballs missed their target (if there was even a target there to begin with) countless times on Thursday night, and it gifted Collingwood's players at the contest all forward momentum. These were all pretty clear signs of players not knowing what their team mates were going to do, and to me it all comes back to trust and confidence. This can't be fixed by flicking a switch.

This backwards handball is a remnant of the old Essendon 2000 model, as well as the Bulldogs' 2016 flag, and the game has largely moved past this. This handball now really only serves to refer pressure from the disposer to the recipient, ie giving the problem to somebody else.

Instead the best teams, in fact many teams, are now embracing contact, accepting the tackle (if they can't break through it), then getting their arms free, and disposing effectively, either laterally or forward. This gives an attack a greater opportunity of bypassing the first line of defence, potentially creating a favourable outnumber further afield.

Unfortunately it seems to me that our players lack the conditioning to fully embrace this style of play in contested ball situations. We lack the size and strength to adequately absorb contact and still distribute effectively. (This also inhibits the effectiveness of our tackling) We also seem to lack the fitness to spread effectively away from those contested ball situations, either in attack or defence. These are not circumstances which are easily addressed mid-season however.

Going forward I simply want to see if we can improve the effectiveness of our tackling, and if we can improve the confidence of our key forwards by making sure they realise they won't have a team mate flying over the top interfering with their attempts to mark. Having an opponent hanging off you is enough to deal with, without also having to cope with your own team mates trying to take the ball off you. And if this also means that our non-marking forwards can get to the right place at the right time, ie at the front of the marking contest, that will be another step forward.

We've dug a bit of a hole for ourselves, largely of our own doing, and there's no way easy way back. So as supporters we need to disregard preseason expectations, not to mention the scoreboard, and take the small improvements as/if we see them.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I was saying as well

 

[martinson]

Could also be a hangover from fixing the disastrous Leppa era when we were conceding 20 goals a game. Seems a lot of the focus when Fagan took over was to reduce scores against by switching to a low risk/ low reward gameplan which we seem stuck in.

Definitely something we've been trying to fix personnel wise but still not quite there

Very true.

Fagan made a big point when he arrived of improving our competitiveness by not getting beaten by big scores. So each year we were reducing the points against/points scored ratio. We succeeded in what he wanted to do.

We've flagged a few times that we were going to change the way we played but because we had such success the way we were going it was not something we could do overnight. Then you can only get the best personnel who are available which we did but maybe some of them didn't help the situation and now they're getting older and the way they play is stuck in cement.

Injuries on top the icing on the cake. It's a lot easier to run hard and find space if you know Coleman might be spearing it to you rather than Payne ,Answerth and a couple of others.

 

[martinson]

The other thing we've been raising which I just don't get is why our smalls don't get to the front of the pack in a marking contest. Time and again that's where it falls . Yet they stand around like furniture to the side attempting to man up on someone or worse still try to impact the marking pack from the back.

Charlie used to be good at zipping in in front of the pack but it's a feature of his game that's largely gone missing.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Very true.

Fagan made a big point when he arrived of improving our competitiveness by not getting beaten by big scores. So each year we were reducing the points against/points scored ratio. We succeeded in what he wanted to do.

We've flagged a few times that we were going to change the way we played but because we had such success the way we were going it was not something we could do overnight. Then you can only get the best personnel who are available which we did but maybe some of them didn't help the situation and now they're getting older and the way they play is stuck in cement.

Injuries on top the icing on the cake. It's a lot easier to run hard and find space if you know Coleman might be spearing it to you rather than Payne ,Answerth and a couple of others.

We have been trying to change the personnel a bit. McKenna, Kiddy and Wilmot down back, upgrading Lyons for Dunkley, trying desperately to turn Rayner and Bailey into midfielders and even this year trialling Berry down back.

Unfortunately none of those changes have worked this year as well as we'd hoped

 

[martinson]

We have been trying to change the personnel a bit. McKenna, Kiddy and Wilmot down back, upgrading Lyons for Dunkley, trying desperately to turn Rayner and Bailey into midfielders and even this year trialling Berry down back.

Unfortunately none of those changes have worked this year as well as we'd hoped

Plus losing Wil.

Someone who ran hard all day.

 

[Grasshopper17]

We have been trying to change the personnel a bit. McKenna, Kiddy and Wilmot down back, upgrading Lyons for Dunkley, trying desperately to turn Rayner and Bailey into midfielders and even this year trialling Berry down back.

Unfortunately none of those changes have worked this year as well as we'd hoped

Yet.

I mean these changes like Berry to defence, Rayner to defence last year etc, these are all going to take time. You can play all the scratch and practice matches you like, but the best way to learn a new role is doing it in the heat of battle, making mistakes, and learning from them.

Rayner actually showed promise in defence I thought in the early going last year. Then he exploded against Collingwood in Round 4 and we shelved that plan. I still think it has potential, and I still think Berry has potential to be an adequate defender given time in the role.

Time however is a commodity we are running short of right now tho. Unless of course we lose on Friday. Then we'll suddenly have oodles of time to experiment and throw the magnets around... And we should.

 

[martinson]

Bailey needs to do more than provide cameos.

He's got the pace , he's got the skills. He's now got the experience.

He needs to be providing options around the ground but spends a lot of his time trying to get in position to kick a pearler.

His tackling was below acceptable last week. He's worth working on because he could be a lot better for the team than what he is.

 

[Lionheart182]

We have been trying to change the personnel a bit. McKenna, Kiddy and Wilmot down back, upgrading Lyons for Dunkley, trying desperately to turn Rayner and Bailey into midfielders and even this year trialling Berry down back.

Unfortunately none of those changes have worked this year as well as we'd hoped

+ Gardiner up forward which I actually liked. Relies heavily on Payne being in good form though.

 

[McIvor]

Was Fagan taking the piss in his PC today when he was quizzed about his selection of Darcy Fort

32

Darcy Fort

Age

30

Ht

204cm

Wt

98kg

Pos.

F/R

Career

Season

Last 5

D

8.6

2star

K

5.8

2star

HB

2.9

3star

M

1.9

2star

T

1.8

4star

G

0.8

4star

D

9.2

2star

K

6.0

2star

HB

3.2

2star

M

1.8

2star

T

1.8

3star

G

0.2

3star

D

7.6

2star

K

5.4

2star

HB

2.2

2star

M

2.0

3star

T

1.2

3star

G

1.2

4star

. Personally I think Oscar should have been dropped but Fagan’s response was that Darcy Gardiner

27

Darcy Gardiner

Age

28

Ht

192cm

Wt

91kg

Pos.

D/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

12.6

3star

K

7.4

3star

HB

5.2

4star

M

4.1

4star

T

2.1

4star

MG

196.1

3star

D

10.7

3star

K

7.9

3star

HB

2.9

2star

M

3.7

4star

T

2.1

3star

MG

196.1

3star

D

10.2

3star

K

6.0

3star

HB

4.2

4star

M

3.6

4star

T

1.8

4star

was unavailable for selection. Could have fooled me given Gardiner played a full game the following morning in the reserves.

I probably shouldn’t watch Fagan’s PC because aside from regularly getting his back up, he’s pretty hard to take seriously particularly for the switched on fans because for the most part they’re absolutely spin.

Must admit, I do like listening to Danny Daly more these days.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Was Fagan taking the piss in his PC today when he was quizzed about his selection of Darcy Fort. Personally I think Oscar should have been dropped but Fagan’s response was that Darcy Gardiner was unavailable for selection. Could have fooled me given Gardiner played a full game the following morning in the reserves.

I probably shouldn’t watch Fagan’s PC because aside from regularly getting his back up, he’s pretty hard to take seriously particularly for the switched on fans because for the most part they’re absolutely spin.

Must admit, I do like listening to Danny Daly more these days.

Well then have a listen to Danny Daly's explanation of why Dizzy didn't play on Thursday.

 

[McIvor]

Well then have a listen to Danny Daly's explanation of why Dizzy didn't play on Thursday.

Will have a listen tomorrow; assuming he’s backed up Fages comment

 

[Grasshopper17]

Will have a listen tomorrow; assuming he’s backed up Fages comment

Thought he explained it quite well.