Season 2016 and pre season what changes do we need to do as a club to learn from this debacle

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Season 2015 is gone no doubt of that, has been for a while. But what moves do we need to do to make sure we learn from this wasted year. I'd like to see the club launch a review into the pre season, and admit if they got it wrong, there's no shame in that but some accountability is needed from Ken, Burgo and co to say they got it wrong. As for the players be nice if they admitted they got it wrong, never dealt with the pressure of being so highly rated, and never handled in games when it went against them. What moves do we make in the trade period? Dixon if he wants to come is a must, but possibly do we shed a name player to do it or to shake up the players from this funk. One thing is certain in my mind this cannot happen again, it's a harsh lesson but a lesson that will be wasted of we don't become stronger out of season 2015.

I believe the core of this side will win a premiership, I also believe Kenny will be our next premiership coach. But only if they use this year as the fuel to burn that fire, not if we trundle out the same crap in the off season or during games in 2016.
 

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DazzaTys

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#5
Needs to be some serious list discussion. The lack of development of some players, namely a KPF will hurt the club if not rectified now.

A few players who are just not AFL quality. S Gray, K Mitchell, P Stewart, Moore, O'Shea, Neade and Young have all had their chances. Do we see ourselves winning an AFL premiership with those guys? Our depth is poor and we've constantly seen these guys fail when they should have grabbed their opportunities.

The coaching panel needs to be reviewed, although the loss of 2 senior coaches over the last 2 seasons doesn't allow for any cohesion. There certainly needs to be a shakeup though. The midfield seems to have gone backwards this year.

Finally, the preseason needs to be taken seriously. Sure, give the kids a run but we come out and destroy opposition. The coaches actually coach.
 

Macca19

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Was it Ken early in year 1 that said 'If you can't kick, you can't play'.

On that regard, it would be great if we could get our skills up to AFL standard. To play the game style we want to play, you need to have at the very least good skills. All the KPIs indicate that we are currently bottom 4 in most stats relating to efficiency, scores from our defensive 50, scores from clearances etc.

Get the skills right, the rest will follow.
 

FallingLiefs

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#11
Was it Ken early in year 1 that said 'If you can't kick, you can't play'.

On that regard, it would be great if we could get our skills up to AFL standard. To play the game style we want to play, you need to have at the very least good skills. All the KPIs indicate that we are currently bottom 4 in most stats relating to efficiency, scores from our defensive 50, scores from clearances etc.

Get the skills right, the rest will follow.
Any theories as to how the kicking got as bad as it is? We can't just say lets tighten up the kicking over the pre-season they tried that this pre-season and they dealt up this tripe.

For mine it starts at contested footy and defensive desire. Nicks, Voss and Carr.....
 

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Chewy316

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#14
No idea where you even begin. I would start off with trying to get everyone healthy as possible going into the start of the off-season program. We will have an extra month of pre-season this year which should help. Lots of tough decisions are going to be made with regards to personnel. I think we need another bright mind in the box on gameday. Most importantly we need to go back to what made us great in the first place: tough, hard-nosed, disciplined footy, built on team defence and winning the contested ball. I believe we will work it out. But we can't just keep going on this path thinking it's just going to magically happen, because if we do that, we will only slide further into irrelevance.
 

Portmanteau

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#15
It seems to me that a lot of people are coming around on the notion that we need genuine midfielders coming through, not quasi-flankers dressed up as mids. The kind of guys who can go straight into the SANFL in their first year and start racking up 25 touches, and maybe even find that they can go straight into an AFL midfield.

It strikes me that the great teams of the past decade have 4-5 players who can consistently:

Win their own ball
Create separation at stoppages
Read the tap expertly
Hit targets
Mark overhead
Crumb
Tackle and break tackles themselves

Think Jimmy Bartel, Sam Mitchell, Lachie Neale, the irrepressible and interchangeable Sydney Swans midfield. Easier said than done clearly, we'd all love to date Jen Hawkins too, but at the very least we need a targeted recruiting campaign not unlike the pace and size theme of the previous two years. Effectively, we need to draft a whole second tier of mids to replace Moore, Young and Mitchell - Ah Chee may be the only one left standing.

This year - trade our 2016 first for Charlie Dixon - he's not quite worth pick 7/8.

Trade O'Shea, Moore and Young to Victorian clubs to try to attract as many picks in the top 40 as possible. Maybe downgrade our second for multiple picks inside 30, if it can be done.

Draft 4 out-and-out midfielders, no smaller than 178cm, who have the attributes listed above. One mature age player who for whatever reason can't get a look in. Look to Vic Country boys who are naturally built hard asses. Forget the Vic Metro, SA private school types. One of the difficulties presented here is separating the genuine AFL talents from the undersized man-childs that teams seem to play in the middle in the national carnival.

Preseason wise - get the boys back in the weights room. Surely they've got enough of a base now that they can focus on strength and skills this off-season. We saw in 2013 what a seachange in fitness can do for an otherwise previously hapless outfit, need to try to catch lightning in a bottle again but this time with an emphasis on developing/reshaping to the classic Geelong/Sydney compact, strong-trunked physique.

In all, a more combative approach is required to become the team and club we are all dreaming about. It cannot be avoided. If we maintain this binary approach to the game, where we are either dominating with a high-octane style or getting pushed around like school boys, this will merely be a continuation of the Choco/Primus era.

We need 6-8 midfielders each week who can play football how it is intended to be played and being that we have 3 players who currently do that (Boak, Gray, Wines and maybe Ebert at his best. Wingard can do everything but not categorised a genuine mid yet) this off-season will be decisive in whether this group has a premiership in them, or if 2014 will be a career high point.
 
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dinger

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#16
- Some seniority in the coaches box to aid Ken. I'll say this till the cows come home - we lost a ****load when Richo left in 2013.

- Concentrate on the bottom 5-10 players in our starting 22. Our stars have done everything they can to bring us over the line. We can't depend on them and will never win a premiership on the top 5 period. The Ah Chee's, Young's, Moore's et al need a swift kick up the ass in terms of consistency as their worst is simply not an AFL standard and can be exploited mercilessly.

- Get another KPF blooded. We need someone to take over Schulz badly. This is the only role in our team where I'm deeply concerned that we don't have anyone ready to go.
 

OneGreatClub

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#17
I still think the weight of expectation got to us. For example look at how the Crows have been playing since Walsh's death (apart from Swans game) The weight of expectation is totally off the Crows. Any win is a massive bonus and applauded by all and sundry. They can play without pressure. Bulldogs have come up from near bottom of ladder and no expectation therefore playing freely. Our last 2 years we were free to play that way. Our club legends such as Ebert Ginever etc need to do sessions with our boys and toughen them up
 

Macca19

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Moderator #18
Any theories as to how the kicking got as bad as it is? We can't just say lets tighten up the kicking over the pre-season they tried that this pre-season and they dealt up this tripe.

For mine it starts at contested footy and defensive desire. Nicks, Voss and Carr.....
They said they spent time on it in the pre season, but just how much extra time was spent honing these skills. To compete with the likes of Hawthorn & Sydney you need elite skills. The only way to improve skills is to spend time on them in the pre season and make sure they are as good as can possibly be.

You can't expect generally poor kicks like Jonas, O'Shea and S Gray to become elite kicks, but you can get them from poor up to adequate, which is what we did from 2012 to 2013. I believe the running obsession in the pre season has had a direct detrimental effect with our kicking the last two years.

Contested ability is an issue for sure.
 

Port01

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#20
Preseason wise - get the boys back in the weights room.
This, we give away 2-3 kilos per person to the good sides.
Even yesterday against a bunch of kids we gave away more than half a kilo per person, and got monstered with run.

We seriously screwed up the preseason and it has smashed the players confidence all year, they feel weak and there is nothing you can do to fix that. Reminds me of the many bombscare moments of the dark years when we knew physically we just couldn't match it.
 

ab56452001

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#21
Any theories as to how the kicking got as bad as it is? We can't just say lets tighten up the kicking over the pre-season they tried that this pre-season and they dealt up this tripe.

For mine it starts at contested footy and defensive desire. Nicks, Voss and Carr.....
Didn't KH say at the start of the year " if you cant or are not prepared to defend , you won't get a game at Port's " ?
 

MrChow

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#23
Gotta get our footy back to basics.

Put our best/hardest players in the middle with the cleanest skills: Ryder, Boak (captain), R.Grey, Wines (Vice Captain), Wingard, Hartlett, (maybe Ebert if he pulls his finger out). On the outside, Polec and White (Wingard) Possibly Pittard. (Westy/Trengrove/Harvey can chop in the ruck)

In the forward line we need 3 core talls. Dixon, Westy, (One of the youngsters - Harvey).

In the defence. Bobby, Trengrove on the talls. Hombsh/Broady, Clurey & Impey, Krak (could go forward)

Others who have a future - Colquhoun, Amon, Ah chee (there may be some other youngsters yet to play)

I honestly think any who have not been named above should be trade bait (except youngsters who haven't played yet) - to try and bolster our core midfield/get Dixon, and more line breaker type players.
 

ab56452001

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#25
It seems to me that a lot of people are coming around on the notion that we need genuine midfielders coming through, not quasi-flankers dressed up as mids. The kind of guys who can go straight into the SANFL in their first year and start racking up 25 touches, and maybe even find that they can go straight into an AFL midfield.

It strikes me that the great teams of the past decade have 4-5 players who can consistently:

Win their own ball
Create separation at stoppages
Read the tap expertly
Hit targets
Mark overhead
Crumb
Tackle and break tackles themselves

Think Jimmy Bartel, Sam Mitchell, Lachie Neale, the irrepressible and interchangeable Sydney Swans midfield. Easier said than done clearly, we'd all love to date Jen Hawkins too, but at the very least we need a targeted recruiting campaign not unlike the pace and size theme of the previous two years. Effectively, we need to draft a whole second tier of mids to replace Moore, Young and Mitchell - Ah Chee may be the only one left standing.

This year - trade our 2016 first for Charlie Dixon - he's not quite worth pick 7/8.

Trade O'Shea, Moore and Young to Victorian clubs to try to attract as many picks in the top 40 as possible. Maybe downgrade our second for multiple picks inside 30, if it can be done.

Draft 4 out-and-out midfielders, no smaller than 178cm, who have the attributes listed above. One mature age player who for whatever reason can't get a look in. Look to Vic Country boys who are naturally built hard asses. Forget the Vic Metro, SA private school types. One of the difficulties presented here is separating the genuine AFL talents from the undersized man-childs that teams seem to play in the middle in the national carnival.

Preseason wise - get the boys back in the weights room. Surely they've got enough of a base now that they can focus on strength and skills this off-season. We saw in 2013 what a seachange in fitness can do for an otherwise previously hapless outfit, need to try to catch lightning in a bottle again but this time with an emphasis on developing/reshaping to the classic Geelong/Sydney compact, strong-trunked physique.

In all, a more combative approach is required to become the team and club we are all dreaming about. It cannot be avoided. If we maintain this binary approach to the game, where we are either dominating with a high-octane style or getting pushed around like school boys, this will merely be a continuation of the Choco/Primus era.

We need 6-8 midfielders each week who can play football how it is intended to be played and being that we have 3 players who currently do that (Boak, Gray, Wines and maybe Ebert at his best. Wingard can do everything but not categorised a genuine mid yet) this off-season will be decisive in whether this group has a premiership in them, or if 2014 will be a career high point.
Great write up , I mentioned this U18's thing before , and as exactly as you describe it , by the time some of these lovelly lad types hit 20yoa or real footy its over . It was no fluke that many former Sanfl/Pafc premiership teams had up to a dozen country boys in the team , they were not all giants , but certainly tougher on average , and don't tell us todays footy is different , teams that make up the bottom rungs of the ladder have an abundance of flee like fast fella's , its the Kennedy's , Brogan's and Franklin types that are still the most sought after
 
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