Skills

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Dec 2, 2017
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My biggest issue with the season has been the appalling skills. Players doing all the hard work and picking out the opposition player with poor kicks or handballs and then getting smashed on the turnover. Interesting to read the stats in this article on AFL, not surprised that we are ranked 18th for kicking efficiency, 17th for goal kicking accuracy and 17th for kick rating.


I've heard before that skills can't be trained but I think that needs to be a massive focus in 2020 and not just the structure/effort focus that seems to be the norm.
 

G Mus

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Probably the first step is just dropping the main offenders til they improve, even if they are “good” Langdon + Blakely spring to mind
 

Nolo180

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Will be interesting to see how closely skills and kicking in particular changes with a different game plan.
The manic pressure kick it long to the hotspot gameplan wouldnt of been conducive to good disposal efficiency i wouldnt of thought...?
 

Scham

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Already Hale had them practicing goal kicking so obviously it was Lyon that was holding this part back.

So many games we kept the opposition in the game despite dominating play.
 

basashi

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Until this year I actually just assumed that all clubs had regular skill sessions
 

Admiral Byng

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Of course physical skills can be trained, how else do people get them?

For mine, the biggest change to the game plan needs to be - players presenting as targets to the kicker, the kicker kicking to advantage of the target. Not kicking long to a static contest, but kicking to advantage of a moving target. Players need to re-learn how to kick, and how to lead/present.
 

PurpleEyes

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In 2019, our skills, as measured by stats like Disposal Efficiency, Kicking Efficiency, Goal Accuracy, Clangers & Turnovers, etc... have shown we have had an extremely poor year. The worst by some margin under Lyon's tenure.

Previous seasons we haven't been anywhere near that bad. In fact, we have averaged in the top8 for Lyon's 2012-2018 seasons. For example, our Disposal Efficiency for 2013-2018 averaged 73.2 ... it's 69.6 in 2019 (our next worst performance was 71.6 in 2012, Lyon's first year of coaching).
So once again, all this talk about Freo's poor skills is really only being talked up because of this one very poor season. It's not relative to Lyon's total years at Freo.

And, again, in 2019, Freo had a very young side well and truly still in rebuild. My 50+ club game stats shows 2019 was our lowest under Lyon's tenure.

If you look at teams that have performed well in these "skill stats" during Lyon's Freo tenure, eg. Hawthorn, they haven't been in that rebuild mode.
The worst performers are the likes of Gold Coast, who have been in rebuild mode.

My point being, if you look at the stats in detail and in relation to where Freo are at with their list management and players being fielded, these stats aren't anything unusual at all ... nor have they been at any point during Lyon's tenure at Freo.

For some time we have perceived our skills to generally be very poor because we choose to compare them to Elite benchmark teams like Hawthorn.
If you chose to compare ours to the teams with the worst skills, then generally speaking we have been pretty good.
There's nothing wrong with wanting Freo to have the best skills in the league and to question why we don't but there should be at least some rational and reasonable discussion which includes comparisons to all teams, not just the very best teams.
 
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I've heard before that skills can't be trained but I think that needs to be a massive focus in 2020 and not just the structure/effort focus that seems to be the norm.

Trick is working out how to convert them from training into the pressure cooker of a game. It's not that hard to hit most of your targets targets when you know nobody is going to steamroll you into next week.

Goal kicking from set shots needs to be worked on a lot more though.
 
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Admiral Byng

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Trick is working out how to convert them from training into the pressure cooker of a game. It's not that hard to hit most of your targets targets when you know nobody is going to steamroll you into next week.

Goal kicking from set shots needs to be worked on a lot more though.

Sticks. Players stuffing up drills during training get whacked with a stick.
 

wafti123

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When your skill level is below your peers, you have to practice more hours than your peers until you catch up. Applies to any profession.
 

Cesoir

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Anyone notice how poor the West Coast skills were on the weekend? Sure, they had patches where they looked fantastic, but as soon as Hawthorn closed down their space and put them under pressure their skills were as bad as ours.

We need to get our structures right, get consistency of guys playing together and the skills will improve. Once our players become predictable to each other, they will be able to focus on execution rather than looking around in confusion when they get the ball.

If anyone thinks Zac Dawson, Tendai Mzungu, Matt DeBoers, Danyle Pearce et. al. had better skills than the current crop they have very short memories, and those guys got us within 15 points of a flag. When asked last year why the Eagles' had improved so much, Simpson said "we have a bunch of guys who have been together for 5 years now". This is the point that some people just refuse to accept - you can gradually introduce new talent into a stable team, but when most of the team is "new" it is not going to be all beer and skittle! :)
 
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Anyone notice how poor the West Coast skills were on the weekend? Sure, they had patches where they looked fantastic, but as soon as Hawthorn closed down their space and put them under pressure their skills were as bad as ours.

We need to get our structures right, get consistency of guys playing together and the skills will improve. Once our players become predictable to each other, they will be able to focus on execution rather than looking around in confusion when they get the ball.

If anyone thinks Zac Dawson, Tendai Mzungu, Matt DeBoers, Danyle Pearce et. al. had better skills than the current crop they have very short memories, and those guys got us within 15 points of a flag. When asked last year why the Eagles' had improved so much, Simpson said "we have a bunch of guys who have been together for 5 years now". This is the point that some people just refuse to accept - you can gradually introduce new talent into a stable team, but when most of the team is "new" it is not going to be all beer and skittle! :)
That is why we need to keep langdon & hill.
We cant afford to go to.the draft and spend 2 to 3 years developing another Cerra & brayshaw
 

beetz

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I would argue that Freo's current playing group are more skilful than that of our 2013 team but are just not reaching their potential for whatever reason (I assume it is not drilled at training enough).
 

Cesoir

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I would argue that Freo's current playing group are more skilful than that of our 2013 team but are just not reaching their potential for whatever reason (I assume it is not drilled at training enough).
100% - I think our current players have been recruited for two main assets, skills and character. Those without great skills (e.g. Brayshaw, Conca and Logue) are still serviceable but have great character and will be a positive influence on the group. Guys like Luke Ryan, Nathan Wilson, Adam Cerra, Luke Valente, Sam Sturt were all known to have good to excellent skills, ceratinly more so than the hard-working "running" types we went for in the earlier period.

The reason skills have not been drilled as much as we would all like is that we have had a list in transition and it is far more important that players learn their roles within the team structure and game plan than it is to polish skills. As we saw on the weekend, even the most highly skilled teams can be made to look silly if they lose their structures under pressure. Lyon understood this and rightly or wrongly his modus operandi was to make sure every member of the team knew what was expected of him at all times. Once this is "down pat" then you focus on honing the skills to take you the last step to a flag.
 

Cesoir

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That is why we need to keep langdon & hill.
We cant afford to go to.the draft and spend 2 to 3 years developing another Cerra & brayshaw
A fit Luke Valente will surprise a lot of people, and the recruiters were very excited about what Sam Sturt could become. If we lose Brad Hill it will be a huge loss, not so much Ed Langdon - he is an elite runner with very poor decision making and skills. I think Ed can be replaced, and I think a fit Stephen Hill is an immediate upgrade.
 
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