Roast So, when does Burgess start getting some scrutiny?

[PowerLil]

Was Ken's comment re the players being bruised, to do with physical pain or ego?

 

[PowerBaz]

Was Ken's comment re the players being bruised, to do with physical pain or ego?

Ego I thought.

 

[Janus]

Meters gained: GWS - 7294 Port - 5703. That's 1590m difference. But the real kicker? That's 30+% WORSE than our season average and 30+% BETTER for GWS.

So a 60+% differential in moving the ball. From the three weeks that include a smashing in the Showdown. Pittard, Hombsch, Byrne-Jones, Ah Chee and Amon were all 30+% up on their season average, while Broadbent, Trengove, Hartlett, S.Gray, Wingard and Young were all 30+% down.

You want to know how bad we were defensively? THIRTEEN GWS players were 30+% up on their season average for meters gained. Only three were down 30+% - Shaw, Davis and Palmer.

So my question is - if it's fitness, why could the majority of players at least maintain their season average meters gained stats (plus or minus 29%) but conversely not keep the Giants players at THEIR season average?

The answer is - it's not fitness. It's not being switched on, not pushing back hard enough in defence. We weren't that bad in moving the ball offensively, but we sucked at defending ball movement. So we could run one way just fine, but not the other.

13 players ran further than they normally would when we were in defence. More than half their ****ing team. People say it's structure - how can you ****ing set up a structure when you're allowing that shit to happen. In all but one statistical category that Champion Data measure - kicks, handballs, contested possessions, meters gained, disposal efficiency, intercepts, intercept marks, tackles, you name it - we were 30% worse than a season average that includes a belting by Adelaide and 106 tackles against St. Kilda. Want to know the one thing we were "okay" at? That is, we weren't dog shit enough to be worse than 30% down on the season average, but also not good enough to be 30% better? ****ing pressure acts.

Do you know what that means? Too many players providing implied pressure instead of ****ing REAL pressure. It's NOT fitness, it's intent, and a willingness to put their body on the line so another player can get the ball.

It was the sort of "I don't want to smash in and miss the next week" kind of "effort" that Kane Cornes put in against Brisbane because he didn't want to miss his retirement match. I said I didn't want to see the Adelaide performance again - this was ten times worse.

These ****s put in that effort against Geelong this week, you can kiss China goodbye. No one wants to be associated with a loser.

 

[OneGreatClub]

Meters gained: GWS - 7294 Port - 5703. That's 1590m difference. But the real kicker? That's 30+% WORSE than our season average and 30+% BETTER for GWS.

So a 60+% differential in moving the ball. From the three weeks that include a smashing in the Showdown. Pittard, Hombsch, Byrne-Jones, Ah Chee and Amon were all 30+% up on their season average, while Broadbent, Trengove, Hartlett, S.Gray, Wingard and Young were all 30+% down.

You want to know how bad we were defensively? THIRTEEN GWS players were 30+% up on their season average for meters gained. Only three were down 30+% - Shaw, Davis and Palmer.

So my question is - if it's fitness, why could the majority of players at least maintain their season average meters gained stats (plus or minus 29%) but conversely not keep the Giants players at THEIR season average?

The answer is - it's not fitness. It's not being switched on, not pushing back hard enough in defence. We weren't that bad in moving the ball offensively, but we sucked at defending ball movement. So we could run one way just fine, but not the other.

13 players ran further than they normally would when we were in defence. More than half their ******* team. People say it's structure - how can you ******* set up a structure when you're allowing that shit to happen. In all but one statistical category that Champion Data measure - kicks, handballs, contested possessions, meters gained, disposal efficiency, intercepts, intercept marks, tackles, you name it - we were 30% worse than a season average that includes a belting by Adelaide and 106 tackles against St. Kilda. Want to know the one thing we were "okay" at? That is, we weren't dog shit enough to be worse than 30% down on the season average, but also not good enough to be 30% better? ******* pressure acts.

Do you know what that means? Too many players providing implied pressure instead of ******* REAL pressure. It's NOT fitness, it's intent, and a willingness to put their body on the line so another player can get the ball.

It was the sort of "I don't want to smash in and miss the next week" kind of "effort" that Kane Cornes put in against Brisbane because he didn't want to miss his retirement match. I said I didn't want to see the Adelaide performance again - this was ten times worse.

These ****s put in that effort against Geelong this week, you can kiss China goodbye. No one wants to be associated with a loser.

 

[ClintEastwood]

I'm not sure that you can use a single stat, "metres gained", to measure all the ins and outs of what we loosely term "fitness".

Does the stat cover all ball movement, including kicking, or just carrying the ball?

 

[Janus]

I'm not sure that you can use a single stat, "metres gained", to measure all the ins and outs of what we loosely term "fitness".

Does the stat cover all ball movement, including kicking, or just carrying the ball?

All movement, whether it's kicking or carrying the ball. The fact that all our defenders bar Pittard, Hombsch and a second gamer in Byrne-Jones regressed in this area, and so did most of the small forwards, tells you that there weren't enough options for the defenders to kick to to generate scoring opportunities, but that when these same players had the ball they had no problem getting it forward.

If you can explain why we had 271 pressure acts but only 51 actual tackles, I might believe it's fitness. That means for every tackle laid, 5 players either got a hand on an opposition player, chased down and affected their kick, or otherwise created pressure on the ball carrier. And you need to be close enough to the ball to do that.

 

[Macca19]

The answer is - it's not fitness. It's not being switched on, not pushing back hard enough in defence. We weren't that bad in moving the ball offensively, but we sucked at defending ball movement. So we could run one way just fine, but not the other.

See I would disagree with that. I'd say our ball movement offensively was the worst i've seen it since 2011.

You are right in that we don't push back hard enough, but the question is, is it because we can't or because we won't.

 

[StrappingTape]

Janus stats means shit if thise players cant physically make the run to fix your stat. They are stuck in the mud trying to chase you can see the faces of our gym rats pained and the bodies just going nowhere. Anyone who has trained a lot knows that feeling, you know it that you have over trained and the only way back from that is to pull back and rest the body and suddenly when you are fresh athletically it is night and day. Everytime I have seen our players last year and this year there is no spark as they are all stuffed before it starts.

 

[AdsGoNads]

Janus stats means shit if thise players cant physically make the run to fix your stat. They are stuck in the mud trying to chase you can see the faces of our gym rats pained and the bodies just going nowhere. Anyone who has trained a lot knows that feeling, you know it that you have over trained and the only way back from that is to pull back and rest the body and suddenly when you are fresh athletically it is night and day. Everytime I have seen our players last year and this year there is no spark as they are all stuffed before it starts.

Exactly my thoughts!

All I see is Yogging & people giving up.

I thought we were supposed to never give up!

 

[Rexie J]

Janus stats means shit if thise players cant physically make the run to fix your stat. They are stuck in the mud trying to chase you can see the faces of our gym rats pained and the bodies just going nowhere. Anyone who has trained a lot knows that feeling, you know it that you have over trained and the only way back from that is to pull back and rest the body and suddenly when you are fresh athletically it is night and day. Everytime I have seen our players last year and this year there is no spark as they are all stuffed before it starts.

Not disagreeing but if the players are over-trained or cooked, why are Pittard and DBJ so up and about?

You're spot on there is no spark. The excitement and instinctive air has vanished.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Yeah look, that sort of statistical analysis can also be explained away by us not being fit enough, as it was under Faloon.

You can see that our players are struggling to get around the ground as freely as their opponents. I have no doubt there is some structural and workrate issues as well, but fitness is a noticable problem.

Remember in 2013/14 (or even, I guess, round 1 this year) where in the 2nd half of games we'd just overwhelm our opponent with running power and destroy them? That happened to us yesterday. It's not just mindset. We don't have a fitness advantage anymore.

 

[Macca19]

Not disagreeing but if the players are over-trained or cooked, why are Pittard and DBJ so up and about?

You're spot on there is no spark. The excitement and instinctive air has vanished.

2 out of a list of 45 are up and about. There are always outliers.

 

[I Dont Care]

All I know is, whatever they are trying..it ain't working. Something is broken, and I don't think it is fitness

 

[stokholme]

Something's definitely wrong with our fitness levels but the players are also mentally weak. The two issues are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Rexie J]

2 out of a list of 45 are up and about. There are always outliers.

Accepted, so that points directly at Burgess as he supposedly used definitive science based info after testing players so as to manage their training workload appropriately.

 

[KenOath]

See I would disagree with that. I'd say our ball movement offensively was the worst i've seen it since 2011.

You are right in that we don't push back hard enough, but the question is, is it because we can't or because we won't.

Our offensive ball movement has generally been bad since mid 2014...we rely far too heavily on individual brilliance from the likes of Gray, Pittard and Wingard, etc to break lines and create genuine scoring opportunities. We show occasional glimpses but it is mainly slow, stagnant and predictable nowadays.

 

[Janus]

The only hope I cling to is that this is all part of some master plan that correlates with the live broadcast into China this week. That we decided to get a bit more fitness training in the first four weeks of the season so that when we hit Geelong we'd be completely fresh and be able to take advantage of other teams trying to up their training loads in the back half of the season.

If this has shown anything to me - we need more mids with high end pace. Too many draft horses, not enough thoroughbreds.

 

[El_Scorcho]

The only hope I cling to is that this is all part of some master plan that correlates with the live broadcast into China this week. That we decided to get a bit more fitness training in the first four weeks of the season so that when we hit Geelong we'd be completely fresh and be able to take advantage of other teams trying to up their training loads in the back half of the season.

If this has shown anything to me - we need more mids with high end pace. Too many draft horses, not enough thoroughbreds.

I've been secretly praying that this is some sort of heavy training load shenanigans to get us to absolutely explode at about the round 7 mark and never lose again.

 

[OneGreatClub]

I've been secretly praying that this is some sort of heavy training load shenanigans to get us to absolutely explode at about the round 7 mark and never lose again.

Yeah, shame our confidence will be absolutely shattered by then.

 

[finbarr]

Please forget about the notion of sacrificing early wins in favour of a strong back half of the year. Early wins build confidence and momentum, and allow the coaches to manage their list as the season turns into a winter slog. Unless you're all joking please get that idea out of your heads......now.

 

[Moo87]

We absolutely smashed the Saints as the game wore on, ran over Essendon pretty comfortably, and even looked fresher late on against the crows.

I think this "overcooked" theory is way too simplistic and is really taking away focus from more pressing deficiencies.

I think our perceived lethargy is coming from:
1) Indesicion and effort. We're flat footed and reactive around the contest and this is giving our opponents a head start. We're also reluctant to actually tackle or put physical pressure on to force a contest (not to mention our tackling technique is awful)

2) Carrying too many players who aren't at 100% fitness. Having to manage game time and midfield time for a few players makes it much more difficult to manage any injuries occurring in the game. Polec is not at 100% and Boak is clearly the same. Wines still needs his game time managed. All 3 I'd consider vital cogs in our midfield. Add to that yesterday Hartlett and Wingard returning from injury we were just carrying too many

3) A disconnect between our gameplan and our 22. Our current set up means it's easy exploit our slow players - I don't think we can persist with Trengove and Jonas in the same backline (esp since Hombsch is taking a KPD spot). Add Lobbe, and we have a few mids who aren't particularly fast in S Gray and Ebert and it really starts to add up

Fix or balance a few of the above better and suddenly fitness will seem a non issue. I do think in 2014 we were ahead of the trend and other teams have caught up, but our base is still solid.

Oh, and sleep pods/flotation pods aren't some miraculous cure. We know he importance of recovery but would just have other ways of achieving it.

 

[Janus]

Please forget about the notion of sacrificing early wins in favour of a strong back half of the year. Early wins build confidence and momentum, and allow the coaches to manage their list as the season turns into a winter slog. Unless you're all joking please get that idea out of your heads......now.

I'm grabbing onto a withered branch on the edge of a cliff, and you're telling me that it's gonna break. We're looking for hope here.

 

[finbarr]

I'm grabbing onto a withered branch on the edge of a cliff, and you're telling me that it's gonna break. We're looking for hope here.

Sometimes you've just gotta look reality in the face and stare it down as best you can.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Ollie got the second most hit outs for us (8) today. he is obviously our second ruck.

This in one thing that has to stop. Why would you want one of your best clearance players contesting the ruck.

This must be an instruction which is a great example of something the coaches can change.

I can see a strategy meeting / selection meeting transcript coming on ETW.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

The summation of my opinion on this matter is that we have done the right thing in trying to innovate and push for cutting edge solutions and methodologies by employing the brightest minds and talented individuals. However the way we have done this is all wrong.

We've gone for the bleeding edge rather than the cutting edge. We have consistently tried to reinvent the wheel and neglected the things that have been proven to work by investing in talent like Mladen and Burgess who aren't natural AFL strength/conditioning/nutritionists. To be innovative, you do not need to reinvent the ******* wheel. You need only improve on proven methodologies. We're too busy trying new age things and living on the bleeding edge rather than directing our focus on the things that have always worked and then innovating on them.

Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, just improve on it. Cutting edge, not bleeding edge. For the same reason you never purchase a gaming computer with the absolute highest spec brand new generation hardware in it, you are bound to hit compatibility problems, bugs, overheating and so on. Always wait for the second generation - because by that stage the bugs are ironed out and you get a much more polished product. We need to be that second stable and reliable generation, not that highest spec new generation which may perform immensely, but doesn't always work and is prone to early life failure.

Correct, we dont have to re-invent the wheel, bloody just put quality air in the tires!