Some Perspective.

[HighFlyer]

I'm as gutted as anyone else here with our hugely disappointing season. However it's worth bringing it into perspective now.

Our kids aren't that bad. We actually aren't devoid of talent. While we still fail to achieve any success our list is not in the state it was when Wallace took over.

Whats more dissapointing this year is that the team has shown for 1/4's and 1/2's that they really can play, Geelong/Sydney matches actually do show improvement on last year, result was the same but we were not bullied or beaten up from the first bounce.

Wallace killed me yesterday on the radio when he told the press conference that he asked the guys did they want to continue to play ugly footy and try to tough a win out or win it off their own boot. It's not the fact that he asked the players when he should have told them ... it's that he actually consciously had to ask the question.

The ugly footy has been an intentional change this year.. it's back fired horribly. You draft fast mid height players, that are suited to a play on fast move it quick at all costs style... You don't try to teach them to possess the ball, draft less athletes more footballers with football brains for that ala the Coughlan mold. Reading his jungle talk stuff from the start of the year, he was happy with our forward/midfield goal kicking firepower and on past seasons results he probably could have been. We might have been flat track bullies but the ability was there. He wanted us to be 1 goal per quarter more defensively minded... you could have got a goal a quarter by using the same gameplan but making tackling and defensive running more important KPI's. Instead we changed the entire gameplan.

Our two "gameplans" were on display yesterday .... first qtr and a half.. Kick it to a good position and run ..... move it fast don't let numbers get back , kick it to a 50/50 and with how much contested ball we were winning we kicked goals.

Gameplan 2 ..... possess the crap out of it, slow up the tempo refuse to kick to a contest let numbers flood back in droves. Allow opposition to pressure us .... rest is history.

People can think this was pressure , no winning mentality etc the reality is the coach let them play this way .. so you must assume it's intentional.

Last season we were the second best club for contested football in the league by stats, that stat alone suggests that one on one are kids aren't as useless as people would have us believe or as bad as our supporters think (some are.... alot aren't)

I can live with turning the ball over because we played on and we lost a contest from a real forward thrust.... I can't live with it being turned over from filler possessions.

Last season we were 3 and 8...... we might be in a similar possession this year if we are very lucky.. we weren't good enough last year and we aren't going to be good enough this year to play finals and have any impact. If we had snuck into the finals this year Wallace and the crew might have kept their jobs .... and we would be like we where when Frawley and Northey got us to the Prelim.... "Thinking we were in a better state" than we actually are..

So the perspective ..... when Wallace took over we had a rubbish under achieving list ... with no quality young kids at all, no defensive stocks... a bunch of aging mid tier players a superstar or two ... and filler.

The aging mid tier are moving on... The young kids output is as good or better than some of this lot already and they are still very young. I'll point to Geelong 4 to 5 years ago .... Brett Deledio wears the same criticism that ABlett did for quite a few years... "he doesn't do it all the time " , "he flashes in and out" so on so on. Geelong stuck to a core group that the public thought was pretty "average" for a long time. Suddenly that group hits 24-26 .... and it's a whole new kettle of fish.

Theres still plenty of good players in our group that with the right support structure could play in a premiership team... I'm glad we didn't make finals this year so that the reality hits home with everyone in the decision making process.

Id rather the right coach now ... take this team with a much better starting base than Wallace had move us forward. Wallace has not left us in the same state that Danny did.

 

[krustyman]

wallace is a step behind every other coach, they should have maintained their structure and not pulled everyone back into defense the way they did, its not their style and they need a more open game to be effective they ended up playing on lions terms.

 

[boodsyboy]

Wallace is done and dusted get rid of him now.

 

[Goldust]

According to the Footy Show, we are #1 in the AFL this season when it coems to hardball gets!!!
Was mentioned Thursday night!

 

[HighFlyer]

According to the Footy Show, we are #1 in the AFL this season when it coems to hardball gets!!!
Was mentioned Thursday night!

It's been like that for nearly three seasons. When they are allowed to play a style that it suites we do well.. but we eventually get suckered or drawn into playing tempo footy.. and it's not just Joel... before the people get in on it... When we play loose man or zone ... we look like we don't chase or don't compete.

I just don't want to see all the kids thrown to the wolves to see "if they can play". The reality is the new coach is going to have to keep a large majority of them anyway ... they won't move more than 5 or so in a shallow draft.

I played alot of football and there are players that are average reserves footballers that when promoted turn into alot better senior footballers. They need better players to bring them into the game, to reward the running to the right spot and to kick the ball to them properly in a one on one.

Right now Gus is looking like one of these footballers.. he won't win a brownlow medal but he looks better in the senior team with confidence than he does with Coburg... just can't afford the senior team to be coburg in the remaining games of the season. The Symonds, Bowdens , Browns , Cousins etc need to play to take the heat of the new kids...

There is also the reverse of this .. the guys who play good football in the reserves but can't play senior football because they can't get away with the same crap. Ala Shulz. Unfortunately the guy who gets 20 touches a week from hard running, hard ball gets, in and unders etc who may very well do the same in the senior team doesn't put enough pressure on the senior list when the coaching staff aren't basing their KPI's on what the team really needs.

Throwing the posts, the Vickeries etc into the fray right now ... won't help their development.

 

[bigstyletiger]

True - a little bit of perspective goes a long way. Considering our list deficiencies not a bad time to have a bad season. Doesn't quite make the relieve the heart break of most of TW and Miller's promises not coming to fruition however.

Looking forward to seeing a new coach work with our youngsters and hopefully getting a key forward with a top 5 pick.

 

[_RT_]

According to the Footy Show, we are #1 in the AFL this season when it coems to hardball gets!!!
Was mentioned Thursday night!

I reckon the only reason we're ranked so highly in that stat is Champion Data counts it as a hardball get when one of our players handballs it to a teammate with an opponent right up his clacker.

 

[emperor]

Maybe those prolific hard ball stats are a product of our deplorable skills and lack of structure. As usual stats don't tell the full story.

Not having a crack at the sentiment of the OP, but I'm sick of 'perspective'. Just want to be a competitive football club again.

 

[bigstyletiger]

Screw competitive - that's the kind of language that losers use. I want to be apart of a successful club.

We wouldn't be a bad side if we had a decent forward line structure that would give our players confidence to get the ball in quickly instead of overpossessing the ball and thus increasing the chances of turning it over in the midfield.

 

[emperor]

Screw competitive - that's the kind of language that losers use. I want to be apart of a successful club.

.

Touche

 

[_RT_]

Throwing the posts, the Vickeries etc into the fray right now ... won't help their development.

Sorry but thats a crap attitude. Post is 19 years old(turns 20 in Dec) and is 194cm & 88kg (more likely 90-92 now) so there is no real reason why he shouldn't be given a crack in the side apart from form.

A classic example is Taylor Walker who I have been watching running around for the Crows this afternoon. A kid who turned 18 2 weeks ago and was thrown in at the deep end by the Crows and has played every game this year up forward. Sure he has had some quiet games but by seasons end he could have 18-22 games under his belt and perhaps a 35-40 goal haul as well. Meanwhile we'll keep on turning to the same old players we've tried year after year, who have failed us year after year.

Sitting kids at Coburg hasn't worked so far so why not try something different and play the kids at the top level and see what they can do.

 

[HighFlyer]

I reckon the only reason we're ranked so highly in that stat is Champion Data counts it as a hardball get when one of our players handballs it to a teammate with an opponent right up his clacker.

It's possible, I actually don't care anymore. There needs to be cleanout, but it doesn't need to be 20+ players. If the coach has to keep "turning over" the list to find players who can kick under pressure. Perhaps he should have rated football ability and kicking skills higher than vertical leap , 50m sprint and beep tests (of which JON rated extremely high in all aspects...)

Horses for courses... map your game plan to your team and draft to compliment it .

 

[HighFlyer]

A classic example is Taylor Walker who I have been watching running around for the Crows this afternoon. A kid who turned 18 2 weeks ago and was thrown in at the deep end by the Crows and has played every game this year up forward.

It's perspective again.

Put into a team that know how to play football are coached well and have GOOD successful senior players around them. The bit where I said .... some players play better with better footballers around them holds true here.
Walker probably has a list of a handful of KPI's he needs to achieve each week and thats all he needs to do to stay in the team.

Vickery would come into exactly the opposite here...

The wolves aren't senior AFL football... the wolves are us.

 

[_RT_]

It's perspective again.

Put into a team that know how to play football are coached well and have GOOD successful senior players around them. The bit where I said .... some players play better with better footballers around them holds true here.
Walker probably has a list of a handful of KPI's he needs to achieve each week and thats all he needs to do to stay in the team.

Vickery would come into exactly the opposite here...

The wolves aren't senior AFL football... the wolves are us.

Why can't we do the same then? Say to a kid like Post, look we're going to play you at FF/CHF and here is what we want: 10-15 possies, 5-10 marks, 1-2 goals & 2-3 tackles. If he happens to have 1-2 games where he doesn't hit that, we don't drop him we say to him we have faith in you and you're going to keep playing.

Doing something different has to be better than doing nothing different.

 

[bigstyletiger]

It's perspective again.

Put into a team that know how to play football are coached well and have GOOD successful senior players around them. The bit where I said .... some players play better with better footballers around them holds true here.
Walker probably has a list of a handful of KPI's he needs to achieve each week and thats all he needs to do to stay in the team.

Vickery would come into exactly the opposite here...

The wolves aren't senior AFL football... the wolves are us.

Unfortunately you are probably right.

 

[Bojangles17]

The heart is beating in our side, the sheer volume of footy that we maintain proves that...beyond that we have 2/3 of a structure that should be required to win footy matches with the obvious void being a functional forward line...In addition the gameplan fails to be applied for more than 40 odd minutes of the 120min match, squandering any hope we may have had

 

[HighFlyer]

Why can't we do the same then? Say to a kid like Post, look we're going to play you at FF/CHF and here is what we want: 10-15 possies, 5-10 marks, 1-2 goals & 2-3 tackles. If he happens to have 1-2 games where he doesn't hit that, we don't drop him we say to him we have faith in you and you're going to keep playing.

Doing something different has to be better than doing nothing different.

RT We could but past history with this coach suggests that we won't. I'm gonna say something here that I thought would never come out of my mouth. If SOMEONE would tell JON to go back , tack his kick and back himself we'd already have a kid capable of those figures. He gets to the ball, his hands have been very good in marking contests, he is just scared to be the man to have to do something with it. So he tries to give it to someone else to do something with it...Tries to make something thats not there and screws it up. That was tambling 4 weeks ago too, and somethings changed there thankfully which is why he is having more impact. I actually hope they persist with JON right now ... thats the part I never thought I'd think.

 

[Bojangles17]

Sorry but thats a crap attitude. Post is 19 years old(turns 20 in Dec) and is 194cm & 88kg (more likely 90-92 now) so there is no real reason why he shouldn't be given a crack in the side apart from form.

A classic example is Taylor Walker who I have been watching running around for the Crows this afternoon. A kid who turned 18 2 weeks ago and was thrown in at the deep end by the Crows and has played every game this year up forward. Sure he has had some quiet games but by seasons end he could have 18-22 games under his belt and perhaps a 35-40 goal haul as well. Meanwhile we'll keep on turning to the same old players we've tried year after year, who have failed us year after year.

Sitting kids at Coburg hasn't worked so far so why not try something different and play the kids at the top level and see what they can do.

it's a good point , we still need to be selective though...a guy like vickery to me seems a bloody mile off considering he couldnt take an overhead mark at VFL level...Post did some decent things at NAB ..I know the club really rates him , Id be inclined to give him a go

 

[KickIt2Cotch]

I'm as gutted as anyone else here with our hugely disappointing season. However it's worth bringing it into perspective now.

Our kids aren't that bad. We actually aren't devoid of talent. While we still fail to achieve any success our list is not in the state it was when Wallace took over.

Whats more dissapointing this year is that the team has shown for 1/4's and 1/2's that they really can play, Geelong/Sydney matches actually do show improvement on last year, result was the same but we were not bullied or beaten up from the first bounce.

Wallace killed me yesterday on the radio when he told the press conference that he asked the guys did they want to continue to play ugly footy and try to tough a win out or win it off their own boot. It's not the fact that he asked the players when he should have told them ... it's that he actually consciously had to ask the question.

The ugly footy has been an intentional change this year.. it's back fired horribly. You draft fast mid height players, that are suited to a play on fast move it quick at all costs style... You don't try to teach them to possess the ball, draft less athletes more footballers with football brains for that ala the Coughlan mold. Reading his jungle talk stuff from the start of the year, he was happy with our forward/midfield goal kicking firepower and on past seasons results he probably could have been. We might have been flat track bullies but the ability was there. He wanted us to be 1 goal per quarter more defensively minded... you could have got a goal a quarter by using the same gameplan but making tackling and defensive running more important KPI's. Instead we changed the entire gameplan.

Our two "gameplans" were on display yesterday .... first qtr and a half.. Kick it to a good position and run ..... move it fast don't let numbers get back , kick it to a 50/50 and with how much contested ball we were winning we kicked goals.

Gameplan 2 ..... possess the crap out of it, slow up the tempo refuse to kick to a contest let numbers flood back in droves. Allow opposition to pressure us .... rest is history.

People can think this was pressure , no winning mentality etc the reality is the coach let them play this way .. so you must assume it's intentional.

Last season we were the second best club for contested football in the league by stats, that stat alone suggests that one on one are kids aren't as useless as people would have us believe or as bad as our supporters think (some are.... alot aren't)

I can live with turning the ball over because we played on and we lost a contest from a real forward thrust.... I can't live with it being turned over from filler possessions.

Last season we were 3 and 8...... we might be in a similar possession this year if we are very lucky.. we weren't good enough last year and we aren't going to be good enough this year to play finals and have any impact. If we had snuck into the finals this year Wallace and the crew might have kept their jobs .... and we would be like we where when Frawley and Northey got us to the Prelim.... "Thinking we were in a better state" than we actually are..

So the perspective ..... when Wallace took over we had a rubbish under achieving list ... with no quality young kids at all, no defensive stocks... a bunch of aging mid tier players a superstar or two ... and filler.

The aging mid tier are moving on... The young kids output is as good or better than some of this lot already and they are still very young. I'll point to Geelong 4 to 5 years ago .... Brett Deledio wears the same criticism that ABlett did for quite a few years... "he doesn't do it all the time " , "he flashes in and out" so on so on. Geelong stuck to a core group that the public thought was pretty "average" for a long time. Suddenly that group hits 24-26 .... and it's a whole new kettle of fish.

Theres still plenty of good players in our group that with the right support structure could play in a premiership team... I'm glad we didn't make finals this year so that the reality hits home with everyone in the decision making process.

Id rather the right coach now ... take this team with a much better starting base than Wallace had move us forward. Wallace has not left us in the same state that Danny did.

Well Done i totally agree

 

[Strawbs]

Some interesting discussion (and without the immature name-calling just because someone disagrees - refreshing!) Highflyer, I like the Deledio/Ablett analogy. I think we have to give Post a run. Cleve simply hasn't done enough to warrant another run. But if we do promote Cleve, he has to play for 4 or 5 weeks so that we know he's been given a decent go. That big forward spot is a gaping hole isn't it?
I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious here but the difference a couple of wins would make is massive. Finally we have a good first quarter but our confidence saps exponentially with the Lions confidence increasing. The point about JON is a valid one. You can see he's got some terrific athletic gifts but his self-belief is shaky. You only have to look at Essendon to see what confidence does to young players.
It's not all doom and gloom.