The Fremantle Strangle

[Unique Name]

No we haven't lost it, we just aren't doing it.
The years before we were a club on the way up trying to prove ourselves and take it up to the best.
We were putting in maximum effort every week.
We got to the grand final.
Now we are a club who feels we are 1 of the best 2 teams in the comp.
So we aren't doing all the little 1%ers, aren't putting in as much effort for as long.

Its an effort based gameplan and requires maximum effort all year every minute.
We didn't put in the required effort against Sydney until the game was over in the 4th quarter, which allowed us to nearly come back.

The players can switch on the effort whenever they want.
The problem is getting them to give that effort every single game instead of saving it for when they need it eg last night when the game was getting out of hand and they had to do something. Or waiting for finals.

So no the Freo strangle is not gone, no teams haven't adjusted to it.
The problem is we just aren't putting in the required effort to be able to do it.

The players will get blasted by the boss from Saturdays effort.
So we will see a lot more pressure and effort next week.
The players always are desperate to beat eagles so we will see the pressure and effort again in that game.

We can turn it on when we want, but to finish top 2 we must turn it on every single week, not just when the players feel its required.

This.

Absolutely spot on. Effort and intensity are down and the players have drunk too much of the Freo-2014-Flag-Kool-Aid and think they can coast to a top 2 finish. RTB needs to give them a blasting and bring them back down to reality.

 

[pokerspiv]

Where's your evidence that effort is down?

 

[Crippa]

Mundy said the lack of on-field effort was the biggest thing that needed to be addressed.

"Right from the get-go our desire wasn't there ...

"It took us until the game got really desperate for us to get desperate.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sport/afl/a/22804340/dockers-losing-respect-fears-mundy/

 

[slicedndiced]

And yet again Colin's mum gets shown up.

Blind Freddy could see that our intensity was way down.

But I suppose that Mundy is wrong too.

 

[manpurple]

I'm sick of having people who talk about flare and how great we were to watch when we lost (matches of brilliance vs a season ending outside the 8). And what about the constant complaints we had in early 2012 about playing boring footy.
Nope RTB is in a different category. He does not care about popularity, he's said it before. We are not in a popularity contest. Every year we get done in the pre season (this year was no exception) only to extend our steak of winning the first game of the season to 5 straight. It should tell us something about RTB's priorities. He is the only coach to every get us to a GF, the only one to get us back-to-back into the finals. So now the sky is falling because of two loses.

IMHO people need to take a chill pill.

RTB has one goal finals football, with a preference for a top 4 finish. That's a target of 12 (PA last year) for a finals birth or 15.5 (Swans 4th last year) to go top 4. So drop another 4 matches and still go top 4. Wow anyone would think that we might have a chance at that.
I don't think our game plan came apart against Sydney and they were always going to bring the fire. They are not as bad as the media has made them out to be and they were due for a breakout game. Still think that we will be playing them in September and against both them and the Hawks i'll trade a loss now for a win in September. Granted I would have preferred the win but in the grand scheme of things if we will all our home games (and they are all winnable Geelong and Hawks being the hardest) from here we make the finals. Wins away just determine where we finish in the top 8.

 

[Purple Jesus]

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sport/afl/a/22804340/dockers-losing-respect-fears-mundy/

Sheesh.. that's telling. Some underlying threats in that.

 

[blue shark]

Too many guys chasing the pill, maximum of two required, with the others waiting for the handball, kick to space. Even when we have the
numbers the opposition still find a way to keep their arms free, which suggests we are a poor tackling side. How many competitive beasts
do Fremantle have? How many are down on form?
I rate Fyfe, Barlow, Griffen, Moro, Silvagni, Sandi (sometimes) who can physically impose themselves in a game. the jury is out on Deboer,
Suban, Neale, Sutcliffe, Crozier, Sheridan, Tabener, Clarke, and to be fair some of these guys need time.
But soft tackles, and no hunger for the contest, gives the opposition time, space, to use the ball by hand or foot.

 

[freoextra]

Too many guys chasing the pill, maximum of two required, with the others waiting for the handball, kick to space. Even when we have the
numbers the opposition still find a way to keep their arms free, which suggests we are a poor tackling side. How many competitive beasts
do Fremantle have? How many are down on form?
I rate Fyfe, Barlow, Griffen, Moro, Silvagni, Sandi (sometimes) who can physically impose themselves in a game. the jury is out on Deboer,
Suban, Neale, Sutcliffe, Crozier, Sheridan, Tabener, Clarke, and to be fair some of these guys need time.
But soft tackles, and no hunger for the contest, gives the opposition time, space, to use the ball by hand or foot.

I rate Suban and even Clarke as players that have shown they can physically impose themselves in a game, but had a collective shocker last game.

 

[Sman-21]

Looks like others showed the proof that effort has been down and its coming straight from one of our players mouths, so if you don't believe the fans believe the players.

Pretty sure there was another player that said the same sort of thing or maybe it was Lyon himself.

If you cant see a difference in our effort and intensity from game to game I don't know what you guys are watching.

Glad to see the players know and are trying to fix it.
Unfortunately modern footy is played a lot above the shoulders, without the right mindset teams will struggle.
I have no concerns come finals time that it will be back in full force.
My concern is how many games it will go missing and where we end up at the end of the season.

The players have made it to the biggest game of the year so very easy for them to not get fired up for just normal games.

 

[pokerspiv]

Every player in every sport in history says the same thing when they lose. That's because believing it's just a matter of effort is preferable to believing that it's a matter of ability.

I'm sorry but I just don't believe our effort was down. It was clear that our skills were though. The inside 50 efficiency tells the story.

 

[Crippa]

Every player in every sport in history says the same thing when they lose. That's because believing it's just a matter of effort is preferable to believing that it's a matter of ability.

I'm sorry but I just don't believe our effort was down. It was clear that our skills were though. The inside 50 efficiency tells the story.

No they don't all say the same thing.

Re Noth Melbourne's loss:

[Brad Scott] was not critical of the effort, he said his team's skill execution was not up to the standard required.

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-04-19/north-fails-pressure-test

Re Freo's loss:

Mundy said the lack of on-field effort was the biggest thing that needed to be addressed.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sport/afl/a/22804340/dockers-losing-respect-fears-mundy/

Mundy's not the bullshitting type. He should know. I believe him.

 

[clogged]

Sometimes you can't win on effort alone.

Why was the premiership lost?

 

[pokerspiv]

Mundy's not the bullshitting type. He should know. I believe him.

The stats don't really bear out what he's saying though.

The biggest outlier is scores per inside 50s. Sydney's ratio was nearly double ours:

Sydney scored from 58% of their inside 50s. We only scored from 31% of ours. In the end, that was the difference between the two teams. Better forward structures and ball use. Remember we weren't exactly blown away, the margin was less than 3 goals.

Stats taken from here:
http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=5795#hd

The only other stat that is significantly higher for Sydney is tackles. But that is understable given that we dominated hitouts, most of those tackles came in the almost endless stoppages where players were getting tackled nonstop.

Contested possessions were almost identical: 145 vs 144. Sydney had slightly more uncontested due to their using the handball out the back to break our press. 1%ers were pretty much even. Fremantle won the clearances pretty easily.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=5795&advv=Y

The stats tell the real story. The effort from both sides was intense. It's just that Sydney had more polish and made better decisions when moving the ball forward.

It's not all about effort. If it was then you wouldn't bother with a draft or recruiting or whatever. You'd just take 25 blokes with great attitudes and make them train their guts out. Skills are underrated, just look at Hawthorn. Tall forwards are also pretty underrated, especially by Ross Lyon.

The whole "we just didn't try enough" thing is just a cliche for the media. Mundy is hardly going to come out and criticise our forward structure, because by doing so he would be criticising the coach. Do you really think the Freo match committee is in their meetings this week writing "try harder" on the whiteboard and leaving it at that?

 

[Tazmania]

The stats don't really bear out what he's saying though.

The biggest outlier is scores per inside 50s. Sydney's ratio was nearly double ours:

Sydney scored from 58% of their inside 50s. We only scored from 31% of ours. In the end, that was the difference between the two teams. Better forward structures and ball use. Remember we weren't exactly blown away, the margin was less than 3 goals.

Stats taken from here:
http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=5795#hd

The only other stat that is significantly higher for Sydney is tackles. But that is understable given that we dominated hitouts, most of those tackles came in the almost endless stoppages where players were getting tackled nonstop.

Contested possessions were almost identical: 145 vs 144. Sydney had slightly more uncontested due to their using the handball out the back to break our press. 1%ers were pretty much even. Fremantle won the clearances pretty easily.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=5795&advv=Y

The stats tell the real story. The effort from both sides was intense. It's just that Sydney had more polish and made better decisions when moving the ball forward.

It's not all about effort. If it was then you wouldn't bother with a draft or recruiting or whatever. You'd just take 25 blokes with great attitudes and make them train their guts out. Skills are underrated, just look at Hawthorn. Tall forwards are also pretty underrated, especially by Ross Lyon.

The whole "we just didn't try enough" thing is just a cliche for the media. Mundy is hardly going to come out and criticise our forward structure, because by doing so he would be criticising the coach. Do you really think the Freo match committee is in their meetings this week writing "try harder" on the whiteboard and leaving it at that?

If you're going to use stats then lets compare it to the last time we played Sydney... eg the prelim. http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=5755&advv=Y

In that game we beat Sydney in contested possessions 155 -134 eg 21. Last game they beat us by 1 so that's a 22 cp turnaround.
In that game we beat Sydney in uncontested possessions 227 -210 eg 17. Last game they beat us 249 - 214 eg 35...that's a 52 up turnaround.
So in total the turnaround in possessions was 74 in their favour. That's massive.

Additionally look at the shorelines and they are almost completely reversed. In the prelim the final result looks closer as we let them back in the game after outscoring them in the first half. In last weeks they allowed freo to kick 6 in the last to their three. Lyon and I'm sure Longmire too tell the player to put the cue in the rack at 3/4 time so as to help prevent injury when they're that far ahead so the scoreline in each game flatters the loser.

I can only put that down to a drop in work rate. It's not that we were worse than Sydney it's that the work rate isn't where we now know it can be. As RTB says extraordinary effort brings extraordinary results and we saw that last year. Do you really think that drop off is all just a lack of skills?

Last year we got by with injuries because the work rate of the team as a whole stayed fairly consistent all year. One stat that isn't shown is pressure acts. I would say this has really dropped off this year allowing opposition more time and space to think. Freon just don't seem to be chasing them down like they did last year.

We know freo can do better now and what's wrong with us expecting that this year? It will pick up again but there's definitely been a slower start to the season for the team.

 

[Crippa]

The stats don't really bear out what he's saying though.

The biggest outlier is scores per inside 50s. Sydney's ratio was nearly double ours:

Sydney scored from 58% of their inside 50s. We only scored from 31% of ours. In the end, that was the difference between the two teams. Better forward structures and ball use. Remember we weren't exactly blown away, the margin was less than 3 goals.

Stats taken from here:
http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=5795#hd

The only other stat that is significantly higher for Sydney is tackles. But that is understable given that we dominated hitouts, most of those tackles came in the almost endless stoppages where players were getting tackled nonstop.

Contested possessions were almost identical: 145 vs 144. Sydney had slightly more uncontested due to their using the handball out the back to break our press. 1%ers were pretty much even. Fremantle won the clearances pretty easily.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_match_statistics?mid=5795&advv=Y

The stats tell the real story. The effort from both sides was intense. It's just that Sydney had more polish and made better decisions when moving the ball forward.

It's not all about effort. If it was then you wouldn't bother with a draft or recruiting or whatever. You'd just take 25 blokes with great attitudes and make them train their guts out. Skills are underrated, just look at Hawthorn. Tall forwards are also pretty underrated, especially by Ross Lyon.

The whole "we just didn't try enough" thing is just a cliche for the media. Mundy is hardly going to come out and criticise our forward structure, because by doing so he would be criticising the coach. Do you really think the Freo match committee is in their meetings this week writing "try harder" on the whiteboard and leaving it at that?

Your premise that the "scores per inside 50s" stat tells the real story is not evidence for the conclusion that Sydney won because their forward structure and skills were better. It simply assumes the truth of that conclusion.

Longmire and Lyon have argued independently that the real difference in the game was Sydney's intensity, reflected in the fact that Sydney won the ground balls convincingly and almost doubled our tackle count. These two stats were cited by both coaches as the key indicators in this game.

If you wish to attack their argument, then something more than circular reasoning is required.

Your second argument - that if it was all about effort, you wouldn't bother with a draft or recruiting - is a logical fallacy because it's the calibre and type of players that the club manages to recruit that determines the extent to which superior effort will be needed to win.

You have also advanced certain stand-alone propositions:

• Tall forwards are pretty underrated, especially by Ross Lyon
• Skills are underrated, just look at Hawthorn.
  
• The "we just didn't try enough" thing is just a cliche for the media.

These statements are (to the extent that they are intelligible) just unsubstantiated assertions. Their truth-value is comparable to some of your other gems:

• Nobody over the age of 22 has ever been dropped by Lyon
  
• Every player in every sport in history says the same thing when they lose.

 

[clogged]

Longmire and Lyon have argued independently that the real difference in the game was Sydney's intensity, reflected in the fact that Sydney won the ground balls convincingly and almost doubled our tackle count. These two stats were cited by both coaches as the key indicators in this game.

Sydney have done that before. They let Fremantle win the ball in clearances and put pressure on to ensure that there isn't clean and easy inside 50 options. They happily played a counter attack game style knowing they would win the one on ones in defence. They did it in last year's draw, and again two years ago. Being at all three games it was astonishing how the three went to the same script.

A number of sides that have beaten Fremantle in the past two years have done so using defence as the springboard. Harry Taylor starred in the KP game mid last year. Brian Lake won the Norm Smith. On the weekend just gone Sydney's half back flankers won a tonne of possession.

Effort only tells half the story. There is a serious lack of class in Fremantle's forward half which better teams use to their advantage. Only a slight drop off in effort diminishes any chance Fremantle have of winning.

Ross Lyon has brought three effort based teams to the grand final and lost because of lack of class. It's something he has to address if he wants to be a premiership coach, otherwise he will forever just be a good coach with great results record.

 

[mattis117]

Was devastating in 2013. The Freo v Sydney Prelim Final had media commentators gasping at the maniacal defensive pressure we placed on the ball carrier and our capacity to pressure sides into coughing up the ball.

It was clearly evident for most of the second half of 2012 (as evidenced below) and for most of 2013.

Have we lost it?

I think we have played 5 rounds and we shouldn't get carried away. My take on it is our fixturing has really screwed us over. We are a no excuses football club, but both losses have come on the road off a 6 day break and after a game played in very tough conditions. Both games we have looked flat for large periods.

The hawks loss came a week after the slog in the rain against gold coast, which was a tough game. The Sydney loss came 6 days after playing a game in 34C heat and then travelling to Sydney. I don't blame the guys for struggling a bit when having to deal with that.

When we have played fresh, the guys have looked a million bucks and won easily. We confront another 6 day break this week - but at least our opponents do as well. And they are travelling this time. The other 6 day breaks were against teams that had 7 days break (I think).

 

[manpurple]

The stats don't really bear out what he's saying though.

The biggest outlier is scores per inside 50s. Sydney's ratio was nearly double ours:

Sydney scored from 58% of their inside 50s. We only scored from 31% of ours. In the end, that was the difference between the two teams. Better forward structures and ball use. Remember we weren't exactly blown away, the margin was less than 3 goals.

It was interesting to hear Mundy's comments and add them to this useful titbit (thanks pokerspiv).

Earlier in the discussion people were talking about the failure of our game plan. I just don't see it. I think that plan was working but the execution fell short.

Yesterday there was a review of why Geelong is able to sort out Hawthorne so consistently on the AFL website and the commentators mentioned that it is because of the Cats ability to close on the ball carrier so quickly and force them to handball under pressure. I could not help thinking "that's the way we play". And then qualify it by saying, "when we are playing well".

The only conclusion I have is that we have the plan but the execution is just not there. Now with the Hawks i am 90% sure its all above the neck. With the rest of them I rate us on any given day and Geelong we have a good recent record against. IMHO, we still have the cattle, and plan to go 1 better this year.

 

[E Shed]

It was interesting to hear Mundy's comments and add them to this useful titbit (thanks pokerspiv).

Earlier in the discussion people were talking about the failure of our game plan. I just don't see it. I think that plan was working but the execution fell short.

Yesterday there was a review of why Geelong is able to sort out Hawthorne so consistently on the AFL website and the commentators mentioned that it is because of the Cats ability to close on the ball carrier so quickly and force them to handball under pressure. I could not help thinking "that's the way we play". And then qualify it by saying, "when we are playing well".

The only conclusion I have is that we have the plan but the execution is just not there. Now with the Hawks i am 90% sure its all above the neck. With the rest of them I rate us on any given day and Geelong we have a good recent record against. IMHO, we still have the cattle, and plan to go 1 better this year.

I saw that, Garry Lyon at his superficial best. They cherry picked a few times when Geelong were putting pressure on in the forward half as examples. It looks to me like Hawthorn setup differently against us. Richmond started it last year (to my knowledge) and Sydney and Hawks have done it this year. They have a plus one at stoppages on their defensive side and they flick the ball by hand back and forth till they get far enough away from our tackling players to have a clear kick which goes to a player running wide of the stoppage. As soon as that kick is away the other players run and spread. If they move the ball fast enough by foot are players are constantly running backwards, handing off, setting up and don't get a chance to force the turnover which our offensive play starts with.
With all that we still got enough ball against Sydney to win but we completely botched up our inside 50 entries. Our kicking inside 50 was diabolically bad.
I'm hoping its because of the in between size of their ground messed with our running patterns and drills.

 

[Crippa]

There is a serious lack of class in Fremantle's forward half

I agree. That is something the list manager and recruiters have to address.

 

[go_the_dockers]

I saw that, Garry Lyon at his superficial best. They cherry picked a few times when Geelong were putting pressure on in the forward half as examples. It looks to me like Hawthorn setup differently against us. Richmond started it last year (to my knowledge) and Sydney and Hawks have done it this year. They have a plus one at stoppages on their defensive side and they flick the ball by hand back and forth till they get far enough away from our tackling players to have a clear kick which goes to a player running wide of the stoppage. As soon as that kick is away the other players run and spread. If they move the ball fast enough by foot are players are constantly running backwards, handing off, setting up and don't get a chance to force the turnover which our offensive play starts with.
With all that we still got enough ball against Sydney to win but we completely botched up our inside 50 entries. Our kicking inside 50 was diabolically bad.
I'm hoping its because of the in between size of their ground messed with our running patterns and drills.

Great post, up until the bold bit anyway.

I am not sure our kicking into the 50 was completely to blame as a number of times they simply had no one to kick to. I wonder why we didn't keep Taberner, Pavlich or Clarke\Sandi deep to provide a 1 on 1 marking contest for our forwards.

 

[TheMcManusNose]

Yesterday there was a review of why Geelong is able to sort out Hawthorne so consistently on the AFL website and the commentators mentioned that it is because of the Cats ability to close on the ball carrier so quickly and force them to handball under pressure. I could not help thinking "that's the way we play". And then qualify it by saying, "when we are playing well".

Watching the game, I thought Geelong's set-up in those circumstances was a little bit different to ours. We tend to play a more 'zoned' structure when trying to pressure the opposition coming out of defence. I thought the Cats played a little tighter to the man. On a wider space like the MCG, our zone isn't sufficient to cover the opposition men when the kicking is as low and precise as Hawthorn's is. The Cats set-up definitely looked similar to ours, they had players consistently leaving their man and the space they were guarding to pressure the ball carrier anywhere near the defensive 50, but I think it was the tendency (although not complete commitment) to a more man-on-man coverage that did the trick.

Against Sydney we failed completely in this area - there were many occasions where the Swans were able run or move the ball out of defence without a Fremantle player even in the picture. I think this is where the 'effort' part comes in. We didn't chase hard enough and weren't in the right positions quick enough when Sydney moved the ball out of defence. Having said that, if our forward entries were more effective (the curse of the last how many years for us?), we could have easily won that game.

 

[E Shed]

Great post, up until the bold bit anyway.

I am not sure our kicking into the 50 was completely to blame as a number of times they simply had no one to kick to. I wonder why we didn't keep Taberner, Pavlich or Clarke\Sandi deep to provide a 1 on 1 marking contest for our forwards.

I only watched it live, haven't watched a replay but that was my impression live, how many awful kicks missed their target, went over the leading forwards head, or straight to a Sydney defender.

 

[go_the_dockers]

I only watched it live, haven't watched a replay but that was my impression live, how many awful kicks missed their target, went over the leading forwards head, or straight to a Sydney defender.

Yeh I only watched it live as well, but agree kicks went straight to a Sydney defender but quite often he was alone in our forward line. This is why in the 2nd half I saw us stop a fast break and kick sideways as we had no other option.

I guess you are blaming the kicker, when I am blaming the forward structure.

PS - The kicking to the forward line was not great, but I don't think they should take all the blame.

 

[go_the_dockers]

Watching the game, I thought Geelong's set-up in those circumstances was a little bit different to ours. We tend to play a more 'zoned' structure when trying to pressure the opposition coming out of defence. I thought the Cats played a little tighter to the man. On a wider space like the MCG, our zone isn't sufficient to cover the opposition men when the kicking is as low and precise as Hawthorn's is. The Cats set-up definitely looked similar to ours, they had players consistently leaving their man and the space they were guarding to pressure the ball carrier anywhere near the defensive 50, but I think it was the tendency (although not complete commitment) to a more man-on-man coverage that did the trick.

Against Sydney we failed completely in this area - there were many occasions where the Swans were able run or move the ball out of defence without a Fremantle player even in the picture. I think this is where the 'effort' part comes in. We didn't chase hard enough and weren't in the right positions quick enough when Sydney moved the ball out of defence. Having said that, if our forward entries were more effective (the curse of the last how many years for us?), we could have easily won that game.

Agree, I lost count of the number of times a Sydney person would lead and his opponent would be 10m behind him.