Strategy The Game Plan Thread

[CF]

Interesting opinion I seen on FC tonight given for the reason why the Pies beat the Cats and yet Sydney beat the Pies. It was pointed out that when Geelong moved the ball on transition from defence they used handball to try and break through their zone which (as they put it) played into the Pies hands. Allowing the Pies to crowd the Geelong Players and make them turn it over in the middle of the ground. The Press 101.

However when Sydney played the Pies they used kicks to move the ball as they transitioned from defence which meant the Pies were unable to use their press as efficiently and with the Swans speed they could create loose players at CHF who could receive the ball. Much like we did in the 2011 GF.

This struck me as being true, and the stats are showing that the Cats have gone back to a handball style game again that we used previously. Interestingly CS blamed our defensive efforts for losing that match. But I do think that what was said on FC is a valid comparison and should be food for thought for those looking at our game tactics in future games in this season.

 

[ZosoCat]

Interesting opinion I seen on FC tonight given for the reason why the Pies beat the Cats and yet Sydney beat the Pies. It was pointed out that when Geelong moved the ball on transition from defence they used handball to try and break through their zone which (as they put it) played into the Pies hands. Allowing the Pies to crowd the Geelong Players and make them turn it over in the middle of the ground. The Press 101.

However when Sydney played the Pies they used kicks to move the ball as they transitioned from defence which meant the Pies were unable to use their press as efficiently and with the Swans speed they could create loose players at CHF who could receive the ball. Much like we did in the 2011 GF.

This struck me as being true, and the stats are showing that the Cats have gone back to a handball style game again that we used previously. Interestingly CS blamed our defensive efforts for losing that match. But I do think that what was said on FC is a valid comparison and should be food for thought for those looking at our game tactics in future games in this season.

better teams are going to be able to press us like collingwood... we will be able to handball all day agasint weaker teams and many more turnovers against them also. We will need to kick it more next time we play them. But I don't think this pies team will go THAT deep into September.

 

[Senatorguesty]

One mistake we can make is presume what we see now is what we will see come finals.
It won't be.

Our gameplan is very good and works in finals. On top of that we have extremely good coaches who adapt better than any other group aswell as senior core players who adapt to game changes within games better than just about any other group ever.

We have the talent to go all the way, we have the gameplan, we have the coaching, we have the mentality, the only question marks is injuries and possible fade outs from our kids.

We are currently playing a more handball game (although nowhere near the levels previous) but expect that to change again in the coming weeks, we aren't using a play on and handball at all costs game, just a more get the ball into the hands of our fast players who use it so well going forward type of plan, and it's working. Motlop is central to it and its why losing varcoe and hunt has hurt us so much, luckily Motlop has taken the next step and playing great footy right now.

 

[catempire]

Chris Scott is quoted as saying we changed game style, what was it, 2-3 times in 2011?

Same will happen here. Early on we have been going for pace and handball to bust lines because that played to the strength of our young players. Against Collingwood we saw that with just a couple of them out we couldn't sustain it. Yes, our defensive pressure was poor that night too which contributed.

I think a big part of it centres around our stoppage setups. At the moment we are conceding far too many clearances (although not happily doing so as Scott points out). The plan would be to bring in a strong-bodied 1st ruck when one is available in the hope that this will change. Once you start to control the clearances you don't have to rely so much on rebound footy (the "slingshot"), which is what we have been doing.

Being able to adjust a teams gameplan within a season is an enormous tactical advantage and I suspect history will view this ability as one of Chris Scott's most compelling skills.

 

[you pick one]

I reckon in the Port game last week you saw a very minor change from the Pies game the week before(handball handball play on at all cost ) right from the very first bounce.We possessed the ball a fraction longer didn't automatically play on every time we marked the ball which brought our big forwards back into play and reduced turnovers in the center of the ground.
Whether this was due to us having lost a fair bit of pace from the side or to restrict the opposition from getting a sniff early from Geelong mistakes or turnovers I don't know.
The first quarter was in my opinion a more defensive style of attack than we are used to seeing lately from the Cats.I liked it.

 

[dazbroncos]

CS also said that expect the personnel in the team now to be vastly different at years end. And that with some veteran players due to come back, their automatic inclusion should not necessarily be expected.

Changes will be present in all forms - players and style...

Personally I think it is awesome. A best 28 and plans a-d. Look out AFL...

Go Catters

 

[Hoffy95]

Thread not worth reading till David King posts his thoughts.

 

[vealesy]

I like how our H+A matches are just practice runs for finals.

This is 2011 all over again.

Going to be a ripper against the dockers to see what the boys can do to bust that boring ole zone shite open again.

 

[witsend]

The Collingwood game was weird. We were "off" from the very beginning. We just weren't switched fully on. Much like the Bulldogs game but against better opposition. Our game plan is fine. We just need to be harder at the contest in big games against good teams which we usually are.
I said in another thread that without Kelly, SJ, Chapman and T. Hunt we lacked some serious grunt, and it showed.
We nearly stole the Collingwood game by playing 15 minutes of The Geelong Way but it would have been a travesty to steal it.

 

[Selective Retention]

I like how our H+A matches are just practice runs for finals.

This is 2011 all over again.

Time is going to tell.

It didn't change for the finals last year.

We were doing the lose the clearances/contested possessions in favour of goals from turnovers caper last year.

When the finals come it hit a brick wall in the shape of Freo. You can't give that sort of start to someone in finals and expect to reel it in like we have done in the H&A last year and this year.

So I live in hope that McIntosh will change this or we can make the alterations as outlined above by a few posters but I won't be blindly banking on us flicking the switch.

 

[numbwombat]

Yeah, even if the win-loss ratio is around the same come the end of the H+A, I won't be confident unless our starts have improved dramatically. I don't think another ruckman is the be-all and end-all, though - if Blicavs keeps improving, and/or Horlin-Smith or Caddy cement a spot in the 22 with strong clearance & inside work, that would help a lot.

A good run with injuries late in the season will be an enormous help, too - Pies had some important outs 2 weeks ago (Beams & potentially Thomas, especially), but Varcoe, Kelly, SJ, Chapman, T. Hunt + Rivers is more than a quarter of the best 22.

Some uncertainty about the improvement over the course of the season in the young guys, and McIntosh's ability to regain form and stay on the ground, but a lot of good reasons for optimism.

 

[numbwombat]

Re: the game plan, I reckon a part of the return to heavy handballing, among other things, could be coming from Scott being more willing to give the players their heads & trust their instincts. Things like playing Stokes through the middle, Bartel playing wherever he thinks is most helpful, SJ and Motlop backing themselves riskily, the tall backs deciding among themselves to swap positions if things aren't going well, and the amount of time Scott seems to spend conferring with SJ and Selwood, especially.

Still need real 'game plans', for sure, but he's mentioned trusting the players to know what needs to be done on the ground in certain circumstances. Can't help but be good for confidence and trust in teammates if all goes well, compared with strict zoning or the Hawks kick-to-kick styles of play.

 

[DanA]

I think we fell down against Collingwood because we didnt have the quality necessary in the middle of the ground. It's all very well saying we didn't kick out of defense but players need to present as an option for defenders to kick too. Without having any stats I thought this didnt happen, midfield didn't work either hard enough or smart enough to make themselves an option up the field in the first quarter. Johnson & Chapman always seem to get free linking up through the middle and Schroder/Caddy weren't able fufil that role effectively enough. They had 24 posessions and 6 marks between them while Johnson himself averages more than that. The workrate of Johnson and his intelligence in movement can't be overstated.

Then when the ball was turned over in the corridor there wasn't enough pressure to win it back. GHS and Caddy got 7 tackles between them but Kelly averages 7.8 tackles himself, between Chappy, Johnson, Kelly and T-Hunt hey average more than 20 tackles a game. Almost double what there replacements did.

This is not to say GHS, Caddy and Schroder are poor players. Not at all they are ahead of the curve in terms of performance when taking into consideration age and games played. Johnson, Kelly and Chappy though are elite players in the competition. I thought there loss was most definitely felt.

 

[Jon Douglas]

Agree with most posters here.

We have too many players out that are best 22 that will make a big difference to our side and our playing. Much harder to beat with a full line up. We will likely be bigger, stronger and faster.

Our style may change as well - we do have a plan B now.

And I reckon our midfield set up will be better with HMac, Kelly, SJ and Selwood as our main 4 on ballers - with a Thunt and Bundy as very good rotations. We will win far more clearances - and that will see us with more forward 50 entries. And that will mean more goals for us and less for the opposition.

These factors above will see us at least be a 20 % more effective team in my estimation.

Other teams have players out and will improve as well - but I do not see thay have as much upside as us.

However it all depends on injuries. If we keep losing players well we wont be a 20 % better team.

 

[Turkey Tom]

Yeah, interesting comments by Lloyd, and does make sense. But Collingwood were 'on' when they played us, and seemed to be 'off' against Sydney (let down after the win against us?).

So I'd like to see some more evidence before fully agreeing with him. They have Brisbane at the Gabba this Friday, be interesting to see what Brisbane does and whether Collingwood are 'on' or 'off'.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Interesting opinion I seen on FC tonight given for the reason why the Pies beat the Cats and yet Sydney beat the Pies. It was pointed out that when Geelong moved the ball on transition from defence they used handball to try and break through their zone which (as they put it) played into the Pies hands. Allowing the Pies to crowd the Geelong Players and make them turn it over in the middle of the ground. The Press 101.

However when Sydney played the Pies they used kicks to move the ball as they transitioned from defence which meant the Pies were unable to use their press as efficiently and with the Swans speed they could create loose players at CHF who could receive the ball. Much like we did in the 2011 GF.

This struck me as being true, and the stats are showing that the Cats have gone back to a handball style game again that we used previously. Interestingly CS blamed our defensive efforts for losing that match. But I do think that what was said on FC is a valid comparison and should be food for thought for those looking at our game tactics in future games in this season.

entirely incorrect, but i can see why you or anyone else would think it is the same, similar yet entirely different

in 07 we brought in a style that created run in straight lines with little support or heavy numbers, our run and movement was often to a single player moving or simply 2-3 numbers in a straight chain

i have watched the 010 preliminary final closely, and let me tell you, the number of times we turned the ball over by either kicking it to contests or handpassing it to a player with little support or no support was rediculous, collingwood would have 4-6 players compared to our 1-3 where the ball was being kicked, all waiting and set up to quickly run the ball away, they did this as easy and pressureless as you could want

in 2011 chris scott changed it all, he began putting heavy numbers around the contest and running it in big numbers, if you run the ball in big waves and turn it over, you can often just turn it into a ball up and lock it down, but if you turn it over with little numbers or support like what was happening in 2010, then your in big trouble on the rebound

not only did we start moving it in bigger waves and numbers from contests, but we started moving and spreading diagonaly through them

I think what chris scott has changed this year is absolute genius

he has realized i think two very key things and attended to them in our game plan

1. with frontal pressure and zonings, teams arent able to sustain it for four quarters at the highest level. so what he has done to address this flaw is we are positioning our players differently around the contests so that they are all ready to go and run out for the spread if we win it, or they are in perfect position to harrass and chase opposition midfielders trying to run it through, we take out a lot of the gut bursting work by perfectly positioning them to apply the pressure before it even happens

and what is happening as a result so far this year is two things

1. we are often being beaten at the contested ball, teams are throwing more players in while we have more players on the outside structured up and ready to either get and go, or apply huge pressure. teams early on are often getting first hands on it and running their players extremely hard through our set ups and controling the games early and piling on the leads

but once they start to drop off a little, as just about every team who plays at this level of intensity does, as it is virtually impossible to keep it going for an entire game, we start to lock them down and get a run on and control the game there on

2. as introduced just before, we have a four quarter sustainable game plan this year, just about every other side plays at an intensity that cant be maintained over four quarters, where as we have one that doesnt come out with extreme intensity then die off, we have one that positions the players so they are able to run out games

also the way we are passing the ball into our forward fifty has changed heaps this year, we are no longer just bombing it into contests for teams to rebound off and spread, we are running 10-15 options at a time into our forward half from defense and midfield all trying to create loose options around 50-40m

cant be bothered posting anything more, i could go on all day and pages and pages about what we have changed and how the game has evolved, but il leave it at that for now

 

[vealesy]

Yep nice observations.

Through clever defensive positioning we are creating perceived pressure and letting the oppo run their little hearts out trying to make the most of their time with the pill.

Our guy is taking 5 steps while opponent sprints for 10.

Its burst running management.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Yep nice observations.

Through clever defensive positioning we are creating perceived pressure and letting the oppo run their little hearts out trying to make the most of their time with the pill.

Our guy is taking 5 steps while opponent sprints for 10.

Its burst running management.

thats a nice way of putting it yep, its actually pretty hard explaining this stuff just on writing or verbally to someone, footage or a whiteboard usually explains and creates a much better understanding of it

i think that is definitely one of the disadvantages of the press and manic pressure, it isnt sustainable for a whole four quarters

the collingwood game did not worry me one bit, everything i thought went to scrip, the only slight worry i had out of that loss was our last quarter fade out, which was extremely un geelong like

in hind sight we had a 1 man fit bench, horlin smith played it out with a injury, and christensen was off for 10 minutes being assesed for a concussion in the last qtr, also add in the fact smedts was subbed out first quarter and we were forced to play hunt the rest of the game, in the end to only lose by a single kick i just thought was a bit of a case of one of those games were everything just went against us, and when you are as good as we are its going to be those sort of 2 hours of bad luck and one percenters going against you for a loss to happen, we just couldnt run it out in the end

i went away from that game feeling like we had been smashed all over the ground and convincingly beaten, yet on the scoreboard we only lost by six points, this is just a sign of a extremely good team

 

[maxy87]

Love these type of threads. Good posts so far.

Re: the Collingwood game, it might just be me but I have noticed that since 2011 we have used the corridor far more once again ala 2007-2010 and in each of the last three Collingwood matches Buckley has crowded the corridor with numbers. I think running the ball through the corridor is a good strategy - and the quickest way to goal - but we have turned the ball over a lot in this area in the last three games against the Pies which has left us exposed at times. Now granted, in the last three encounters we have had some key players missing and I like the fact that Scott wants the players - especially the younger ones - to back themselves through the corridor, but I wonder whether it would be more beneficial sometimes to adapt to a centre-ground "press" and go to a wider option?

 

[CF]

entirely incorrect

I never said it was the same as in previous years but we are handballing it more than we did last season, especially around the congestion to try and get the ball to a running outside player. It's not the hand ball like in 2009 but it has increased.

1. we are often being beaten at the contested ball, teams are throwing more players in while we have more players on the outside structured up and ready to either get and go, or apply huge pressure. teams early on are often getting first hands on it and running their players extremely hard through our set ups and controling the games early and piling on the leads

but once they start to drop off a little, as just about every team who plays at this level of intensity does, as it is virtually impossible to keep it going for an entire game, we start to lock them down and get a run on and control the game there on

I think what you are referring to was better explained by David King. AKA The Geelong Freeway, The Ring of Pressure, and The Strangle.

we have a four quarter sustainable game plan this year

That's funny because I am yet to see Geelong play four quarters and the fact we have won several games coming from large deficits shows we are not playing four quarters of sustainable football. So I think you're a bit delusional on this point.

What you have said is nothing new but I admire your passion for writing out such a long post about it.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

I never said it was the same as in previous years but we are handballing it more than we did last season, especially around the congestion to try and get the ball to a running outside player. It's not the hand ball like in 2009 but it has increased.



I think what you are referring to was better explained by David King. AKA The Geelong Freeway, The Ring of Pressure, and The Strangle.





That's funny because I am yet to see Geelong play four quarters and the fact we have won several games coming from large deficits shows we are not playing four quarters of sustainable football. So I think you're a bit delusional on this point.

What you have said is nothing new but I admire your passion for writing out such a long post about it.

thats because early on other teams are throwing a lot heavier numbers into the contests and running it out hard in the early stages, they can get away with it early on as they are able to get through our positioning on the outside with extremely hard running, but once they drop off that 5% later on in the games, generally the third quarters, we begin to capitalize and take control of the games, if you understood how we play this year you would probably understand how teams are getting a big jump early on, yet we come back every single time and win, sometimes with a little comfort in the end too

 

[geelong_crazy26]

last weekend was the first time they have put together 3 quarters of footy.
Again, eased up in the last when they got out to a 61 point lead and basically strolled through the final quarter and were looking ahead to this week.

Your right though, they haven't put any team to the sword recently.

we need to tweak our structure around the contests slightly, have a few more players going in for the contested ball, without at the same time any of our outside pressure or setups being compromised

we have the ability to score very quickly this season, something we werent able to do with the way we spread and entered our forward fifty last season

when we get on our runs this year and score, almost every one of the goals is run and carry from 40-50m out, hardly any passeges of long kicks to leads, we are avoiding at all costs kicking it long and high to a contested situation, as this is the number one way teams score now, rebounds from defensive 50, how do you stop this? you increase the amount of scoring options moving into your forward line, as well as either kicking it long to a players advantage or honouring a lead, never long kicks to congestion

last year we had barely any spreads of goals from midfielders and defenders, it was the majority coming from our forwards, this year we have spread out of scoring options significantly

i didnt even bother to look or read at the article david king wrote, to be honest i cant be bothered either, the guy dislikes geelong more than anyone in the media and will put a derogatory spin on anything geelong he possibly can

 

[manboob]

Your right though, they haven't put any team to the sword recently.

That's why I made Stevie J SuperCoach captain this week.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

That's why I made Stevie J SuperCoach captain this week.

supercoach captain tom hawkins this week, i smell a big bag of goals

 

[manboob]

supercoach captain tom hawkins this week, i smell a big bag of goals

Interesting. Very interesting...