Strategy The Game Plan Thread

[footscore]

Tomahawk will dob 4 only but the good news will be Vardy, he'll kick about the same number of goals imo

 

[manboob]

Is Bundy good value?

I have a philosophical aversion to mid-pricers. So I would say no. And take out the 177 and his average is well average... not even 80. You'd get much better value from a rookie.

But I came in 314th this week so take that with a grain of salt.

 

[manboob]

Tomahawk will dob 4 only but the good news will be Vardy, he'll kick about the same number of goals imo

I am literally moist with anticipation!

 

[Lana]

When I was at the qualifying final against Freemantle I saw 2 major problems
1) Our primary mode of ball movement was primarily long ball to a contest; in the year it worked and we averaged more contested marks than any other team. On the night however we were moving the ball really slow all short options we well covered and we were force to kick long and be slaughtered in the air as they often got a third man up. This was made worse as they were flooding back. Out forward fifty was too congested. When we did get the ball inside 50 it wasn't to our advantage and led to turnovers. These turnovers lead to quick breaks where our defenders we 1 out with there forwards; Pavlich kicked 6 against Lonergan as he had heaps of space to lead into while Hawkins had none.

2) Out set ups at stoppages had our players rushing into the contest and we were leaving large spaces of room on the defensive side of the stoppage that the Fremantle midfielders could run into while they always had a player standing 5-10 meters on there defensive side to collect any taps that West sent that way or poor clearness in that direction. I felt that West wasn't really disgraced on the night by Sandilands. When they won the ball they had players ready to receive on the outside and run the 10 meters and kick long over our defensive zone.

In summary our structure was a mess; we had lost the game before we even got on the ground.

The defensive side game plan that we are using at the moment heavily emulates the on that beat us defensively; you could see it in the north game in the first quarter; we flooded back heavily; in response they chipped the ball around trying to drag our players from our defensive 50. In my opinion hitouts to advantage around the ground and a boundary through ins aren't as effective at getting players clearances, especially when we have a body of players standing into space in all directions, this is the improvement Scott made compared to Lyon's set up. We are letting them win the clearance and contested ball and forcing the turnover as they have no player free to hand ball. As long as we break even in the Ruck we aren’t disadvantaged having less players going on the inside.
My biggest concern with how we are playing is our how we rebound out of defensive 50; we over possess the ball by hand almost like how we did it in 2010; we played straight into Collingwood’s hands. The problem is that we can’t kick it long as we are outnumbered due to the flood and will result in 4 times out 5 in a turnover. So we run the ball out in waves hand passing until a player gets free. When it works we look brilliant but it only has to mess up 2/3 times early in a game and our players will be rattled. If anything is going to change between now and finals it is this.

Why our first quarters are general awful and our third quarters and endings to quarters so good. Early this year we have been playing our many 29+ year old midfielders as defenders behind the ball; this has been compounded by having SJ, Kelly and Chapman missing multiple games. At times both Corey and Bartel have been played as defenders at the same time. They have been replaced by our kittens getting more time in the middle as well as Stokes. Essentially the opposition’s first choice midfielders are playing the whole quarter in the middle and towards the end we put our best onballers on where there a fatigued. It rope a dope in football. The top teams will beat our second string midfield but we back our flood to prevent the score becoming to large. When we have our best players on the ball we kick quick goals as the opposition is tired from the front running they did in the first 20 minutes of the quarter.

 

[CF]

thats because early on other teams are throwing a lot heavier numbers into the contests and running it out hard in the early stages...blah blah blah

You're the one who said Geelong "have a four quarter sustainable game plan this year" and now you are giving me reasons why they don't. I wish you'd make your mind up it just makes you look silly.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

When I was at the qualifying final against Freemantle I saw 2 major problems
1) Our primary mode of ball movement was primarily long ball to a contest; in the year it worked and we averaged more contested marks than any other team. On the night however we were moving the ball really slow all short options we well covered and we were force to kick long and be slaughtered in the air as they often got a third man up. This was made worse as they were flooding back. Out forward fifty was too congested. When we did get the ball inside 50 it wasn't to our advantage and led to turnovers. These turnovers lead to quick breaks where our defenders we 1 out with there forwards; Pavlich kicked 6 against Lonergan as he had heaps of space to lead into while Hawkins had none.

2) Out set ups at stoppages had our players rushing into the contest and we were leaving large spaces of room on the defensive side of the stoppage that the Fremantle midfielders could run into while they always had a player standing 5-10 meters on there defensive side to collect any taps that West sent that way or poor clearness in that direction. I felt that West wasn't really disgraced on the night by Sandilands. When they won the ball they had players ready to receive on the outside and run the 10 meters and kick long over our defensive zone.

In summary our structure was a mess; we had lost the game before we even got on the ground.

The defensive side game plan that we are using at the moment heavily emulates the on that beat us defensively; you could see it in the north game in the first quarter; we flooded back heavily; in response they chipped the ball around trying to drag our players from our defensive 50. In my opinion hitouts to advantage around the ground and a boundary through ins aren't as effective at getting players clearances, especially when we have a body of players standing into space in all directions, this is the improvement Scott made compared to Lyon's set up. We are letting them win the clearance and contested ball and forcing the turnover as they have no player free to hand ball. As long as we break even in the Ruck we aren’t disadvantaged having less players going on the inside.
My biggest concern with how we are playing is our how we rebound out of defensive 50; we over possess the ball by hand almost like how we did it in 2010; we played straight into Collingwood’s hands. The problem is that we can’t kick it long as we are outnumbered due to the flood and will result in 4 times out 5 in a turnover. So we run the ball out in waves hand passing until a player gets free. When it works we look brilliant but it only has to mess up 2/3 times early in a game and our players will be rattled. If anything is going to change between now and finals it is this.

Why our first quarters are general awful and our third quarters and endings to quarters so good. Early this year we have been playing our many 29+ year old midfielders as defenders behind the ball; this has been compounded by having SJ, Kelly and Chapman missing multiple games. At times both Corey and Bartel have been played as defenders at the same time. They have been replaced by our kittens getting more time in the middle as well as Stokes. Essentially the opposition’s first choice midfielders are playing the whole quarter in the middle and towards the end we put our best onballers on where there a fatigued. It rope a dope in football. The top teams will beat our second string midfield but we back our flood to prevent the score becoming to large. When we have our best players on the ball we kick quick goals as the opposition is tired from the front running they did in the first 20 minutes of the quarter.

glad someone has brought up the north game, this is really interesting, watched that game a lot going through pausing certain frames to see what they did exactly. i noticed a few things which i thought were really clever and well coached, especially about the way they moved it into the forward line, thought it was the best coached game against us this year easily, they really did their homework well

first thing i noticed they did was when passing around the ground they set up in a square formation, they would have a player at one point, then a player 10m in line with him towards the wing, then another 10 or 15 m further back they would have the same setup, each player had his own space to lead into to the right of him towards the wing, or they had the space in the middle opened up for leads coming across the middle to be chipped into, they kept doing this until they made their way to the 55-60m out on the flank, they REFUSED to kick it deep or high into their forward 50, hence why they kept chipping it in this fashion until they got around the forward flank

secondly the way they set up their structures in their forward 50 i thought was brilliant really, they entirely based their entries into the forward 50 on trying to eliminate our contested marking defenders and big bodies marking or spoiling, as we are the best airial marking and spoiling side in the AFL easily

how they would set it up is they would have their forwards set up into rows or collums, their would be 2-3 players generally in each with about 5m seperating them from the one in front and behind, then their would be other rows to the sides, but they made sure these were spread out at least 10m apart from each other and slightly diagonal.

what it meant was that each kick was precisely kicked to the leading advantage of one of the rows of forwards competing with his defender, it didnt allow the defenders in the row infront to compete, as they were stuck stagnant with the ball placed ontop of their heads and a leadingf forward coming, and it also prevented our defenders coming in from the sides to spoil as they were too far spread out to the sides. they had a very strong emphasis on dedicating space for their forwards to lead into without the geelong defense turning it into a pack and marking or spoiling, they made this a huge focus

problem was to execute this and get it to that point you have to get the ball close around the 50m arc, you cant pass to forwards like this from 80m out on the wings, you need to gain control of the ball and win the contests to play like this

once our pressure got ontop in the second half and we strangled them they werent able to get that short passing up to half forward and began bombing it into our defence a lot, this changed the game entirely and allowed us to run over the top

it was really good coaching by brad scott i thought, definitely is a good coach in my opinion, just sadly didnt have the cattle to finish us off on the day

 

[geelong_crazy26]

You're the one who said Geelong "have a four quarter sustainable game plan this year" and now you are giving me reasons why they don't. I wish you'd make your mind up it just makes you look silly.

if you understood how we defend and setup on the outside, you might understand how and why teams get a jump early on and we come back later in games, il try explain it to you now

we set up very defensively on the outside, teams put more numbers into the contests, then when they go to run it out they run extremely hard and push their arses off to weave it thru our defensive positionings, now when they are fresher and less fatigued early in matches, they can often manage to run their way thru our defensive positions, but when they start to get a little fatigued later in games and lose that fraction of run and carry, they break down and cant get through us, thats when we have gotten our huge run ons this year and been most effective

your thinking its as simple as "geelong arent playing well first halves, geelong then play better second halves" its a big case of us simply wearing and tearing teams down and tiring them out then running over the top of them, and it has worked almost every game

this is evident in the contested possesions stats, just about every single week we lose the contested posession count, yet we are ranked number 1 or 2 in the AFL currently for scores from turnovers

obviously we need to tweak some things to get better early on at contesting in and under and not get so behind in the early stages, i think cs definitely will start to make minor changes, hopefully ones that can mean us maintaining that strangle pressure on the outside and become just as good contested

 

[FredLeDeux]

if you understood how we defend and setup on the outside, you might understand how and why teams get a jump early on and we come back later in games, il try explain it to you now

we set up very defensively on the outside, teams put more numbers into the contests, then when they go to run it out they run extremely hard and push their arses off to weave it thru our defensive positionings, now when they are fresher and less fatigued early in matches, they can often manage to run their way thru our defensive positions, but when they start to get a little fatigued later in games and lose that fraction of run and carry, they break down and cant get through us, thats when we have gotten our huge run ons this year and been most effective

your thinking its as simple as "geelong arent playing well first halves, geelong then play better second halves" its a big case of us simply wearing and tearing teams down and tiring them out then running over the top of them, and it has worked almost every game

this is evident in the contested possesions stats, just about every single week we lose the contested posession count, yet we are ranked number 1 or 2 in the AFL currently for scores from turnovers

obviously we need to tweak some things to get better early on at contesting in and under and not get so behind in the early stages, i think cs definitely will start to make minor changes, hopefully ones that can mean us maintaining that strangle pressure on the outside and become just as good contested

I assume that this analysis explains why (1) the "West/Blicavs Combo" has sometimes been losing the hitout count in the 1st half but winning or breaking even in the 2nd half (eg v Richmond, Essendon, Collingwood), and (2) that if it's OK for the rest of the team, it's OK for the Combo as well.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

a good tap ruckman would definitely help in the contested situations and the clearances which we arent ranked very highly for, currently 10th in the afl for contested posession. having it hit to our players advantage more often cant ever hurt. but if u have some stats about west blicavs hit outs first half v second half your more than welcome to share it, doubr it would be any difference. other than the richmond game

 

[catinthemachine]

Love threads like this, generally very good posts, lots to think about
Jimmy Bartel on SEN today advised most teams come into the season with a game plan then adjust to what they see the better teams doing, also advised that we would change again after the mid season break. Several posters on this thread have mentioned CS's versatility and abilty to change the Geelong plan to fit. The only downside of this is that we have a large number of young players who may not be able to have there onfield performances duplicate what they have been told to do without extensive practice, of course I could be selling a number of people short there.
He also advised that he had no idea what was being talked of with David Kings "Ring of Fire" idea.
Don't know if he was being disingenuous or if David is just seeing shadows in the haze of what he is smoking.
Did state we had a very experienced backline who understood when it was apropriate just to stay on the outside
Our current defense does require frenetic pace to regularly penetrate, hence our 1st and 3rd quaters.
Not sure why we drop of in the 4th. At first I thought maybe we took our foot of the pedal in the 4th when we had junk time. However we had no junk time in the Collingflog game and still had an awful final quater. I am loath to use that game as an example of anything as we were off all night

 

[FredLeDeux]

a good tap ruckman would definitely help in the contested situations and the clearances which we arent ranked very highly for, currently 10th in the afl for contested posession. having it hit to our players advantage more often cant ever hurt. but if u have some stats about west blicavs hit outs first half v second half your more than welcome to share it, doubr it would be any difference. other than the richmond game

Nope, I didn't keep the 1st half v 2nd half hitout stats, but what I say about them in the 3 games is correct, I checked them at half-time and full-time on the Hun site, as I did all the stats, and mentally noted them because it confirmed my impressions from watching the games. It was a clear win for the Combo in the Richmond/Essendon games, and a virtual break-even v Collingwood (actually a 1 or 2 hitout win to Jolley, I think).

 

[geelong_crazy26]

thats all nice but id like to see stats before believing it entirely, there must be somewhere that breaks down stats by quarter, surely not that complicated to keep? true or not thought it has no relevance at all to what im saying, we break down and wear out opposition ball movers with our pressure on the outside, this doesnt apply that much to ruckmen, unless your just saying west and blicavs play better and lift later in games? either way i dont see how that relates to us breaking down opposition ball movers

 

[FredLeDeux]

thats all nice but id like to see stats before believing it entirely, there must be somewhere that breaks down stats by quarter, surely not that complicated to keep? true or not thought it has no relevance at all to what im saying, we break down and wear out opposition ball movers with our pressure on the outside, this doesnt apply that much to ruckmen, unless your just saying west and blicavs play better and lift later in games? either way i dont see how that relates to us breaking down opposition ball movers

I don't give a tinker's cuss whether you believe the stats or not, why in blue blazes would I keep them, I don't know whether or not 1/4 by 1/4 breakdowns are kept anywhere, if you want them go and look for them, but if you think they're irrelevant to your theory, don't bother. Mind you, if I had a theory built around pressure on opposition ball carriers, I would be interested in evidence that this was added to by us beating or nullifying the opposition rucks. But it's your theory, you decide what's relevant and what evidence you need to support it, that's your prerogative.

 

[HappyChappy35]

One big problem against Collingwood was trying to handball through their press. We take a lot of risks in terms of handpassing excessively and usually our players have the skills to make that come off, especially against sides who don't apply as much pressure and who can therefore be opened up.

But when lots of pressure is applied and we attempt to do this against sides who have a sound press, it allows opposition players to gather numbers around our guys, tackle and pressure relentlessly, and force a turnover or stoppage. As such we typically aren't as clean with the ball in these situations.

This is where our inability to win clearances this year hurt us that night- opposition players win the ball and are able to free up numbers in space, especially in the case of the Pies who are good at spreading and transitioning.

One other problem against Collingwood was our lack of defensive pressure, which I'm fairly sure was highlighted by CS. Other than that I don't think our defensive pressure (or lack of) has been too much of an issue this year.

Another thing- when we've piled on the goals, notably in 3rd quarters, it has tended to come from forcing turnovers off half back and/or getting defenders to drop back and intercept opposition kicks I50. The trick is, we've then been able to spread well and link up through players such as Motlop and SJ in the midfield. When we handball excessively and don't hit targets this makes doing so more difficult.

Having said that, kicking long to contested situations doesn't produce the best results either. The only way you can usually get that to work is if you have big bodies (say Hawkins) contesting in there, and if those big bodies can then get the ball out to a crumber (say Motlop). Yet again, that isn't always ideal and by doing that you take a big gamble.

One thing that has improved noticeably from last year is our entry inside F50. Too often we would kick to contests or look for big forwards (Hawkins and Pods), even if they had opposition defenders stacked on them. This year we also have a much better spread of goalkicking options, and as a result we don't always have to kick to contests in our F50. We can release loose players, say Motlop, who are then able to run on and kick the goal.

Finally, when we gain back some senior personnel (Chappy, Rivers, Varoce, HMac, etc.) I'd expect things to change in terms of our gameplan. When others come back in you simply have to make adjustments to your structures. We've also been quite flexible in terms of how we play under Scott; in the past his emphasis hasn't been on a static gameplan, instead tweaking things according to personnel and what other sides are doing to counteract our strategies.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

I don't give a tinker's cuss whether you believe the stats or not, why in blue blazes would I keep them, I don't know whether or not 1/4 by 1/4 breakdowns are kept anywhere, if you want them go and look for them, but if you think they're irrelevant to your theory, don't bother. Mind you, if I had a theory built around pressure on opposition ball carriers, I would be interested in evidence that this was added to by us beating or nullifying the opposition rucks. But it's your theory, you decide what's relevant and what evidence you need to support it, that's your prerogative.

nah i dont believe them, considering we are 12th in the AFL for hitouts il just go ahead and use common sense that we arent getting ontop and dominating the rucks for half the game, as well as observations from watching most games multiple times that we got beaten constantly in the hitouts. its nice that you decided to bring across your upset from the other thread about my opinion on trent west and tried to apply it to a theory i have about us pressuring ball carriers, but keep it relevant and post in the trent west thread please, tactics here

 

[geelong_crazy26]

One big problem against Collingwood was trying to handball through their press. We take a lot of risks in terms of handpassing excessively and usually our players have the skills to make that come off, especially against sides who don't apply as much pressure and who can therefore be opened up.

But when lots of pressure is applied and we attempt to do this against sides who have a sound press, it allows opposition players to gather numbers around our guys, tackle and pressure relentlessly, and force a turnover or stoppage. As such we typically aren't as clean with the ball in these situations.

This is where our inability to win clearances this year hurt us that night- opposition players win the ball and are able to free up numbers in space, especially in the case of the Pies who are good at spreading and transitioning.

One other problem against Collingwood was our lack of defensive pressure, which I'm fairly sure was highlighted by CS. Other than that I don't think our defensive pressure (or lack of) has been too much of an issue this year.

Another thing- when we've piled on the goals, notably in 3rd quarters, it has tended to come from forcing turnovers off half back and/or getting defenders to drop back and intercept opposition kicks I50. The trick is, we've then been able to spread well and link up through players such as Motlop and SJ in the midfield. When we handball excessively and don't hit targets this makes doing so more difficult.

Having said that, kicking long to contested situations doesn't produce the best results either. The only way you can usually get that to work is if you have big bodies (say Hawkins) contesting in there, and if those big bodies can then get the ball out to a crumber (say Motlop). Yet again, that isn't always ideal and by doing that you take a big gamble.

One thing that has improved noticeably from last year is our entry inside F50. Too often we would kick to contests or look for big forwards (Hawkins and Pods), even if they had opposition defenders stacked on them. This year we also have a much better spread of goalkicking options, and as a result we don't always have to kick to contests in our F50. We can release loose players, say Motlop, who are then able to run on and kick the goal.

Finally, when we gain back some senior personnel (Chappy, Rivers, Varoce, HMac, etc.) I'd expect things to change in terms of our gameplan. When others come back in you simply have to make adjustments to your structures. We've also been quite flexible in terms of how we play under Scott; in the past his emphasis hasn't been on a static gameplan, instead tweaking things according to personnel and what other sides are doing to counteract our strategies.

agree entirely with what i bolded, last year we were very average and limited with our entries into our forward line last year, in that fremantle final the number of times we just bombed it in and the ball came rebouding over our heads was frustrating and just poor flexibility, we had hardly any midfield or defenders kicking goals last year

if we are going to kick it to a contest, i dont want us kicking it to a stagnant pack, we need to be putting it out infront of the advantage of one of our talls that we have the luxury of, and preferably away from defending ruckman

against hawthorn i would love to see us play podsiadly on gibson and have podsiadly keep him away from the contests as much as possible, as well have podsiadly take gibson deep into the square, expose him and nullify his impact on contests, 1 on 1 gibson is pretty average, but he reads the play exceptionally well and can be a pain

 

[FredLeDeux]

nah i dont believe them, considering we are 12th in the AFL for hitouts il just go ahead and use common sense that we arent getting ontop and dominating the rucks for half the game, as well as observations from watching most games multiple times that we got beaten constantly in the hitouts. its nice that you decided to bring across your upset from the other thread about my opinion on trent west and tried to apply it to a theory i have about us pressuring ball carriers, but keep it relevant and post in the trent west thread please, tactics here

Three classic logical fallacies in 6 lines, well done.
And a dash of cognitive dissonance thrown in for good measure!

 

[catempire]

Interestingly, hitouts have close to zero correlation with wins in 2013.

Most highly correlated stat categories with wins are disposals, goals (duh!), contested and uncontested possessions, efficient disposals, goal assists, inside 50s and marks inside 50s.

Also interesting that tackles, frees for and against and, wait for it, clearances have relatively low correlations.

 

[DanA]

Interestingly, hitouts have close to zero correlation with wins in 2013.

Most highly correlated stat categories with wins are disposals, goals (duh!), contested and uncontested possessions, efficient disposals, goal assists, inside 50s and marks inside 50s.

Also interesting that tackles, frees for and against and, wait for it, clearances have relatively low correlations.

Zero correlation?
2 teams inside the top half aren't in the top half for hit outs (Geelong & Fremantle).
2 teams inside the top half aren't in the top half for clearances (Geelong & Essendon)

I think that represents a moderate to strong correlation

 

[catempire]

Zero correlation?
2 teams inside the top half aren't in the top half for hit outs (Geelong & Fremantle).
2 teams inside the top half aren't in the top half for clearances (Geelong & Essendon)

I think that represents a moderate to strong correlation

When I have time I'll reproduce the stats here. In short, 2 out of 18 teams has only a minor impact on any correlation.

 

[Lana]

A better thing to look at is the corelation between hitouts/clearence and goals rather than wins

 

[maxy87]

So considering we were able to thwart the Ross Lyon factor (albeit with injured players missing) and the for the best part of the game against Hawthorn we had them on toast, Im surprised this thread hasn't been bumped.

Not to mention keeping Melbourne to a record low 19 inside 50s last week.

I'm interested I hearing people's views on the latest version of Scott and co's plan for this year. During the Fremantle game I thought it was just a case of us beating Ross at his own game by putting numbers behind the ball. During the Hawthorn game we were able to pressure Hawthorns ball carriers and isolate their key forwards. A lot of their inside 50s were ineffective.

Admittedly, the last three games I haven't been able to watch as closely as Id like so Im interested in hearing people's thoughts

 

[Hoffy95]

We've gotta watch out for Clarko's plan that he's been saving for 5 years.

 

[you pick one]

We've gotta watch out for Clarko's plan that he's been saving for 5 years.

Kick it to Buddy

 

[DanA]

So considering we were able to thwart the Ross Lyon factor (albeit with injured players missing) and the for the best part of the game against Hawthorn we had them on toast, Im surprised this thread hasn't been bumped.

Not to mention keeping Melbourne to a record low 19 inside 50s last week.

I'm interested I hearing people's views on the latest version of Scott and co's plan for this year. During the Fremantle game I thought it was just a case of us beating Ross at his own game by putting numbers behind the ball. During the Hawthorn game we were able to pressure Hawthorns ball carriers and isolate their key forwards. A lot of their inside 50s were ineffective.

Admittedly, the last three games I haven't been able to watch as closely as Id like so Im interested in hearing people's thoughts

Over the last four weeks we've been one of the best teams in terms of clearances and hit outs. I've been banging on about the difference a good ruck would make since Ottens left and Simpson appears to be just that. He's 3rd in hit outs per game behind Minson and Goldstein, unsurprisingly Bulldogs and North are 1 & 2 for clearances (West Coast is 3rd) and we've had a big jump in these areas.

The Simpson factor (taken from pro-stats and AFL website)
Hitouts:
Geelong 72 to Melbourne 55
Geelong 36 to Hawthorn 39
Geelong 40 Fremantle 33
Geelong 42 Brisbane 32
Avg differential = + 7.75
Season avg prior to these 4 games = -5.5
Swing of 13.3 per game to Geelong

Clearances:
Geelong 59 to Melbourne 45
Geelong 36 to Hawthron 36
Geelong 39 to Fremantle 34
Geelong 39 to Brisbane 32
Avg differential = 6.5
season avg prior to these 4 games= -8.7
Swing of 15.2 per game to Geelong

I only spent 20 minutes doing this so it might be slightly off but that turn around is ridiculous. 15.2 extra clearances and 13.3 extra tap outs obviously gives us a lot more first use of the ball and I think it's shown in our game style and improved defence. Yes we lost against Brisbane and the sample size is very small to be garnering information from but I don't think this is a statistical anomaly. IMO since Brisbane we've put in four quarter efforts and adjusted to the ruck situation easily playing our best footy. I think Simpson has been a huge part of that.