Autopsy The Post-Essendon Vent Thread

[ConcreteWaters]

 

[Biggie]

Tom Barrass is s**t and has ruined our season single handed.

First negative thing you've ever said and you pick on the youf

Poor form

 

[Xsess]

The sad thing is you could see that loss coming a mile off. The three wins preceding that were all dreadfully flawed and exposed serious deficiencies in our make-up... however enough for this bunch of no-hopers to have had a good fill of their own bathwater. There are so many sum parts of this current team that I just cant wait to see the back of. Despite a great spine this has been one of the most disappointing era's in our clubs history.

 

[robbo 39]

When was the last time we went out and tried getting under the skin of the opposition.

 

[MKMatty]

The vents in this vent thread are piss weak and you all know it.

We can't even vent properly anymore! We really are a rabble

 

[kempy]

We can't even vent properly anymore! We really are a rabble

We should start a pre-vent thread for Sunday to stop it happening ....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[MKMatty]

We should start a pre-vent thread for Sunday to stop it happening ....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

We should absolutely have a "Get Angry" pre game thread. For the lols.

 

[Double the Fist]

I was at the game, and we were getting laughed at. A real hard one to sit through.

What a humiliating performance - it was truly deplorable.

Meh, the players will still get paid. Seems like they don't care too much.

Nothing to see here!

 

[kerr87]

We get stuck off HB - Last game I was at against North at Etihad - we just freeze up off HB and can't move it fluently inside 50.

 

[Abed]

What a debacle this is.

61 points.

That makes this the largest loss for the club since Round 4, 2014.

You have to go back to the end of the Worsfold coaching era in 2013 for the last time we had a season with two 50+ point losses.


The result is the culmination of a series of systematic failures in selection, tactics and approach.

Selection:

• Essendon are the top ranked side in the league for rebounding the ball out of their defensive 50. So of course we remove our best ground-level player up forward for another lead-up player who hasn’t even played any reserve matches returning from injury.

• McInnes was only impressive against the Bulldogs due to the Dogs not playing a ruck at all. Against a seasoned AFL ruckman he was bound to be found out. If Giles and Petrie are both available we should not be going into a match with Vardy as the number one ruck option.

• Despite the Daniher-hype, Essendon have gained the majority of their goals this season from their fleet of quick ground level players. Yet no changes were made to a defence that has suffered terribly in the past against quick, crumbing forwards.

Tactics:

• The zone currently falls apart if the ground is much wider than Subiaco. Adelaide is only 1m wider than Subiaco so it deploys fine there and we are 5/6 at that venue over the last three seasons. Docklands is 6m wider and we are now 3/6 from the same period. The MCG is 19m wider and we 2/7 from that period also. Why is width important? The following reasons:

1. The opposition is more able to deploy a short-kicking game to nullify intercept marking due to the increased area of the ground.
2. In order to prevent holes forming in the zone, the zone itself backtracks towards the defensive goals (for example the width at 50m at Subiaco is the same as 40m at Docklands and 30m at the MCG). This enables additional lead-up space for opposition forwards at half-forward and makes opposition crumbing forwards more dangerous due to the closer proximity to goal.
3. The lateral disposal becomes more difficult to execute. The way we move the ball is generally like this: Backs > safest possible kick > half-back/wing > short safe kick/handball inside > running player > short inside kick > centre square > long kick to marking lead/run out the back > goal. On wider grounds, greater skill is required to execute the lateral disposal from out wide to the corridor. The ball will obviously take longer to travel the greater distance and be exposed to greater opposition pressure as a result. Without this lateral disposal, the entire offensive movement of the team shuts down.
4. Just as zones are more difficult to deploy on wider grounds in defence, the same is just as true when it comes to pressing. The wider the ground, the easier it is to run out of defence – or should be if you set-up correctly. We deployed our standard zonal press and time after time Essendon used the width of the ground to pull it towards one pocket and then expose it through the fat side on the switch.

• If you are going to tag a player that has a quick first step, make sure the tagger has a quick first step also, otherwise that player will still get their hands to the ball first and render the tag useless. The Redden “tag” on Merrett was reminiscent of the infamous Harvey semi-tag in 2010. 37 possessions vs 8 – that summarises this match right there.

• Priddis, Mitchell and Redden at the same stoppage offer zero spread. If we win the ball, we rely on Shuey and Gaff to get it clear. If those two get tagged and struggle to have an impact we become glacial in our ball movement. Conversely, if the opposition win the clearance we become limited in containing their spread, as was ruthlessly shown against the Bombers today.

Approach:

• We don’t play at the MCG again this season outside of finals. The next best thing then is to win well in the games at Docklands to allay any fears of travelling to Melbourne. This was a match to prove a point – at the first bounce I wanted to see players knocked off their feet by Blue and Gold hits. I wanted to see melees. I wanted to see pain physically inflicted upon Essendon by Eagles players showing that they refuse to be pushovers again in Victoria. Instead the Bombers pushed us about at will, and their physicality caused us to panic, lose our structure and then control of the match, with the result beyond doubt just ten minutes into the second quarter. The meekness of this performance is what infuriates me the most. What goes on in regard to the match preparation when travelling is obviously not currently working. It urgently needs to be re-evaluated and have changes made. I mean no disrespect to a great cause but it is really the best idea for this to be intervening during the final session before a match?

http://www.westcoasteagles.com.au/news/2017-05-20/eagles-lighten-up-ahead-of-bombers

As the old adage goes; train as you play, play as you train.​

I’m not sold on the idea of the majority of the leadership group arriving a day later either. You are a team, you play together, you travel together. There are plenty of workers in this country that miss out on family time due to travel. I’m sure a FIFO worker would love to be in their situation. Does this also mean that we had a number of key players flying not much more than 24 hours before a match and not attending a training session between getting off the plane and the match itself? I can assure you from my own experience flying cross-continent for work, there is no way I would want to be running for three hours the next day. Indeed, it usually takes 48-72 hours for my resting heart rate to get back to normality after being in the air 3+ hours. Anecdotal I know, but surely this can’t be the right way to gain maximum aerobic output allowing flights so close to matches?​

• We seem to have no means of countering opposition momentum during a game. We tend to keep doing the same thing and hope the opposition starts going cold. Unfortunately it can also end up like today, conceding 6 goals in 13 minutes. Why were no changes made when it was clear things were not working prior to the floodgates being opened? If the opposition gets on top and has a run of momentum, we should have a means of killing the game that we can go to. There are several options; extra spares in defence, playing the ruck a kick behind play, adding the forward flankers to the defensive side of stoppages. That we did none of these speaks volumes.

• There needs to be a genuine Plan B for when the zone gets picked apart. At the moment if the zone fails, when the game is already beyond us we’ll throw McGovern up forward and Yeo on the ball. This actually makes us worse – it is still the same system that was getting beaten before with players now being played out of position. There needs to be an alternative method involving structural setup that can be deployed effectively when things aren’t going to plan.

I’ll finish with this:
View attachment 373209

Our ability to rebound from defence went missing and we let the Bombers get easy goals on the break.

We are now 0/12 in matches where the opposition has had 3+ goal assists since the start of 2015.


I still believe that we have a great team, but currently we are all at sea if we have to cope with width and it needs to be addressed urgently. We have three more games at Docklands this year starting with the Bulldogs in Round 15 to go some way in making up for this.

Hopefully by then the team has learned from its mistakes today.

This is some of the best analysis that I have ever read on this site. You obviously don't work for the Eagles, but you should be. Nice work.

 

[Mico89]

I herd this thread has a wall I can bash my head on?

 

[Obeanie1]

What a debacle this is.

61 points.

That makes this the largest loss for the club since Round 4, 2014.

You have to go back to the end of the Worsfold coaching era in 2013 for the last time we had a season with two 50+ point losses.


The result is the culmination of a series of systematic failures in selection, tactics and approach.

Selection:

• Essendon are the top ranked side in the league for rebounding the ball out of their defensive 50. So of course we remove our best ground-level player up forward for another lead-up player who hasn’t even played any reserve matches returning from injury.

• McInnes was only impressive against the Bulldogs due to the Dogs not playing a ruck at all. Against a seasoned AFL ruckman he was bound to be found out. If Giles and Petrie are both available we should not be going into a match with Vardy as the number one ruck option.

• Despite the Daniher-hype, Essendon have gained the majority of their goals this season from their fleet of quick ground level players. Yet no changes were made to a defence that has suffered terribly in the past against quick, crumbing forwards.

Tactics:

• The zone currently falls apart if the ground is much wider than Subiaco. Adelaide is only 1m wider than Subiaco so it deploys fine there and we are 5/6 at that venue over the last three seasons. Docklands is 6m wider and we are now 3/6 from the same period. The MCG is 19m wider and we 2/7 from that period also. Why is width important? The following reasons:

1. The opposition is more able to deploy a short-kicking game to nullify intercept marking due to the increased area of the ground.
2. In order to prevent holes forming in the zone, the zone itself backtracks towards the defensive goals (for example the width at 50m at Subiaco is the same as 40m at Docklands and 30m at the MCG). This enables additional lead-up space for opposition forwards at half-forward and makes opposition crumbing forwards more dangerous due to the closer proximity to goal.
3. The lateral disposal becomes more difficult to execute. The way we move the ball is generally like this: Backs > safest possible kick > half-back/wing > short safe kick/handball inside > running player > short inside kick > centre square > long kick to marking lead/run out the back > goal. On wider grounds, greater skill is required to execute the lateral disposal from out wide to the corridor. The ball will obviously take longer to travel the greater distance and be exposed to greater opposition pressure as a result. Without this lateral disposal, the entire offensive movement of the team shuts down.
4. Just as zones are more difficult to deploy on wider grounds in defence, the same is just as true when it comes to pressing. The wider the ground, the easier it is to run out of defence – or should be if you set-up correctly. We deployed our standard zonal press and time after time Essendon used the width of the ground to pull it towards one pocket and then expose it through the fat side on the switch.

• If you are going to tag a player that has a quick first step, make sure the tagger has a quick first step also, otherwise that player will still get their hands to the ball first and render the tag useless. The Redden “tag” on Merrett was reminiscent of the infamous Harvey semi-tag in 2010. 37 possessions vs 8 – that summarises this match right there.

• Priddis, Mitchell and Redden at the same stoppage offer zero spread. If we win the ball, we rely on Shuey and Gaff to get it clear. If those two get tagged and struggle to have an impact we become glacial in our ball movement. Conversely, if the opposition win the clearance we become limited in containing their spread, as was ruthlessly shown against the Bombers today.

Approach:

• We don’t play at the MCG again this season outside of finals. The next best thing then is to win well in the games at Docklands to allay any fears of travelling to Melbourne. This was a match to prove a point – at the first bounce I wanted to see players knocked off their feet by Blue and Gold hits. I wanted to see melees. I wanted to see pain physically inflicted upon Essendon by Eagles players showing that they refuse to be pushovers again in Victoria. Instead the Bombers pushed us about at will, and their physicality caused us to panic, lose our structure and then control of the match, with the result beyond doubt just ten minutes into the second quarter. The meekness of this performance is what infuriates me the most. What goes on in regard to the match preparation when travelling is obviously not currently working. It urgently needs to be re-evaluated and have changes made. I mean no disrespect to a great cause but it is really the best idea for this to be intervening during the final session before a match?

http://www.westcoasteagles.com.au/news/2017-05-20/eagles-lighten-up-ahead-of-bombers

As the old adage goes; train as you play, play as you train.​

I’m not sold on the idea of the majority of the leadership group arriving a day later either. You are a team, you play together, you travel together. There are plenty of workers in this country that miss out on family time due to travel. I’m sure a FIFO worker would love to be in their situation. Does this also mean that we had a number of key players flying not much more than 24 hours before a match and not attending a training session between getting off the plane and the match itself? I can assure you from my own experience flying cross-continent for work, there is no way I would want to be running for three hours the next day. Indeed, it usually takes 48-72 hours for my resting heart rate to get back to normality after being in the air 3+ hours. Anecdotal I know, but surely this can’t be the right way to gain maximum aerobic output allowing flights so close to matches?​

• We seem to have no means of countering opposition momentum during a game. We tend to keep doing the same thing and hope the opposition starts going cold. Unfortunately it can also end up like today, conceding 6 goals in 13 minutes. Why were no changes made when it was clear things were not working prior to the floodgates being opened? If the opposition gets on top and has a run of momentum, we should have a means of killing the game that we can go to. There are several options; extra spares in defence, playing the ruck a kick behind play, adding the forward flankers to the defensive side of stoppages. That we did none of these speaks volumes.

• There needs to be a genuine Plan B for when the zone gets picked apart. At the moment if the zone fails, when the game is already beyond us we’ll throw McGovern up forward and Yeo on the ball. This actually makes us worse – it is still the same system that was getting beaten before with players now being played out of position. There needs to be an alternative method involving structural setup that can be deployed effectively when things aren’t going to plan.

I’ll finish with this:
View attachment 373209

Our ability to rebound from defence went missing and we let the Bombers get easy goals on the break.

We are now 0/12 in matches where the opposition has had 3+ goal assists since the start of 2015.


I still believe that we have a great team, but currently we are all at sea if we have to cope with width and it needs to be addressed urgently. We have three more games at Docklands this year starting with the Bulldogs in Round 15 to go some way in making up for this.

Hopefully by then the team has learned from its mistakes today.

Great analysis but with one question. The lead up forward returning from injury without a WAFL game?

Who was that? Cripps?

He isn't a lead up forward. He is a small, pressure act high forward who provides pace and the ability to get behind an opponents defense and run at the goals. Kennedy and Darling are lead up forwards.

Apart from that you are pretty much spot on.

Out: Wellingham (ankle), Butler, Redden and McInness. Would like Le cras and Masten as well but six outs is pretty full on.

In: Nelson, Petrie add intent, Hill and Partington add pace.

If Cripps pulled up sore out for Jetta / Karpany.

 

[Dylan82]

Yes, this was in reference to Cripps.

In the context of how he gains possession, he is without doubt a lead-up player.

There are three ways a forward can get the ball: contested marks; on the lead; or from ground level.


Ask when we are going forward what does Cripps do? He either leads up the ground as a linking option or leads towards goal as the cherrypick option. He is looking to be a marking option first and ground level option second.

Cripps in at the expense of Hill guaranteed there would be no one positioning themselves front and centre at the fall of the ball in marking contests at the attacking end of the ground.



I’ll also add a mention in regard to the “pressure act forward” stuff that keeps doing the rounds. It is an irritation of mine hearing this as in the context as a specialist position. Does that mean that no-one else if the forward line needs to apply any pressure because there is a pressure specialist to take care of that? What is the pressure specialist meant to do when the team have the ball - take a rest?

Of course that’s absurd, but then so is the concept of a pressure specialist in the context of team zonal defence.

Surely if it was so valuable to have someone with pace chasing everyone around we’d just Cat B rookie Jamaican sprinters and watch them tear it up.