Analysis The wider implications of the loss to Sydney, and Geelong's prospects for 2014

xtatik222k

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Well. That was a rough pill to swallow. Here are my thoughts...

The first thing I would like to get out of the way is the fixture.
One thing that seems to be a consistent trend across the entire competition is the unwillingness of coaches to acknowledge the role the fixture plays in a team's ability to win or lose games.
We hear phrases like "We have known about the fixture for months and have planned accordingly." Here is why I think this response is stupid and bereft of logic:
When we are dealing with fitness and fatigue, we are talking about the physical limitations of human endurance. The body has limits. The mind, as part of the body, has limits. When you approach or surpass these limits, the effectiveness of the body and the mind drops substantially.
No amount of 'planning' can lessen the amount of stress and fatigue put on a human body that is being constantly exerted. Tissue needs time to regenerate. The cardiovascular system needs time to recover from intense strain. You can 'plan' training regimes to focus on recuperation, but you can't defy physics and biology.
What this boils down to is, in my opinion, the following reality:
If you lessen the recovery time an athlete has over an extended period of time, the physical effectiveness of that athlete will drop accordingly. If you subscribe to the theory "planning for the short breaks can mitigate the effects of fatigue," I have a small challenge for you to entertain:
Imagine a team which had to play a game of AFL football every single day for three weeks. And that was their season. Do you think any team could completely deal with this kind of exertion through any means of planning? Do you think they would continually win without any physical downfall? Of course not. How stupid would you sound, as the coach of said club, coming out and saying that twenty-odd consecutive games played no role whatsoever in your losing most of them? Once you admit this, all that remains is a smooth gradient between a season like this, and a season in which every team gets the perfect amount of time off every week. (which is logistically impossible, but for the purpose of the argument, humour me) Our last few weeks sit somewhere lower than the optimal position on this gradient.
My personal thought is that coaches know this completely, but abstain from talking about it in the media for fear of "making excuses."
But without a shadow of a doubt, the last few weeks played a definite role in the smashing tonight. This is exactly why we REWARD teams with the week off for winning a qualifying final. Because HAVING A WEEK OFF IS A HUGE ADVANTAGE. Does it account for a 110-point thumping? Not completely. But it certainly contributes.

Our youth. Tonight was tough, and made worse by the absence of Lonergan and Enright. Normally I wouldn't worry too much about Lonergan, unless we were playing a side with Buddy in it. That was just hugely unlucky and we paid for it dearly. After the game I checked out the stats sheet. Organised by disposals, this is the bottom ten on our team:
Smedts, Simpson, Sheringham, Murdoch, Bews, Hawkins, Stringer, Motlop, Rivers, Varcoe.
Our number one ruckman got more touches than eleven of our other players. Of the eleven bottom ball-winners, the average disposal efficiency was 62%. We simply will not win games with such a large portion of the team doing so little. This needs to be the focus over the next few weeks. It absolutely needs to be. Tonight we saw what happens when half your team doesn't turn up, and the other half are strangled to death from the resulting pressure of trying to play out-numbered. The younger players coming through need to be prepared to do what is required. What scares me is that despite the lack of down time to recover from previous games, it is still our older players who carried the torch. (unfortunately they seemed to be carrying it towards Sydney's goal all night.)

Lonergan and Enright. I honestly feel like they wouldn't have made any difference at all. Everything was won in the midfield tonight. The fact that we dominated the hit-outs and got smashed in the clearances tells me all I need to know. This "we can lose the clearances and still mop up games with work around the stoppages" garbage is being figured out and countered by quality opposition teams. If the coaches think this style of game is going to continually work without adapting - if they continue to tout the worn out assertion that we will win if we play our best and we don't need to worry about anything else - then they are under a serious misapprehension and the club will pay dearly for it. We are no longer the ring-leaders of the AFL. Teams have emulated our style, adapted, and are now improving upon it.

The rest of our season. It's crunch time for the Cats, now. Our season hangs upon the next two months of games. Carlton, St Kilda, Gold Coast, Essendon, Western Bulldogs, Melbourne, GWS, North Melbourne. There is no room for flippancy. There is no room for poor form or laziness or bad coaching. Drop 2-3 of these games and 2014 is finished. I still think we can be a force in September. We need some luck, but it's still a possibility. We need to stop bleeding talent from small injuries. The team has been so unsettled all year through small, annoying injuries. We have lost to Port, Sydney and Fremantle, who were all playing at full strength (Freo are partially exempt from this) on home soil. We need Bundy back. We need Caddy at CHF. We need some decent breaks between games. Here are the breaks (in days) we have over the next two months: 8, 9, 6, 6, 9, 6, 7, 7. We have a chance now to build some form (especially in the younger players who lack confidence) during a string of games we should win.

Sorry for the long post.
Sydney are not 110 points better than us. Hopefully we get another chance to show that this year.
Go Cats.
 

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Geelong_Sicko

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I don't reckon they're 110 points better than us either. I saw a lot of kids with less than 50 games experience get the fumbles tonight. I don't see so many big-bodied players out there in the hoops no more. I see a lot of 'in-betweeners'. This is natural and this is cyclical and we will definitely have to start getting used to not being the team that ruthlessly crushes all before it anymore.

But our time will come again if we keep sharpening our weapons against the grindstone. Chris Scott needs more pages in his playbook, though. When shit clearly isn't working we need to try different things, and not be afraid to try new things. In the looming in-between era we are gonna lose and we are gonna drop a few rungs on the ladder.

But as long as we've got the talent and the determination to be the murderous f*cking skull-crushers of the comp again who can say the sky really IS falling?
 

Teriyakicat

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Great post xtatik- I can't believe it's less than 4 hours since our thrashing yet you sound so rational.

I don't think anything would've worked tonight against Sydney, considering the troops, the game plan and the extenuating circumstances but give us a more even playing field and a full team playing to our structures and we'd give the Swans a run for their money.
 
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#5
it's hard to see many positives out of a game like that. I didn't think that Blitz was too bad - obviously a couple of howlers but far from disgraced and showed that given another 50 games could be a real KPD.

The only other positive was to see the barrel return, shades of Benny Graham.

Otherwise, not much.
 

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#6
I also don't think Sydney are 110pts better than us, actually I know they aren't.

Give us a near full strength side, coming off the bye playing at Simonds against a depleted swans side coming off a few 6-day breaks and see how they go, result would've been Completely different.
 
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#8
Our better players are aging and are not being replaced.
We have plenty of players who were not developed because our team was performing so sell.
They missed on game time and it is showing.
Now that time has skipped them by it is time to move them on and rebuild.

Even considering the above the only player who I think was an A grader is Daniel Menzel and he has had 4 knee recos?? I have lost count

The list includes Cowan, McCarthy, Smedts, Stringer, Schroder, Hunt, Vardy, Burbury, Walker, Brown, Bates etc
All OK but will never be better than B grade if they get on the park. For one reason or another they are on the list.

We need forward structure and that includes a centre half forward who can compete (perhaps a J Pod), an inside midfielder with grunt, and a CHB to be coming through.
We are missing some players but the smashing received last night would have been the same.

I believe that the standards have slipped.
The coach has even admitted to this.
The players are playing selfish football
Frivolous reports from the same core group

I would rather see a rebuild from day 1 than to finish mid range with mediocrity.
Play the untried players even if they are not quite ready. Go deep into the draft.
Scrutinise our coaches and the match committee.

Look for a brighter day
 

Herne Hill Hammer

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#9
I also don't think Sydney are 110pts better than us, actually I know they aren't.

Give us a near full strength side, coming off the bye playing at Simonds against a depleted swans side coming off a few 6-day breaks and see how they go, result would've been Completely different.
Geelong struggle after byes for whatever reason and it hasn't been just since Scott took over. It's one reason I'm always particularly nervous on PF days after Geelong has had the week off.
 

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#12
Even considering the above the only player who I think was an A grader is Daniel Menzel and he has had 4 knee recos?? I have lost count

The list includes Cowan, McCarthy, Smedts, Stringer, Schroder, Hunt, Vardy, Burbury, Walker, Brown, Bates etc
All OK but will never be better than B grade if they get on the park. For one reason or another they are on the list.
Wow, sack the lot, I mean most of them are like 21yo tops. Why they be no champion yet? :drunk:
 

thegerman

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#13
it's hard to see many positives out of a game like that. I didn't think that Blitz was too bad - obviously a couple of howlers but far from disgraced and showed that given another 50 games could be a real KPD.

The only other positive was to see the barrel return, shades of Benny Graham.

Otherwise, not much.
20 disposals 7 marks. 80% efficiency. Far from average, I'd say near the top few for the night
 

thegerman

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#15
Silver lining of these types of losses is that it brings out some supporters true colours
Well there's those that are illogical, then those who are asking some big questions. We have far too many players on the list that aren't going to make it. That is brutally honest.

Throw in retirements of a few, we have a pretty big problem with the list, whether some are honest in debating that is another issue.
 
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#16
what worries me is that at the start of 2013, and I mean round 1, I thought that we were building to have a genuine crack in 2015. That looks a bit fanciful right now. But very hard to have a balanced view after a reaming like that.

The worry with the Freo game and this game - where was the intensity?
 
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#18
Well there's those that are illogical, then those who are asking some big questions. We have far too many players on the list that aren't going to make it. That is brutally honest.

Throw in retirements of a few, we have a pretty big problem with the list, whether some are honest in debating that is another issue.
No, that's just a knee-jerk reaction.
 

thegerman

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#19
No, that's just a knee-jerk reaction.
Hilarious, that is what I'm pointing toward, people who just have a far greater opinion on players than others. Doesn't mean your opinion is right, neither the other.

To comment that it's knee jerk, with the latter aimed at the person, indicates your inability to debate.

It's sad that, when someone puts their ideas forward, that we have a list issue, illogical comment from the peanut gallery ensues.
 
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#20
Hilarious, that is what I'm pointing toward, people who just have a far greater opinion on players than others. Doesn't mean your opinion is right, neither the other.

To comment that it's knee jerk, with the latter aimed at the person, indicates your inability to debate.

It's sad that, when someone puts their ideas forward, that we have a list issue, illogical comment from the peanut gallery ensues.
OK, so you're saying we have a 'list issue.' I think we are widely recognised (or CS is) as having done terrific job turning over this list throughout the retirement of several important senior players. The fact that we are still currently in the top 4 after nearly 8 seasons of competing for a flag is testament to that.

We will have some inconsistent patches, and last night doesn't really change my view that we are 5-8 team. Not as bad as 100+ point loss but certainly susceptible to some bad performances.

I really like our list. Some won't make it, but we have one of the best recruiters and development in the business. I have faith in the structures the club has put in place, one bad loss wont change all that good work.

I was shouting down your comment...but, yeah, actually I am.
 

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what worries me is that at the start of 2013, and I mean round 1, I thought that we were building to have a genuine crack in 2015. That looks a bit fanciful right now. But very hard to have a balanced view after a reaming like that.

The worry with the Freo game and this game - where was the intensity?
Too much papering over the cracks since then:
- recruiting mature aged players who aren't that much better than the young alternative
- not that many games pumped into new talent
- injuries severely affected the 21-24 year old bracket (unavoidable)
 

thegerman

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#22
OK, so you're saying we have a 'list issue.' I think we are widely recognised (or CS is) as having done terrific job turning over this list throughout the retirement of several important senior players. The fact that we are still currently in the top 4 after nearly 8 seasons of competing for a flag is testament to that.

We will have some inconsistent patches, and last night doesn't really change my view that we are 5-8 team. Not as bad as 100+ point loss but certainly susceptible to some bad performances.

I really like our list. Some won't make it, but we have one of the best recruiters and development in the business. I have faith in the structures the club has put in place, one bad loss wont change all that good work.

I was shouting down your comment...but, yeah, actually I am.
The issue, clearly stated, that have done well in the past, but dwelling in that opens up mediocrity.
I agree that hasn't happened yet, however, without more tough decisions the list now, we won't be in calculations for a flag two years.

That's my comment and opinion, but keep on going with your blinkers and shouting at others with opinion
 

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#23
The game started identically to the Fremantle game with Pavlich/Tippett having set shots at goal within the first 30 seconds and it didn't get much better. I actually thought we didn't play any worse last night than we did against Fremantle, although the margin was more than three times more. The only differences I saw were that Sydney have the firepower to hurt you up forward, much more than Freo does, and that our guys were clearly fatigued which meant any chance of a vague fightback (like we put up against Freo in the third quarter) was beyond them.

Some thoughts -

- Simpson and McIntosh together clearly isn't working. We may have convincingly won the hitouts but we were smashed in the middle. Carlton, like Sydney, play with one ruckman and have worried us with run and spread in the past. If we go into another game with two lumbering ruckman who merely stand by as Yarran, Simpson etc zip past, I think I'll tear my hair out. The time's come to put one of them in the VFL.

- I've been happy with Blicavs over the past two weeks but I'm also aware that he's actually had a defined role to play (and has played it well). Assuming Lonergan returns next week, Blicavs again has no clear role in the side. If we drop a ruckman, we can play Blitz as a second ruck and give him license to roam around the ground.

- Hawkins desperately needs support. It's a credit to him that he kicked three goals from such limited opportunities. But we're on the path to burning him out and, heaven forbid, watching him get injured. One of Walker, Brown or Kersten (when match fit) simply has to play simple for the sake of having an actual AFL structure.

- As others have pointed out, the consecutive six day breaks have killed us. Not the main reason we lost but without doubt a factor. Two in a row I can handle but three is ridiculous. Clubs need to lobby the AFL to make sure teams coming off a bye only play other teams coming off a bye. In a game that's now more about fitness than it ever has been, it's a huge advantage to give a rested-up team.

- The selection of Smedts was absolutely absurd. I don't blame Billie for playing poorly, I blame the coaches for picking him. Can someone ask Scotty about this on Tweet the Coach next week? I still don't know what Hunt did to get dropped, nor why he wasn't recalled after only playing a half in the VFL. Our team selections have been abysmal of late. And if we had to play him, why not play him as a crumbing forward where he has performed in the past and which is an area we're clearly lacking in.

- Enright and Lonergan may not have made much difference last night with the amount of times the ball went down there, but Christensen and Caddy may have. The likes of Stringer and Sheringham are depth players at best and in an ideal world would only play a game or two a year. They're in there at the moment out of necessity. Reminds me of the situation the Hawks are in. Last year they had big wraps on Simpkin who would usually come on as the sub when the game was already won and kick a goal or two. This year they've had some injuries and Simpkin has been forced to take on a bigger role. He's obviously not going to produce what Mitchell or Hodge would and there's frustration towards him just as there is towards our depth players.

- Was reasonably impressed with Bews again, who panicked far less than some of his more experienced teammates. He stays in the side for a while longer as far as I'm concerned.

As others have said, Sydney is not 110 points better than us. They may be better than us but there's not THAT big a gap. I'm not excusing our performance but when you add in all the factors - fatigue, personnel, in-game injuries - we were on a hiding to nothing.

We now have a far easier run of games on paper and remain in the hunt for a top 4 spot. I'd like to think that by the time we meet Fremantle and Hawthorn later in the season, we have another tall forward in the line, Caddy and Christensen are back and the likes of Stringer and Sheringham are back in the VFL.

The way I see it, barring a big upset, there are only four games left that we won't start as favourites in or will be marginal favourites:

Gold Coast at Metricon
Fremantle at Simonds
North Melbourne at Etihad
Hawthorn at MCG

If we can pinch at least two of those games and win the ones we should, top 4 is still definitely a reality. I completely expect us to find some form between now and then and if we do, it will be nice to have some pre-finals hit outs against strong teams so see where we're really at.
 

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#24
what worries me is that at the start of 2013, and I mean round 1, I thought that we were building to have a genuine crack in 2015. That looks a bit fanciful right now. But very hard to have a balanced view after a reaming like that.

The worry with the Freo game and this game - where was the intensity?
Exactly, it was non existent against both freo and swans, what is that? It's a real concern, how can there not be intensity in these big games?

Against hawthorn we always play with intensity.

I'm not sure what we put it down to but it's a worry, are we to soft interstate? Maybe.

Scott has some big problems to fix.
 

thegerman

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#25
Exactly, it was non existent against both freo and swans, what is that? It's a real concern, how can there not be intensity in these big games?

Against hawthorn we always play with intensity.

I'm not sure what we put it down to but it's a worry, are we to soft interstate? Maybe.

Scott has some big problems to fix.
Oh no, an opinion. Watch the bullies come out.

Yes agree totally. We need to load up on picks, this 2 or 3 picks in the draft is not going to improve team performance give a realistic shot at a flag.

We need to make some tough decisions, with impending retirements, it's going be hard to win a flag anytime soon.
 
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