Thompson's decision making

[Unwritten_Law]

Rewind to RD 20 last year to the game against Melbourne.

Russell Robertson was towelling up Rooke. Late in the third quarter Thompson finally decides to do something about it, moving Scarlett on to try and quell his influence. Start of the final term and he moves Rooke back onto Robertson and RR duely wins the game for the dees.

Today he does the same thing with Brad Johnson.

Harley starts on him which is fair enough to begin with but it was pretty obvious that Tom wouldn't have the fitness base to continue to run with him for the entire game.

Johnson got away from him and again it takes until the third quarter for Thompson to respond by moving our best defender onto the oppositions best forward.

Harley has a quick 5 min breather and is immediately reassigned to Johnson when he returns to the field. Johnson kicks another goal within 30 seconds.

To top it off Josh Hunt was moved onto him in the final quarter. Talk about playing with fire.

Yes Scarlett was doing an excellent job as a sweeper but so to was Mackie. An elite defender is wasted playing that sort of role.

 

[catempire]

I haven't even watched the game but I recognise that this is Bomber's biggest flaw. He does it time and time again. I just saw that Johnson had kicked 5 and I thought, gee, I wonder who he towelled - not even considering that he may have had several opponents.

It may also be a function of either not using his assistant coaches properly or not having faith that they can do the job.

Ultimately, the buck stops with Bomber though and he needs to be better than this if he is to ever carry us to a flag.

 

[Unwritten_Law]

TBH I think all 5 were kicked on Harley.

Hunt moving onto a player like Brad Johnson, even though he had a solid game on Robbins, just doesn't inspire a hell of a lot of confidence when the game is in the balance.

 

[catempire]

Golden rule should be to put our best defender (Scarlett) on the opposition's best forward. It's not rocket science.

 

[thejester]

I agree to an extent. I guess the concern was that Eade was clearly doing his best to run our defenders up the ground and out of the comfort zone, and that exacerbating this was Johnson's mobility (I'm pretty sure he would have greater leg speed than Scarlett).

 

[Renegade]

Thompson is an idiot, plain and simple.
Tactical dimwit.

 

[Skerret]

To be fair, Hunt did very well on Johnson in the final crucial minutes, as highlighted by that point he saved right on the line when wrestling with Johnson.

 

[The Lord Commander]

Hunt had his best game for quite a while. He towelled up Matty Robbins, who is no slouch, and then beat Brad Johnson handsomely when the game was on the line.

I don't agree with keeping Harley on Johnson for so long. Obviously Bomber likes to show faith in his players and fair enough, but you can't just sit there and not respond when a guy like Brad Johnson is carving you up. He takes far too long to make the changes that have to be made.

I also reckon it was a mistake to play the big H. He didn't do a lot, and we'd have been better off having Tenace, who can run, or Brent Prismall, who has excellent disposal.

 

[chapmanmagic35]

To be fair, Hunt did very well on Johnson in the final crucial minutes, as highlighted by that point he saved right on the line when wrestling with Johnson.

Agreed....also a crucial spoil one on one in the final minutes.

 

[Renegade]

Josh was great today Love ya Joshy!

 

[burto]

Golden rule should be to put our best defender (Scarlett) on the opposition's best forward. It's not rocket science.

more to it than that.
if we presume Mcgrath is brissies best forward (obviously he isnt), would we put scarlo on mcGrath and DJ on jonno brown?

i think not

 

[Renegade]

more to it than that.
if we presume Mcgrath is brissies best forward (obviously he isnt), would we put scarlo on mcGrath and DJ on jonno brown?

i think not

What?
Somehow i don't think anyone will see McGrath as more dangerous than Jonathon Brown, not even Thompson.

 

[Cattery]

Thank heavens we got over the line today, for two reasons, the first, obviously, because I wanted them to win, and the second, because I can get a few things off my chest without being called a whinger [ no need to whinge when you get the four points ]

It's a minor miracle that the Cats triumphed today, you go into a game hoping the coach and match committee have done everything possibly to give you the best chance of victory, but we succeeded today "despite" them, not because of them in my view.

Wrong decision number one was bringing Playfair into the side, which meant we had two "key" forwards who are simply not up to it, which was nothing compared to Thompson's decision to play Harley, a player who's never looked comfortable at full back, on their most dangerous forward in Johnson, and then sit there for three quarters and watch him almost win the game off his own boot.

If you have [ arguably ] the best full back in the competition, wouldn't you think any coach with half a brain would play him there, and even moreso against the oppositions most dangerous player.

Seems pretty obvious to me, Scarlett lines up at full back from the opening bounce, Geelong most probably win by two or three goals.

Also, with both King and Ottens in the side, what the heck was McCarthy doing taking the center bounce in the ruck, and almost conceding a goal when the doggies ruckman spiked it forward and one of their players [ Ray I think ] ran onto it and just missed with his shot.

Taking all that into account, [ plus I don't think the umpires did us any favours ] it was a great effort on their part.

 

[catempire]

more to it than that.
if we presume Mcgrath is brissies best forward (obviously he isnt), would we put scarlo on mcGrath and DJ on jonno brown?

i think not

That's funky logic!

 

[LongBomb]

Cattery I believe Thompson was determined to keep Scarlett as the floating defender to repel the doggies drives towards the 50.
As we all saw, Matthew played this role brilliantly.

What's to say if Scarlett had been tethered to the square minding Johnson all day the doggies may have scored more goals through their standard dashing play and shots from 40-50m?

I still believe a move should have been made. Dash should have been tried on Johnson.
Josh Hunt spent a bit of time on Johnson in the last and actually did a very good job using his strength in the one on ones.

Also, with both King and Ottens in the side, what the heck was McCarthy doing taking the centre bounce in the ruck

It was a good move IMO. Ottens was on song (apart from his kicking) and Bomber wanted to stay in the forward line instead of taking the centre bounce when King was spelled.
Lets face it, our forward line talls of McCarthy, Playfair and (at times) Milburn looked terrible.
Ottens was the only tall showing anything whatsoever. And in the end he (just) got us over the line.

 

[JUBJUB]

Ottens was the only tall showing anything whatsoever. And in the end he (just) got us over the line.

I like that stat in todays Hun :
Ottens took 5 contested marks.The entire Bulldogs team took 5 contested marks.

 

[Partridge]

I agree to an extent. I guess the concern was that Eade was clearly doing his best to run our defenders up the ground and out of the comfort zone, and that exacerbating this was Johnson's mobility (I'm pretty sure he would have greater leg speed than Scarlett).

I'm not so sure about that. Scarlett is a lot faster than people think. Did you notice every time he went one on one with Johnson he smashed the ball away easily. One thing for Johnson to beat a guy roughly his size (Harley), but not someone a little taller, heavier, with better defensive skills who reads the play better than anyone.

Thompson has a bit of Blight's syndrome: far too much faith in players sometimes. Harley at the moment is either not up to it or lacking sharpness due to the time he's missed. For the time being they can't put him on top forwards.

 

[thejester]

I'm not so sure about that. Scarlett is a lot faster than people think. Did you notice every time he went one on one with Johnson he smashed the ball away easily. One thing for Johnson to beat a guy roughly his size (Harley), but not someone a little taller, heavier, with better defensive skills who reads the play better than anyone.

Thompson has a bit of Blight's syndrome: far too much faith in players sometimes. Harley at the moment is either not up to it or lacking sharpness due to the time he's missed. For the time being they can't put him on top forwards.

Yeah, I more meant that Johnson would try and run Scarlett up the ground and then back again in an effort to lose him, which he did several times with Harley IIRC.

 

[Cattery]

Cattery I believe Thompson was determined to keep Scarlett as the floating defender to repel the doggies drives towards the 50.
As we all saw, Matthew played this role brilliantly.

What's to say if Scarlett had been tethered to the square minding Johnson all day the doggies may have scored more goals through their standard dashing play and shots from 40-50m?

I still believe a move should have been made. Dash should have been tried on Johnson.
Josh Hunt spent a bit of time on Johnson in the last and actually did a very good job using his strength in the one on ones.


It was a good move IMO. Ottens was on song (apart from his kicking) and Bomber wanted to stay in the forward line instead of taking the centre bounce when King was spelled.
Lets face it, our forward line talls of McCarthy, Playfair and (at times) Milburn looked terrible.
Ottens was the only tall showing anything whatsoever. And in the end he (just) got us over the line.

Guess that was the logic behind his thinking [ there must have been some reason ] but I still believe you play your best defenders in their best positions, on the most dangerous opposition players.

Just about anyone is capable of playing that "floating defender" role [ perhaps not quite as good as Scarlett did ] while in the meantime the only player who was really keeping the Doggies in the game up forward was Johnson, yet Thompson refused to do anything about it.

Great bloke Thompson, but I've never thought of him as a top line coach, and yesterday was possibly his worst effort to date, as I said, the Cats won "despite" him in the end, not because of him.

Just imagine if the Doggies had won, everyone here would be calling for his head [ rightfully so ] a one point win can hide a multitude of sins.

 

[Cattery]

Thompson has a bit of Blight's syndrome: far too much faith in players sometimes. Harley at the moment is either not up to it or lacking sharpness due to the time he's missed. For the time being they can't put him on top forwards.

Think it's more a case of his not being that great a coach.
As for Harley, probably played his best game for the year last week, but he's never looked comfortable when playing at full back, and yesterday was no exception, absolutely the wrong bloke to play on Johnson.

If he didn't want to play Scarlett there, which as I've already stated I think he should, then someone else should have been given the job, not Harley.

 

[Magnum]

Also, why was chapman at Full Forward most of the day? Put him on the ball!

 

[LongBomb]

Are you kidding?

Chapman got us back into the game when he was moved to FF.
Kicked 3 goals in the space of 15 minutes.

It was a great move by Thompson IMO.

 

[Magnum]

While I agree that his 3 goals got us into the game, I thought it would have overall served us better if he had have played on ball all day rather than 1 out in the goal square. When he started moving up the ground a little more late in 3rd taking some strong grabs he gave us much needed attack into the 50. I thought he would have kicked 2-3 running midfield anyway. Just my thoughts as I believe Chappy to be probably our best player this year so why not use him on the ball.

 

[GeeCat]

Cattery I believe Thompson was determined to keep Scarlett as the floating defender to repel the doggies drives towards the 50.
As we all saw, Matthew played this role brilliantly.

What's to say if Scarlett had been tethered to the square minding Johnson all day the doggies may have scored more goals through their standard dashing play and shots from 40-50m?

I still believe a move should have been made. Dash should have been tried on Johnson.

Yeah, that's a fair point mate.

I suppose one question is whether or not the hypothetical player who could/should have played Matty's sweeper role would have been as equally effective. But the underlying point throughout is that a change needed to be made on Johnson. Be that Scarlett or Dasher is secondary to an extent; Harley needed to be switched off the Dog's most (and arguably only) dangerous forward.

 

[thejester]

Yeah, that's a fair point mate.

I suppose one question is whether or not the hypothetical player who could/should have played Matty's sweeper role would have been as equally effective. But the underlying point throughout is that a change needed to be made on Johnson. Be that Scarlett or Dasher is secondary to an extent; Harley needed to be switched off the Dog's most (and arguably only) dangerous forward.

It's hard to imagine that Milburn wouldn't have had the same effect, and Egan could have had a bash replacing him up forward.