We've been worked out

[catempire]

A lot has been said about our shortcomings over the past couple of months. Off the top of my head, purported reasons for our losses include:

*Dud coach
*Too slow
*No stars
*No leadership
*Dud forward line (with exception of Ablett and Chapman)
*King
*Ling
*Hunt
*Slade

Even some old chestnuts have been trotted out like: "never bottomed out so missed out on the good picks".

After a great deal of thought, I have another theory. It probably draws together a lot of the reasons mentioned above but the thing that is a more than a little earth-shattering is that it means that it's much harder to address the problem.

The theory goes like this... Bomber Thompson came to the club with a 5 year plan. The plan was to clean out the dead wood, nurture his existing young talent and draft and play the kids to build for the future. Finals were the aim after 3 or so years. A flag within 5. History shows us that all was going quite well up until 2005. In 2004, the young Cats made the top 4 and played in a Prelim final, bowing out to the more seasoned and hardened Lions. All was looking well for 2005. Then trouble struck in mid 2005 with a form slump. What happened? It started with the Freo game where it looked as though the Cats took the opposition too lightly. But there was more to it than that. Freo worked out how to beat Geelong and teams have been doing it ever since.

Geelong relies on a very narrowly defined game plan and style to win it matches. Hard at the ball, tackling, running, working for your team mates and moving the ball quickly. It has been said that Geelong's greatest strength is its evenness. I say it's also our greatest flaw. When you rely on 22 players week in-week out to go into a game with a 99% switched-on mindset, it only takes a few players to be out of sorts and it spreads like wildfire to the rest of the team. A few players not running leads to indecisiveness and slow, chip around football. It's contagious. I've got nothing to kick to so I'll chip it 15m sideways. In the meantime everyone's been manned up so I've once again got nothing to kick to. We don't have a Riewoldt, Judd or Brown to do something special to break it up, so on it continues. Confidence is shattered and there's no way out.

Opposition teams have worked this out. Shut Geelong down with man-on-man, pressure football and they will go into their shells and you've got them.

So the big issue for Geelong is that they rely on a style of game that opposition teams have worked out how to bust up. The coaching staff are statuesque in their responsiveness when things aren't going well. We don't have a star to break up the play and turn the game around, instilling confidence into his teammates. We don't have a leader who stands up and says enough is enough, I'll show you how it's done.

They're problems that are not easily fixed. Even if we manage to get some confidence back and win a few games in a row, the game plan and personnel are fatally flawed and are susceptible (if not, inevitably likely) to lapse again at any stage.

I don't know the answer, I hope to god someone at the GFC does.

 

[cats2rise]

Great read. Loved it. And i think you are spot on!

 

[Shell]

Yeah, i actually read a huge post like that for once! (i have a very short attention span peoples )

Anyways, spot on! Cant argue much there.

 

[thehoff]

Brilliant post. Well done.

There is not much more i can add because you have said everything we are all thinking.

 

[Mr_Cat_Man]

Hit the nail on the Head Catempire been worked out to the absolute endth degree. I dont reckon i have ever seen a Geelong side be completely abliterated by an opposition from start to finish like last night. The worrying part is nothing was done to stop or even slow it down. Very worrying the coaching staff should take a good look at what they r doing atm !!

 

[Live in hope]

I agree very good post.

RE skills - the Cats don't have the footskills to be able to break up an opposition flood or to quickly move the ball to give good one on ones (a la Bulldogs). We can be hard on Kingsley and the other talls forwards, but if the ball comes down slow and sloppy its going to be bl**dy hard for any but the absolute best fowards in the competition to make much impact.

Re - game plan - Lets hope that the coaching staff have courage - Think that we need to adopt the game plan that will win premierships - one on one, high tackling style defensively with a direct, hard running, through the middle style on the attack. If this does't work, too bad - stick with it, because we need to discover which players can do it and which can't. Changing the game plan covers up the weaknesses in the team that will eventually (like now!) be exploited.

RE- players - if we stick with the (above) plan then we can properly assess what quality we have in the side at the end of the year:
- The backs/runners who can't show consistent run, intensity or foot accuracy by the end of the year are tradeable.
- Likewise the forwards who don't present and man up/tackle.

I also do hope we abandon the policy of rushing back underdone players - King, Harley etc. Please, please, please give the 2-3 year players - Spencer, Mackie, Brynes an extended run to cover for the injured players and to see if they can play. Would be a shame to see even one of these guys leave at the end of the year and then stand out at another club that gives them a go.

One final comment/query in terms of spirit/intensity - the wheels fell off somewhat arund the time we sacked the fitness coach - coincidence that we have looked so flat since??

 

[LongBomb]

Great post CE.

Pretty depressing, but I think you have nailed it.

 

[dids4]

A lot has been said about our shortcomings over the past couple of months. Off the top of my head, purported reasons for our losses include:

*Dud coach
*Too slow
*No stars
*No leadership
*Dud forward line (with exception of Ablett and Chapman)
*King
*Ling
*Hunt
*Slade

Even some old chestnuts have been trotted out like: "never bottomed out so missed out on the good picks".

After a great deal of thought, I have another theory. It probably draws together a lot of the reasons mentioned above but the thing that is a more than a little earth-shattering is that it means that it's much harder to address the problem.

The theory goes like this... Bomber Thompson came to the club with a 5 year plan. The plan was to clean out the dead wood, nurture his existing young talent and draft and play the kids to build for the future. Finals were the aim after 3 or so years. A flag within 5. History shows us that all was going quite well up until 2005. In 2004, the young Cats made the top 4 and played in a Prelim final, bowing out to the more seasoned and hardened Lions. All was looking well for 2005. Then trouble struck in mid 2005 with a form slump. What happened? It started with the Freo game where it looked as though the Cats took the opposition too lightly. But there was more to it than that. Freo worked out how to beat Geelong and teams have been doing it ever since.

Geelong relies on a very narrowly defined game plan and style to win it matches. Hard at the ball, tackling, running, working for your team mates and moving the ball quickly. It has been said that Geelong's greatest strength is its evenness. I say it's also our greatest flaw. When you rely on 22 players week in-week out to go into a game with a 99% switched-on mindset, it only takes a few players to be out of sorts and it spreads like wildfire to the rest of the team. A few players not running leads to indecisiveness and slow, chip around football. It's contagious. I've got nothing to kick to so I'll chip it 15m sideways. In the meantime everyone's been manned up so I've once again got nothing to kick to. We don't have a Riewoldt, Judd or Brown to do something special to break it up, so on it continues. Confidence is shattered and there's no way out.

Opposition teams have worked this out. Shut Geelong down with man-on-man, pressure football and they will go into their shells and you've got them.

So the big issue for Geelong is that they rely on a style of game that opposition teams have worked out how to bust up. The coaching staff are statuesque in their responsiveness when things aren't going well. We don't have a star to break up the play and turn the game around, instilling confidence into his teammates. We don't have a leader who stands up and says enough is enough, I'll show you how it's done.

They're problems that are not easily fixed. Even if we manage to get some confidence back and win a few games in a row, the game plan and personnel are fatally flawed and are susceptible (if not, inevitably likely) to lapse again at any stage.

I don't know the answer, I hope to god someone at the GFC does.

spot on.

 

[Turbocat]

What a very tidy summary CE. So much has sort of been mentioned before, by myself and others but you have focused it as well as anyone.
Can I add just a few things.

Thompson set out to copy Brisbane structure but we never have attained their quality level. As our friend Jack has said along H is not good enough. He may well be our best option but he is no JB.So while we setup our mids group based on the strength of the Lions, we have never had the "oven" to cook all the good work done in the kitchen. Yes at our best, with all fit and in form we can go close but as we have seen how rare is it to have the full package available.Players lack confidence upfield and seems ingrained, look at our centre clearance setups, for instance.Even when we win the ball from a centre ball up, we hand pass backwards to ensure possession instead of driving it forward and trusting our forwards.So although we have a setout to copy the best, we havent got there thru lack of talent, so a bit like you have mentioned either more low picks or more FatherSons etc. are required to really finish our full structure of.

The other thing that I think is really hurting us is the speed of the game. Think back two years, Geelong was quite happy to have ballup after ballup.We liked stop plays, it enable our slower players to keepup. We like to play in a slow man to man game but the need now to constantly push the ball out has not helped us at all.If they introduce a no kick backwards rule our backline will not like that either.

Even worse, the quick kickout intoduced this has really killed our strong but one paced mid group players.We have trained to play man to man but only a slow man to man.A conjested slog is great, wet rainny days at KP give us an advantage but more and more the ground are dry and quick.The quick kickin has opened it up to the degree, we dont have the setup to play the constantly quicker game and are constantly chasing in the middle of the ground.The stream of in bound defenders from the quick kick in find one of our mids have lost his man and just places our defence under way to much pressure.Play man to man in a quick game and we simply get caught and cannot catch opponents. The game changes have really shown our weak spot in our list setup

So, Thompson in a state of disspare has changed his base game plan. He is playing sweepers across the backline at the cost of the forwards. If we had an elete 2-4 mid forwards, that could mark, jump and work with grassed balls, beat multiple opponents etc. then we may have a chance but we dont, nor do many.

To be fair, our side is still playing handicapped by not playing as a group for 4-8 games without changes or injury , form being deflated and moral dropping. Yeah its tough in the AFL but to be frank the more I see the game this year the more I think we really dont have the correct mix in our midfield group. Do we really have guys who can play off an opponent then catch him if gets the ball? Do well have guys who carry the ball quickly and finish? Do we have a pure inside player to feed guys on the outside?

Yes it will be interesting to see what they come up with this week. If the best we can do is just flood then we may as well play the kids and write of the season and the next couple of years while we restructure again. If we cant win with attacking football then we may as well be honest and say we are not a contender

 

[year of the cat]

Great insight. I think you are exactly right and that whether we like it or not we will have to go one step back (or more) before we are able to move forward. This group have i believe performed to their limit over the past two seasons and unfortunately to become a premiership team we need a champion or two. Every premiership team has one or two or more standouts either on the ball and down forward - with Geelong it was hoped that Ottens would be the key position player that would solve this problem. He clearly isn't but rather is useful as a second change ruckman, his mobility not being up to standard.

Therefore the only way is to go back for high draft picks or trade your way out of it. I think it is very difficult to do the later. It is not all doom and gloom however. Despite current form being pathetic we are not that bad. We do have the nucleus of a good team - we showed that over the past two years. We do still have a young list and players such as G.Ablett, Bartel, Corey, Chapman, Scarlett, Kelly, S.Johnson, Milburn, Mackie etc have a hell of a lot of football ahead of them. Things change pretty quickly but I do believe that our best chance to win a flag is to suffer possibly this year - pick up 2 high draft picks plus Hawkins - and build such that in 2-3 years time we may be a force. If you have high draft picks these days they almost have an impact from day one, and this upcoming draft is rated the best by many experts.

Anyway that is my opinion. Look forward to your comments. And when Geelong beat Richmond this weekend I hope you all don't think we are back because our problems will not be solved by one win alone. We may very well still scrape into the eight but what does that achieve? Another lower draft pick and the opportunity for another lower team/s to start their own rise ahead of us....

 

[Conan Troutman]

Greats posts.
They make a lot of sense.

I'm just hoping you guys are wrong, so have to add a more optimistic theory/opinion - might a load of crap, but just trying to find something for me to keep the hope alive

I think the coincidence between the timing of the "form slump" and our bad run of injuries last year (finishing up just in the last week or two), is just too much of a coindcidence to ignore. And what about the finals last year? If teams had worked us out, there's no better place to use that against us than during the finals - we were rising out of the form slump towards the end of the year, as much as we could anyway with the injured or underdone players.

Many teams have 'form slumps' - doesn't mean the opposition have worked them out, and so need start again. I think Melbourne lost 7 straight last year during a form slump, and still made the finals, and are going strong again this year. The Saints last year were 4-4 (same as this year), yet still made top 4. We are one game worse I guess, but top 8 is nowhere near out of reach yet - we're still only a game out of the 8, and despite the big loss still have the best % outside the 8.

On top of that, the Pies looked an awesome team on the weekend. This years AFL Record predicted the Pies could be the big sleepers of '06 and goes through the reasons why, and it makes a lot of sense I think (pretty much due to injuries). We lost by a kick to the Dogs and Demons - could easily have been 5-3 and sitting nicely in the top 8 while at the same time having played badly out of form and having had a 100+ point loss. Last weekend, according to Bomber, was the best team we'd fielded for three years, so perhaps that means we should have won, but it also means those players haven't played together as a whole for some time.

I still think it can turn around. It just better be damn f**king soon

 

[Jack-Packenham]

Greats posts.
They make a lot of sense.

I better not get involved then.

Sorry I can't help myself.

We need a class midfielder (or 4). Get Akermanis

We need 2 good forwards ( Hawkins will be one) ( N Ablett might be the other )

Play Ottens as a ruckman. Try and trade King, Kingsley, Playfair and Ling for early picks and go after local boy John Meesen.

Get 3 or 4 selections in the top 30 of this years draft and have a crack next year and the year after when Hawkins and Ablett are up and going.

Just remember we owe nothing to people who have won us nothing.

 

[thehoff]

Greats posts.
They make a lot of sense.

I better not get involved then.

Sorry I can't help myself.

We need a class midfielder (or 4). Get Akermanis

We need 2 good forwards ( Hawkins will be one) ( N Ablett might be the other )

Play Ottens as a ruckman. Try and trade King, Kingsley, Playfair and Ling for early picks and go after local boy John Meesen.

Get 3 or 4 selections in the top 30 of this years draft and have a crack next year and the year after when Hawkins and Ablett are up and going.

Just remember we owe nothing to people who have won us nothing.

They have won us nothing but it sends the wrong message. You cannot trade you Captain and Vice Captain! No other club in the AFL will or has ever done it!

 

[darren forssman]

what if we strip them of such decorations and then trade them??

 

[Jack-Packenham]

Greats posts.
They make a lot of sense.



They have won us nothing but it sends the wrong message. You cannot trade you Captain and Vice Captain! No other club in the AFL will or has ever done it!

Adelaide 97.

If you change the coach then all bets are off.

 

[thehoff]

what if we strip them of such decorations and then trade them??

DAZZAAA!!!

Still does not send a strong message. We would not have treated past greats suck as Forssman, Flannigan, Malikellis with such dis-respect so we should not do it to our current crop of greats like Playfair, Kinglsey, etc.

 

[Jack-Packenham]

The playing group must realise that we have a team capable of competing with the best teams out there. We should be finishing top 4 or 5. If they can not produce this then changes have to be made. As Tim Watson said, the fish rots at the head. Start from the top and start knocking heads off as this is unacceptable. The nice bloke approach as the hoff suggests hasn't worked in the last 43 years, so what do we have to lose. Surely the players must know that there will be consequences. They couldn't be that stupid to think the club will just sit back and accept this position we are now in.

 

[Partridge]

The playing group must realise that we have a team capable of competing with the best teams out there. We should be finishing top 4 or 5. If they can not produce this then changes have to be made. As Tim Watson said, the fish rots at the head. Start from the top and start knocking heads off as this is unacceptable. The nice bloke approach as the hoff suggests hasn't worked in the last 43 years, so what do we have to lose. Surely the players must know that there will be consequences. They couldn't be that stupid to think the club will just sit back and accept this position we are now in.

I wouldn't start trading players - yet - but what I most certainly would do is drop them. And I mean the senior players. Any of Ling, Kelly or Kingsley could be demoted for this week and there are plenty more. I cannot believe Ling was named as our best in the Age as he was beyond atrocious. Now I think about it I would drop all 3. Send a clear message to these morons that they don't get games just for turning up to training, and in Ling's case, pointing to spaces on the ground while the games goes on around him.

 

[thehoff]

I wouldn't start trading players - yet - but what I most certainly would do is drop them. And I mean the senior players. Any of Ling, Kelly or Kingsley could be demoted for this week and there are plenty more. I cannot believe Ling was named as our best in the Age as he was beyond atrocious. Now I think about it I would drop all 3. Send a clear message to these morons that they don't get games just for turning up to training, and in Ling's case, pointing to spaces on the ground while the games goes on around him.

He had 32 touches. I know they were not damaging but who else had a tip?

The papers have to name the best players and Ling was clearly one of them on a dark, horrible night.

 

[Jacked Off Jimbo]

[

They have won us nothing but it sends the wrong message. You cannot trade you Captain and Vice Captain! No other club in the AFL will or has ever done it![/quote]

North traded Carey.

 

[chapmanmagic35]

He had 32 touches. I know they were not damaging but who else had a tip?

The papers have to name the best players and Ling was clearly one of them on a dark, horrible night.

Yep, agreed...

 

[SJ]

The papers have to name the best players and Ling was clearly one of them on a dark, horrible night.

Lingy is struggling. He's never had a raking left, but I've particularly noticed over the past 3 weeks the lack of a drop punt coming from his boot. I can't remember one this year. Every time he just seems to 'snap' it long into the forward line, where the ball spins end over end, making it impossible to mark.

Also, a couple of years ago, he was a 2-goal-a-game player. How many has he kicked this year?

Also, to the original post in this forum, I couldn't have said it myself. Absolutely correct. However, there are a few basics that we can improve to get the best out of our side (see my huge post in 'The problem is simple...).

Problems Galore.

 

[thehoff]

North traded Carey.

Carey hurt his club, Ling never would. He is a club man through and through.

If i did not know better, i would think you've never watched a game of AFL football.

 

[Jacked Off Jimbo]

Carey hurt his club, Ling never would. He is a club man through and through.

If i did not know better, i would think you've never watched a game of AFL football.

Keep your red trunks on Hoff, you originally said no club would offload there captain. I was just pointing out you were wrong. You never said anything about hurting your club.
And just in leaving Hoof, yes you heard me correctly, Hoof, you know i watch alot more footy than you. Ive been to twice as many games as you this year!

 

[Sean Sheep]

Great original post, agree with a few of your points, however I'm not entirely convinced that opposition teams have got us 'worked out'. In most of the games that we have lost this year I think it was more about us playing terribly and letting the opposition win (reasons for which one can only speculate).

I still believe that we can beat any team in the competition when we are playing to our potential and it is obvious that there are issues amongst the playing group as to why we aren't doing that.

I'm still keeping the faith as I think that if the players can rekindle that team spirit (and lets face it, they are grown men, surely they can overcome their issues!) they can still go far this season...