- Sep 22, 2008
- 25,524
- 34,634
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Banned
- #1
Can somebody explain to me the type of footy were actually trying to play? Deadly serious here I just see no resemblance of an actual, sustainable, cohesive style of football we’re trying to replicate here.
Even in the autopsy thread you see a number of posts come through “oh if we sustain that pressure in the 2nd half for a whole game we’ll beat anyone” yeah right heard that for years. So we need to play an unsustainable style of manic pressure, 4 quarters a game, 22 games a season - to even put ourselves in the potential spot to kick a winning score.
Good sides are good sides because they play to a sustainable game plan that leads to easy wins when they’re not at their best. Even at our best we make hard work of literally everything.
We rely on individual brilliance and manic pressure (levels required which are unsustainable) and always have - as we’ve seen if we get it right we can have periods of success and luck our way into a premiership - maybe another one if we’re lucky.
But that’s not being a good side, that’s playing good football for a brief period of time - we are not a good side and possibly never have been under Bev other than brief runs of form.
It’s not talent related either - our top end talent is hands down the best in the league or at least very very close. Why are we scrapping our way to close losses or scrappy wins when we’re lining up with generational talent in the side like Bont, Macrae and Naughty. Weapons in the backline no one else has like Dale, Daniel & Williams. A Plan b midfield including the likes of Baz, Treloar & Dunkley. Yes there’s gaps in the list, as is with every list, but then we haven’t even tried to fill these gaps so whose fault is that?
It’s game plan! Now what is our game plan? Please somebody enlighten me…
The way I see it is right now we completely rely on midfield dominance and territory - we want to back our midfielders (as we should because they are elite) to win majority of contests and move the ball forward at any cost. Yet we neglect the ruck? A very very important part of a contested ball/stoppage heavy gameplan - completely mind boggling. We refuse to play enough key forwards most weeks, which also goes against our territory dominated game plan.
So why are we selecting a team which completely goes against our very limited overall game plan?
Our strategy at stoppages is to flick the ball around and get ourselves in space for an uncontested kick forward - awesome, we took the league by storm with this and did it great, 5 years ago… teams have adapted and found this out - they no longer get sucked into the contest they cover the outlets and we flick the ball around get into trouble and turn it over. Not only have teams adapted but we do not have the personnel required to play this style.
We have wayyyy too many sloppy role players in this 22 to attempt that style - nothing against these guys as they’re battlers and try hard and are great depth or 21/22 on the team sheet, but how often is a chain of possessions broken down by someone like Rourke, Vandermeer, Hannan etc just not having the quick hands and skills required to affect a millimetre perfect style of play like this. It’s countless, and leads to turnovers which puts our slow, short backline in trouble… onto our backline.
Okay what the * is even going on down there? I understand the quality in our talls is not great, but what are we trying to do here? Whose role is what? Because what I see when I watch our backline is ******* chaos. 6 players flying for the same ball, zero sweepers out the back, just *ing carnage. You don’t need elite back man to have some sort of structure and and strategy to perform a well drilled team defence. Whose job is it to fly? Everyone’s by the looks of things.
Okay we don’t have great intercept markers or very quick talls, true - so why does everyone set up 10m in front of their opponents when they’re not capable of taking a mark in front anyway - and are too slow to get back to affect a contest when the opposition is inevitably on a quick break.
When we try to move the ball from the backline it’s literally always to a contest unless we put the ball in Daniels & Dales hands and they make things happen - this isn’t gameplan. This is just having two of the most lethal kicks in the game with great vision and confidence who make things happen on their own. Our whole style of working the ball up the ground from defence is long to a contest - okay territory fine…. BUT WE DONT HAVE MARKING TALLS! SO WHY TAKE THIS OPTION?
We beat up on s**t teams through sheer midfield dominance, we rely heavily on individual brilliance to win us games.
What parts of our gameplan have developed in 6 years? What have we changed to improve, how are we expecting to get better. Why are we selecting teams that go against the way we play; What even is our aim ingame when trying to execute a way to kick a winning score.
Somebody please answer these questions for me because I am genuinely at a loss, my mind is 100% blown at how incomprehensible a lot of what we do is.
In saying that I believe we’ll make top 4, as we have a ******* good list, despite the challenges put in place and if the planets align hey we might even fluke another flag. But the football this team plays is ******* very average.
Have at it
Even in the autopsy thread you see a number of posts come through “oh if we sustain that pressure in the 2nd half for a whole game we’ll beat anyone” yeah right heard that for years. So we need to play an unsustainable style of manic pressure, 4 quarters a game, 22 games a season - to even put ourselves in the potential spot to kick a winning score.
Good sides are good sides because they play to a sustainable game plan that leads to easy wins when they’re not at their best. Even at our best we make hard work of literally everything.
We rely on individual brilliance and manic pressure (levels required which are unsustainable) and always have - as we’ve seen if we get it right we can have periods of success and luck our way into a premiership - maybe another one if we’re lucky.
But that’s not being a good side, that’s playing good football for a brief period of time - we are not a good side and possibly never have been under Bev other than brief runs of form.
It’s not talent related either - our top end talent is hands down the best in the league or at least very very close. Why are we scrapping our way to close losses or scrappy wins when we’re lining up with generational talent in the side like Bont, Macrae and Naughty. Weapons in the backline no one else has like Dale, Daniel & Williams. A Plan b midfield including the likes of Baz, Treloar & Dunkley. Yes there’s gaps in the list, as is with every list, but then we haven’t even tried to fill these gaps so whose fault is that?
It’s game plan! Now what is our game plan? Please somebody enlighten me…
The way I see it is right now we completely rely on midfield dominance and territory - we want to back our midfielders (as we should because they are elite) to win majority of contests and move the ball forward at any cost. Yet we neglect the ruck? A very very important part of a contested ball/stoppage heavy gameplan - completely mind boggling. We refuse to play enough key forwards most weeks, which also goes against our territory dominated game plan.
So why are we selecting a team which completely goes against our very limited overall game plan?
Our strategy at stoppages is to flick the ball around and get ourselves in space for an uncontested kick forward - awesome, we took the league by storm with this and did it great, 5 years ago… teams have adapted and found this out - they no longer get sucked into the contest they cover the outlets and we flick the ball around get into trouble and turn it over. Not only have teams adapted but we do not have the personnel required to play this style.
We have wayyyy too many sloppy role players in this 22 to attempt that style - nothing against these guys as they’re battlers and try hard and are great depth or 21/22 on the team sheet, but how often is a chain of possessions broken down by someone like Rourke, Vandermeer, Hannan etc just not having the quick hands and skills required to affect a millimetre perfect style of play like this. It’s countless, and leads to turnovers which puts our slow, short backline in trouble… onto our backline.
Okay what the * is even going on down there? I understand the quality in our talls is not great, but what are we trying to do here? Whose role is what? Because what I see when I watch our backline is ******* chaos. 6 players flying for the same ball, zero sweepers out the back, just *ing carnage. You don’t need elite back man to have some sort of structure and and strategy to perform a well drilled team defence. Whose job is it to fly? Everyone’s by the looks of things.
Okay we don’t have great intercept markers or very quick talls, true - so why does everyone set up 10m in front of their opponents when they’re not capable of taking a mark in front anyway - and are too slow to get back to affect a contest when the opposition is inevitably on a quick break.
When we try to move the ball from the backline it’s literally always to a contest unless we put the ball in Daniels & Dales hands and they make things happen - this isn’t gameplan. This is just having two of the most lethal kicks in the game with great vision and confidence who make things happen on their own. Our whole style of working the ball up the ground from defence is long to a contest - okay territory fine…. BUT WE DONT HAVE MARKING TALLS! SO WHY TAKE THIS OPTION?
We beat up on s**t teams through sheer midfield dominance, we rely heavily on individual brilliance to win us games.
What parts of our gameplan have developed in 6 years? What have we changed to improve, how are we expecting to get better. Why are we selecting teams that go against the way we play; What even is our aim ingame when trying to execute a way to kick a winning score.
Somebody please answer these questions for me because I am genuinely at a loss, my mind is 100% blown at how incomprehensible a lot of what we do is.
In saying that I believe we’ll make top 4, as we have a ******* good list, despite the challenges put in place and if the planets align hey we might even fluke another flag. But the football this team plays is ******* very average.
Have at it
