What's our new plan A?

[Turbocat]

Geelong , for the vast majority of the last 4 years , did not play the bulldozer type football that that this football theologian zenomorph from another world seems to think we did. No skill!!! Just kick it to open space and win the hard ball again? You dummy you don't set possession records with that style of football.

Secondly , Scott has already said he is not looking to go back to the embryo with our style , he is only looking to tweak the style our champs are used to playing while we introducing some fresh blood to the side. If anything Scott's style will probably favor the kick and contest football he says we have been playing

Lastly , Scott's not just thinking about one group of players last fling , he as a duty to prepare a group that will be in the zone some time soon in the future. Its one of the key selling points that got him the job. Its why Geelong rarely tops up and hardly ever bottoms out , its not just all about today.

 

[thejester]

"I don't think we'll see a better passage of football that will highlight what this Geelong team is about..."

'Unskilled' indeed.

 

[vinum coupe]

To be fair, that's 4 years ago!!!!!!

 

[vinum coupe]

And by the way. You just broke my heart again. We have no one that can do (consistently) what gazza does in that clip. As simple as it looks, it cuts teams open.

 

[Beth]

I don't think round 1 is going to tell us much at all. I actually expect us to lose. We have a new coach with a new plan forming, and hopefully a couple of kids playing. St Kilda are going to win the flag this year or genuinely kill themselves trying from the first bounce of round 1.

I don't expect to get any real ideas about whether this is year 1 of a rebuild or the final year of a genuine tilt until the end of round 5/6.

 

[ATSAM]

To have a Coach is 120% committed. To have Players who trust the Coach. To have a Coach who doesn't bully a leading player. To have a Coach who listens to the Players. To have Coach who has a Plan B.
The Players will take care of the rest.

 

[SJ]

Got rid of that unwanted podcast spam.

 

[maxy87]

So any thoughts/ideas in how we will a) get the ball out of our defensive 50 QUICKLY and b) how we can keep the ball in our attacking 50 as much as possible?

I noticed during the Power trial game a combination of the quick handball game and long kicking was employed, depending on the circumstances if course. For instance, the kick out would often be to a pocket who would then assess if anything was on long or dish off a quick handball to get something going.

I must say, when a marking option was on around 50-60m out, we looked a lot more dangerous than we started the handballing game. This is just my thought on it. Does anybody still think that a) it's possible to effectively pierce zonal tactics with quick handball? And if so, b) are we up to the task skills wise?

 

[vinum coupe]

You probably have to look at the Freo plan.
Scott was credited with devising the plan for how they moved the ball out of defence. And boy did they do it easily last year.

 

[Maydok]

Thought this was interesting from Jake Nail in the Age this morning...

"The Collingwood press, an improvement on St Kilda's 2009 model, was designed to beat Geelong, which used ludicrous numbers of handballs. This pre-season it has been evident that handballing is less prevalent, and that the long kick - the bail-out that extricates a team from strangulation - is coming back into vogue.
Geelong itself no longer plays like Geelong. At the weekend, the Cats were kicking more than handballing and scored four coast-to-coast goals from kick-ins, using the ball mainly by foot."

 

[Turbocat]

Swings and Roundabouts.

Our games style evolved to beat the flood. Dont just pump it in to an overwhelmed forwardline. All styles have a weakness. If you loadup one area of the field you are vulnerable elsewhere if another team is good enough to take advantage of it. Geelongs never been a side with strong marking tall forwards , its why I have thought , in theory , the Hawks , Crows and even the Sainst should be less worried by the press than us. Perhaps they have lacked the quality around the ball to implement it.

If we can add marking strength to our forwardline , Pods, Mooney , Hawkins have been just adequate add Brown, Vardy, West maybe even Walker who knows we may just be good enough to "take advantage of" the press.

 

[Maydok]

Swings and Roundabouts.

Our games style evolved to beat the flood. Dont just pump it in to an overwhelmed forwardline. All styles have a weakness. If you loadup one area of the field you are vulnerable elsewhere if another team is good enough to take advantage of it. Geelongs never been a side with strong marking tall forwards , its why I have thought , in theory , the Hawks , Crows and even the Sainst should be less worried by the press than us. Perhaps they have lacked the quality around the ball to implement it.

If we can add marking strength to our forwardline , Pods, Mooney , Hawkins have been just adequate add Brown, Vardy, West maybe even Walker who knows we may just be good enough to "take advantage of" the press.

Sure - since '07 we've used speed to give our forwards every advantage - to get it down there before the opposition could get back and clog it up. And it worked a treat obviously. Moons and Hawk are pretty good marks if they're one out!

If we go by foot out of our backline, I'm interested to see if we'll be prepared to kick it to a contest and back ourselves (eg - the second half against the saints in the QF - yes I know it was raining) or, will we be taking the chip it to the one guy who get's free as we bide our time, nudging forward then hoping a Hawk/Moons/Pods etc gets free.

I still think speed is vital to crack the press - just not predominantly by hand.

Be interesting to see how we play it in Round 1.

 

[Turbocat]

Just thinking on that a bit more. Does this mean we may see the us playing taller , marking wingmen. Other have suggested it but maybe Mackie on one wing , and perhaps another strong marking player on the other.

 

[Vdubs]

Just thinking on that a bit more. Does this mean we may see the us playing taller , marking wingmen. Other have suggested it but maybe Mackie on one wing , and perhaps another strong marking player on the other.

IMO, Mackie is perfect for a wing type position, putting Wojo HB. Joel Corey on the other wing- always a reliable mark, and there his kicking is not so risky. I worry about our defence against players like Milne, Rioli, Sneider, NM's Thomas, N. Krakoeur etc. We are suspect there and these types can really hurt. Was hoping we could have used DJK in that capacity, maybe T Hunt, maybe Stokes to enhance his accountability.

 

[catswhiskers]

Vs the blues last saturday, the cats attacked around the wings as often as they went thru the middle. Probably more often. I did not see many high risk moves into the corridor from defence with the safer kick to the wing being used instead. We still look for the leading player up forward but did kick it to Ottens in a contest a number of times with poor results.

I still don't think Scott would be showing his hand yet. Why would he? He has had umpteen closed door sessions to get things tuned. So expect a change of gear as the season gets underway.

The praccy matches are more bout fitness and contests and a look at all players under pressure etc - not game plan.

I sat there wondering for instance why Geelong never ran the ball out at a kick in (using a shepherd) or never kicked long to the centre square at a kick in even when we seemed to have the numbers there.

I also noted in the NAB cup how many times collingwood shepherded the man on the mark all over the ground. Thats a tactic that does need to be countered or returned in kind. It does provide real advantages for the ball carrier and a pummelling can be handed out to unsuspecting players.

 

[Vdubs]

Vs the blues last saturday, the cats attacked around the wings as often as they went thru the middle. Probably more often. I did not see many high risk moves into the corridor from defence with the safer kick to the wing being used instead. We still look for the leading player up forward but did kick it to Ottens in a contest a number of times with poor results.

I still don't think Scott would be showing his hand yet. Why would he? He has had umpteen closed door sessions to get things tuned. So expect a change of gear as the season gets underway.

The praccy matches are more bout fitness and contests and a look at all players under pressure etc - not game plan.

I sat there wondering for instance why Geelong never ran the ball out at a kick in (using a shepherd) or never kicked long to the centre square at a kick in even when we seemed to have the numbers there.

I also noted in the NAB cup how many times collingwood shepherded the man on the mark all over the ground. Thats a tactic that does need to be countered or returned in kind. It does provide real advantages for the ball carrier and a pummelling can be handed out to unsuspecting players.

Your last point is something that Pies and less so Saints have perfected over the past 2 seasons, and I agree, it is almost cheating and does not get pinged. We can not just ignore it.