Analysis Where to from here?

[FredLeDeux]

Your carrying on like youve won 4 Brownlows 5 Magarys and 6 Sandover medals

So please tell me why we lost Frid night and how it is fixed - in your opinion - youve rubbished someone who actually played at the elite level - so give us your opinion

The only thing Cataholic played at the elite level is pocket billiards; though it's a trifle unfortunate that he does it in public.

 

[CatAttack84]

Even my dad who has supported us since the 70s and has been to all our losing grand finals and finals etc said we’re back to being handbaggers.

...and that's exactly why those slurs still exist. I'll be the first to call out the Cats play sh!t when they do, but I'll never use that term. Each to their own, but if our own supporters use slurs against the club, they'll never go away.

 

[Goggin Our Best]

The only thing Cataholic played at the elite level is pocket billiards; though it's a trifle unfortunate that he does it in public.

No he was quoting Mick McGuane who questioned Geel effort in Frid nights game

So come on tell us what went wrong - and tell us how in your opinion it can be remedied

 

[FredLeDeux]

No he was quoting Mick McGuane who questioned Geel effort in Frid nights game

So come on tell us what went wrong - and tell us how in your opinion it can be remedied

He wasn't quoting anyone, it was all straight from his own fevered imagination.

And I've already stated what went wrong - Henderson incredible, Dalhaus and (until he moved back) Rohan unsighted, key players Selwood, Guthrie and Menegola ineffectual, and Dangerfield adequate but well below his best; which meant, as in most footy games, the other side beat us because they had more good players than us on the night.

 

[Heckler]

Overreaction V Reality

Most of the angst here is attributed to the Coach... however, he is contracted for 2022.
Scott's problem is not footy smarts, but his nature. (based on observation)
His level headed professional approach is great for, post disaster - confidence lifting and gaining player trust.
Where he lacks is player psychological / motivational to ensure player perform to their optimal ability every game.
Trust in players creates comfort and routine at the expensive of a need to perform and continual improvement.
This is compounded by 11 years at the cats brings familiarity that dulls his message. Especially to older players.

Immediately : I would explain to the players :- The Honeymoon is Over
The club has gone all in to win this year. If they want a premiership it must be this year.... Make them hungry for success.
Lay down the law :- Players must perform to their optimum ability. To play as predators, ruthlessly and on instinct.

Future : Bring in a few Ex-Coaches as mentors for Chris to identify and fix his short comings. Ongoing support.
Revamp and bolster the coaching and support team. Skills, Fitness, Weights, Psychologist. Public Relations, etc
Bring in professional coaches from other sports to find areas of potential improvement incl. club professionalism.
Revamp game plans. Plan-A Plan-B etc. Black-Ops tactics to exploit rules,
Introduction of youth policy. Senior players not performing will be dropped for youth. No players are safe.
Rotate and test players in various positions throughout the season to build back up more opportunity.
Improve International rookie program : Scouts to Search the world for suitable young athletes
Improve recruitment and talent identification

 

[catempire]

Where indeed.

First order of business is to finish off this season in whatever form that takes. We are in the strong position of being a top 4 team coming up against a team who could easily have missed the eight. History shows that the QF loser will win this matchup nine out of ten times. The only doubt really is that GWS have troubled us in recent times. They might have the key to beating us in matchups or gameplan. We will see. Despite the crazy suggestions seen in this thread and elsewhere since Friday night, it won't be a case of turning things on their head this week. That's not how you have a successful finals campaign. Rightly or wrongly you have to back your system in to win and if it's not good enough you revisit that system over summer. No quick fixes are going to make up for a system that is deficient. So we will see Tuohy replace O'Connor perhaps even as the only change. Probably the only other thing in play is Ratugolea. But it's hard to see who they would be willing to drop.

In a broader, list management, sense of 'where to from here' it is also not as dramatic as some here have suggested. As I posted in the draft thread, we have no retirements, a tight cap and a weak draft hand which will see minimal list changes this summer. The free agent pool looks thin and there are no attractive trade targets. Our 2022 list will look fairly similar to our 2021 list with changes largely at the fringes.

More interestingly, I think, is what we are looking at ahead of us for 2023 and beyond. It seems Scott will be re-appointed to a long term deal so he will have the reigns. We can probably assume quite a few senior players not being around for the post-2023 era, or at least we can no longer build around them. We will, in my view, be looking to bring in a big key forward and elite midfielder at the end of 2022 for obvious reasons.

I'm also interested to see how the rest of this finals campaign plays out as a test of controlling football philosophy. This has been Scott's third or fourth reinvention of the dominant style of play for his team. At times this season it looked like it could be capable of beating all comers. But the past two weeks have seen significant blows to its credibility. The second half against Melbourne was insipid in every single way. Worryingly, the players and Scott sought to gloss over it by referring to uncharacteristic mistakes at the end of the game. This missed the point. Having an opposition kick eight goals to zip against you reveals a critical weakness of some kind. Then against Port, it was as predictable as it was depressing: an opposition brings the heat in a QF and the Geelong plan unravels pretty quickly. The punters focus on the mistakes of individuals: Blicavs kicking across goal, Henderson and Dangerfield dropping easy marks, missed easy shots at goal. But this is all part of a pattern in QFs for Geelong that cannot be ignored. It is a pattern of an incapacity to prevail when some things don't go our way. In QFs the first thing that changes is you will face a motivated, credentialed and well-schooled opponent that will hone in on your weaknesses and probably have some success at exploiting them. You must have a sufficient degree of resilience to absorb the challenge while limiting damage on the scoreboard and then get things back on your terms and then capitalise your own advantages. Geelong tends to fail on both fronts: allowing opponents to score too freely and then failing to do our own damage when we get the chances. It is too common an occurrence to continue to refuse to accept this.

What does that mean? I would love to see Geelong accept that footy is played a way we don't like and we don't respect but we must embrace: pressure football has dominated football for the past five years. Be the team that others hate playing because we will be putting them under relentless pressure. Don't give them the opportunity to do that to us. Get them out of their comfort zone and then play to our strengths: get the ball into Hawkins, Cameron and Rohan as quickly as possible.

 

[thecatattack]

...and that's exactly why those slurs still exist. I'll be the first to call out the Cats play sh!t when they do, but I'll never use that term. Each to their own, but if our own supporters use slurs against the club, they'll never go away.

Maybe that’s just how lifelong supporters of the club feel at this stage.

 

[Kobe Gryant]

same here, my NBA team - Orlando Magic, has been a basketcase for the best part of a decade, for a couple of years running they stuck with a lineup that got us into the playoffs as a low seed only to lose in week one. In the season just gone, they traded out their 3 best players for draft picks and youth and while I know the next few years will be shitty, it's an exicting thought watching the young roster hopefully come together in the future.

When I look at teams like Essendon I feel a little envious in how their list has been built, even Norf to an extent. They have so many young, high potential guys that if managed properly, could dominate in years to come.

I think Geelong has a pretty decent set of club staff and assistants, I'd love to see what they could do with a list like Essendons.

Yeah it wouldn't take long either. I mean it was only 6 months ago that Norf were in no man's land. Now they look like they could be a super team in a couple years.

Likewise Essendon. Were facing years at the bottom and a toxic club culture and they've turned it around bloody quickly.

It only take one really good draft to build hope. If we had Jones, Cox and Perkins; or Butters, Rozee and Duursma I'd say this place would be a lot more positive about the foreseeable future.

Granted they had the picks and picked the right players, but it only took one draft to get an entire supporter base back on board and full of hope.

We so often get tricked into thinking it's going to take a decade. It doesn't

 

[Pollywaffle]

What is the Geelong identity to be exact?

we were sh*t post 60s, handbaggers post 90s and had a great 5 year period before becoming handbaggers again.

Not allowed to mention h**dbags any more. Shame on you.
Its man purses

 

[Mad_Hatter]

same here, my NBA team - Orlando Magic, has been a basketcase for the best part of a decade, for a couple of years running they stuck with a lineup that got us into the playoffs as a low seed only to lose in week one. In the season just gone, they traded out their 3 best players for draft picks and youth and while I know the next few years will be shitty, it's an exicting thought watching the young roster hopefully come together in the future.

When I look at teams like Essendon I feel a little envious in how their list has been built, even Norf to an extent. They have so many young, high potential guys that if managed properly, could dominate in years to come.

I think Geelong has a pretty decent set of club staff and assistants, I'd love to see what they could do with a list like Essendons.

My NFL team (NO Saints) reminds me of the Cats, kept pushing an aging team on the verge of losing players (due to cap space mostly) to try to snare that one last Super Bowl for Drew Brees. Problem was with age comes short comings and Drew wasn't the QB he was previously, and it became our Achilles heel.
Now we face an uncertain future and a very thin roster.... Like I see the Cats becoming in a few years :/

 

[Reppie]

It would have to be a while since we lost 3 in a row so i'm backing us in for a win.
Not sure how much further we will go though.
Team lack that ruthless attitude needed.

 

[catempire]

It would have to be a while since we lost 3 in a row

Rounds 6-8 2017. Prior to that it was 2006!

 

[year of the cat]

Where indeed.

First order of business is to finish off this season in whatever form that takes. We are in the strong position of being a top 4 team coming up against a team who could easily have missed the eight. History shows that the QF loser will win this matchup nine out of ten times. The only doubt really is that GWS have troubled us in recent times. They might have the key to beating us in matchups or gameplan. We will see. Despite the crazy suggestions seen in this thread and elsewhere since Friday night, it won't be a case of turning things on their head this week. That's not how you have a successful finals campaign. Rightly or wrongly you have to back your system in to win and if it's not good enough you revisit that system over summer. No quick fixes are going to make up for a system that is deficient. So we will see Tuohy replace O'Connor perhaps even as the only change. Probably the only other thing in play is Ratugolea. But it's hard to see who they would be willing to drop.

In a broader, list management, sense of 'where to from here' it is also not as dramatic as some here have suggested. As I posted in the draft thread, we have no retirements, a tight cap and a weak draft hand which will see minimal list changes this summer. The free agent pool looks thin and there are no attractive trade targets. Our 2022 list will look fairly similar to our 2021 list with changes largely at the fringes.

More interestingly, I think, is what we are looking at ahead of us for 2023 and beyond. It seems Scott will be re-appointed to a long term deal so he will have the reigns. We can probably assume quite a few senior players not being around for the post-2023 era, or at least we can no longer build around them. We will, in my view, be looking to bring in a big key forward and elite midfielder at the end of 2022 for obvious reasons.

I'm also interested to see how the rest of this finals campaign plays out as a test of controlling football philosophy. This has been Scott's third or fourth reinvention of the dominant style of play for his team. At times this season it looked like it could be capable of beating all comers. But the past two weeks have seen significant blows to its credibility. The second half against Melbourne was insipid in every single way. Worryingly, the players and Scott sought to gloss over it by referring to uncharacteristic mistakes at the end of the game. This missed the point. Having an opposition kick eight goals to zip against you reveals a critical weakness of some kind. Then against Port, it was as predictable as it was depressing: an opposition brings the heat in a QF and the Geelong plan unravels pretty quickly. The punters focus on the mistakes of individuals: Blicavs kicking across goal, Henderson and Dangerfield dropping easy marks, missed easy shots at goal. But this is all part of a pattern in QFs for Geelong that cannot be ignored. It is a pattern of an incapacity to prevail when some things don't go our way. In QFs the first thing that changes is you will face a motivated, credentialed and well-schooled opponent that will hone in on your weaknesses and probably have some success at exploiting them. You must have a sufficient degree of resilience to absorb the challenge while limiting damage on the scoreboard and then get things back on your terms and then capitalise your own advantages. Geelong tends to fail on both fronts: allowing opponents to score too freely and then failing to do our own damage when we get the chances. It is too common an occurrence to continue to refuse to accept this.

What does that mean? I would love to see Geelong accept that footy is played a way we don't like and we don't respect but we must embrace: pressure football has dominated football for the past five years. Be the team that others hate playing because we will be putting them under relentless pressure. Don't give them the opportunity to do that to us. Get them out of their comfort zone and then play to our strengths: get the ball into Hawkins, Cameron and Rohan as quickly as possible.

I think you’ve brought up some important points. I don’t think our current 2021 game plan is the issue. I like this variation. The problem is that come finals, with increased intensity, we can no longer execute it as we did during the H&A. That comes down to a personnel issue. If we have players that continually choke (and it is choking) or are unable to raise their game to play effectively in finals then they need to go.

I think with some it’s just age that is getting to them now. Joel is an absolute champion but he’s not the consistent finals performer he used to be. No criticism, he’s just battling his body.

Then there are the perennial finals under achievers. And there’s a long list. In no particular order - Blicavs, Rohan, Dahlhaus, Miers, Menegola, Henderson, Kolodjashnij, and even Dangerfield have consistently not performed in finals at the level that they do during the season. As Fred said you can’t expect to execute a game plan and win if so many just don’t turn up!

Then the question has to be asked… why?

Is it mental fragility? Players that have just reached their ceiling? Not being properly aroused prior to the match? Now that it’s happened so often is it a lack of confidence?

Whatever it is, you can tell in the first 10 mins of the final how we will fare. Not necessarily the result, but whether we will give it a crack. And when we start kicking sideways that’s the indicator to me that our confidence is shot. The game pretty much over.

So, I think we have to look at changing it up a bit for this final. Inject a bit of youthful vigor and enthusiasm. I went a bit overboard with changes immediately after the other night but there are a few that just need to be replaced. Dahlhaus and Kolodjashnij the main two. Rohan should go too but unfortunately we need him to play well. He’s a barometer. He plays well, we win. It’s as simple as that.

For the two, I’d bring in Evans and probably Krueger.

The other I’d love to include is Holmes on the big open ground at Perth. I could easily drop Miers for him.

Edit - if Tuohy is fit he comes in for Kolo

 

[catempire]

I think you’ve brought up some important points. I don’t think our current 2021 game plan is the issue. I like this variation. The problem is that come finals, with increased intensity, we can no longer execute it as we did during the H&A. That comes down to a personnel issue. If we have players that continually choke (and it is choking) or are unable to raise their game to play effectively in finals then they need to go.

I think with some it’s just age that is getting to them now. Joel is an absolute champion but he’s not the consistent finals performer he used to be. No criticism, he’s just battling his body.

Then there are the perennial finals under achievers. And there’s a long list. In no particular order - Blicavs, Rohan, Dahlhaus, Miers, Menegola, Henderson, Kolodjashnij, and even Dangerfield have consistently not performed in finals at the level that they do during the season. As Fred said you can’t expect to execute a game plan and win if so many just don’t turn up!

Then the question has to be asked… why?

Is it mental fragility? Players that have just reached their ceiling? Not being properly aroused prior to the match? Now that it’s happened so often is it a lack of confidence?

Whatever it is, you can tell in the first 10 mins of the final how we will fare. Not necessarily the result, but whether we will give it a crack. And when we start kicking sideways that’s the indicator to me that our confidence is shot. The game pretty much over.

So, I think we have to look at changing it up a bit for this final. Inject a bit of youthful vigor and enthusiasm. I went a bit overboard with changes immediately after the other night but there are a few that just need to be replaced. Dahlhaus and Kolodjashnij the main two. Rohan should go too but unfortunately we need him to play well. He’s a barometer. He plays well, we win. It’s as simple as that.

For the two, I’d bring in Evans and probably Krueger.

The other I’d love to include is Holmes on the big open ground at Perth. I could easily drop Miers for him.

It won't be any surprise to you that I don't agree!

I've seen enough plodders win Premiership medals in the past five years, dragged along by their side's superior system, to know that the players you mention aren't the issue. I do think that some of the players you mention become particularly exposed in the gameplays that we have wheeled out. Blicavs and Kolo are a prime example - if we are slowed down to a a virtual standstill then both of these guys become huge liabilities with ball in hand. In a system that is working well they are fine and very good role players.

Rohan is basically now a failure as an AFL finals performer, that's irrefutable. Dahlhaus is a Premiership player and played a number of good finals for the Dogs but maybe is past it? Miers is too young too judge. Menegola played a good finals campaign in 2020. Henderson has been average over the journey. Dangerfield has been underwhelming but for a couple of outliers. Probably of all of them Dangerfield's failure to dominate a finals series is the biggest factor because he is capable of winning a Premiership on his own shoulders.

Mental fragility? I think there's something in that. I worry that the very comfortable and accommodating environment at Geelong isn't ruthless enough. It's not the environment that delivered us 2007, 2009 and 2011 when there was a hard edge and a 'take-no-bullshit' approach led by Scarlett, Chapman, Johnson, Ling, Bartel and co. I just don't see that hard edge now.

Changing things drastically this week would be a huge overreaction and would serve no purpose other than to weaken our chances while we are still in the hunt. I'd have us $10 to win the flag from here but even at that price you've still got to put your best foot forward. 2022 and the approach there is another matter.

 

[Pollywaffle]

My NFL team (NO Saints) reminds me of the Cats, kept pushing an aging team on the verge of losing players (due to cap space mostly) to try to snare that one last Super Bowl for Drew Brees. Problem was with age comes short comings and Drew wasn't the QB he was previously, and it became our Achilles heel.
Now we face an uncertain future and a very thin roster.... Like I see the Cats becoming in a few years :/

Yes I feel that once the Scott era ends his Ahab like search for the elusive next premiership will leave the club in no better shape than the Pequod.

 

[STPer18]

The big Sav in batter comes in this week. Only player on our list who can/will contest the high balls in the front half, and there's nothing surer that we're gonna bomb it in blindly. I've already marked him down for two goals!

 

[Poetic Justice]

Who was it that was waiting for this?

 

[year of the cat]

It won't be any surprise to you that I don't agree!

I've seen enough plodders win Premiership medals in the past five years, dragged along by their side's superior system, to know that the players you mention aren't the issue. I do think that some of the players you mention become particularly exposed in the gameplays that we have wheeled out. Blicavs and Kolo are a prime example - if we are slowed down to a a virtual standstill then both of these guys become huge liabilities with ball in hand. In a system that is working well they are fine and very good role players.

Rohan is basically now a failure as an AFL finals performer, that's irrefutable. Dahlhaus is a Premiership player and played a number of good finals for the Dogs but maybe is past it? Miers is too young too judge. Menegola played a good finals campaign in 2020. Henderson has been average over the journey. Dangerfield has been underwhelming but for a couple of outliers. Probably of all of them Dangerfield's failure to dominate a finals series is the biggest factor because he is capable of winning a Premiership on his own shoulders.

Mental fragility? I think there's something in that. I worry that the very comfortable and accommodating environment at Geelong isn't ruthless enough. It's not the environment that delivered us 2007, 2009 and 2011 when there was a hard edge and a 'take-no-bullshit' approach led by Scarlett, Chapman, Johnson, Ling, Bartel and co. I just don't see that hard edge now.

Changing things drastically this week would be a huge overreaction and would serve no purpose other than to weaken our chances while we are still in the hunt. I'd have us $10 to win the flag from here but even at that price you've still got to put your best foot forward. 2022 and the approach there is another matter.

Little bit of chicken and the egg. Does the game style expose the players or the players expose the game style. I think it’s players. We’ve just got a few that aren’t up to the level. Simple as that.

I’m only throwing out 2 players. Hardly drastic changes. A fit Tuohy would be a certain in anyway.

 

[Pollywaffle]

Who was it that was waiting for this?
View attachment 1221067

I know what the problem is...He ditched the long socks!

 

[Strange Cat]

Who was it that was waiting for this?
View attachment 1221067

After 10 years of practise you would be expected to be good at it..still waiting to see what they’ve learnt

 

[My Tilly]

That refers solely to the 1970s when the club was at its absolute lowest both from a squad perspective but even as a business. Any opposition supporter who's used that term since does so purely as a slur.

We had some players who were not exactly known for their physicality. Mossop, Bright, Johnston, Reynoldson, Blake. All big boys 6ft'2 and above. And we had a quartet of smalls who were very much outside types so that tag was thrown around a bit.

By the time the 1980's came around, we stated to inject hard nuts into the side. Guys who mostly played it fair but on the edge. Always willing to go the biff if antagonized. Yeats, Bos, Hocking's, Stoneham, Williams, Bourke, Bews, Ablett, Drum. Probably throw a couple of more names in the ring.

Today's team does have that 1970's feel about them. Some big bodied players who don't like it hard and tough.

 

[Boronia67]

That's what you get with a team of comfortable 'destination clubbers'

What do you mean by a "team of of comfortable destination clubbers" ?

I would find it hard to believe if we had poor standards off the field in terms of training standards and player conditioning that we would keep on making the final 4.

I also find it hard it hard to believe that if we had a work rate problem we would keep making the final 4.

 

[Johnny Cattery]

Where indeed.

First order of business is to finish off this season in whatever form that takes. We are in the strong position of being a top 4 team coming up against a team who could easily have missed the eight. History shows that the QF loser will win this matchup nine out of ten times. The only doubt really is that GWS have troubled us in recent times. They might have the key to beating us in matchups or gameplan. We will see. Despite the crazy suggestions seen in this thread and elsewhere since Friday night, it won't be a case of turning things on their head this week. That's not how you have a successful finals campaign. Rightly or wrongly you have to back your system in to win and if it's not good enough you revisit that system over summer. No quick fixes are going to make up for a system that is deficient. So we will see Tuohy replace O'Connor perhaps even as the only change. Probably the only other thing in play is Ratugolea. But it's hard to see who they would be willing to drop.

In a broader, list management, sense of 'where to from here' it is also not as dramatic as some here have suggested. As I posted in the draft thread, we have no retirements, a tight cap and a weak draft hand which will see minimal list changes this summer. The free agent pool looks thin and there are no attractive trade targets. Our 2022 list will look fairly similar to our 2021 list with changes largely at the fringes.

More interestingly, I think, is what we are looking at ahead of us for 2023 and beyond. It seems Scott will be re-appointed to a long term deal so he will have the reigns. We can probably assume quite a few senior players not being around for the post-2023 era, or at least we can no longer build around them. We will, in my view, be looking to bring in a big key forward and elite midfielder at the end of 2022 for obvious reasons.

I'm also interested to see how the rest of this finals campaign plays out as a test of controlling football philosophy. This has been Scott's third or fourth reinvention of the dominant style of play for his team. At times this season it looked like it could be capable of beating all comers. But the past two weeks have seen significant blows to its credibility. The second half against Melbourne was insipid in every single way. Worryingly, the players and Scott sought to gloss over it by referring to uncharacteristic mistakes at the end of the game. This missed the point. Having an opposition kick eight goals to zip against you reveals a critical weakness of some kind. Then against Port, it was as predictable as it was depressing: an opposition brings the heat in a QF and the Geelong plan unravels pretty quickly. The punters focus on the mistakes of individuals: Blicavs kicking across goal, Henderson and Dangerfield dropping easy marks, missed easy shots at goal. But this is all part of a pattern in QFs for Geelong that cannot be ignored. It is a pattern of an incapacity to prevail when some things don't go our way. In QFs the first thing that changes is you will face a motivated, credentialed and well-schooled opponent that will hone in on your weaknesses and probably have some success at exploiting them. You must have a sufficient degree of resilience to absorb the challenge while limiting damage on the scoreboard and then get things back on your terms and then capitalise your own advantages. Geelong tends to fail on both fronts: allowing opponents to score too freely and then failing to do our own damage when we get the chances. It is too common an occurrence to continue to refuse to accept this.

What does that mean? I would love to see Geelong accept that footy is played a way we don't like and we don't respect but we must embrace: pressure football has dominated football for the past five years. Be the team that others hate playing because we will be putting them under relentless pressure. Don't give them the opportunity to do that to us. Get them out of their comfort zone and then play to our strengths: get the ball into Hawkins, Cameron and Rohan as quickly as possible.

The points are all well made, but changing to a pressure game means a complete change of philosophy in drafting, development, team selection, training methods, and probably assistant coaches and game plan. It's a cultural issue too. Such changes either need replacement in leadership and then root and branch review.

Personally I think it would be crazy to change coaches the way Hawthorn have; but there as at the Cats, the issues start at the top, and I don't mean Chris Scott. I'd like evidence from head office that the goal is a premiership, not 'staying competitive' or 'being a destination club' or 'playing prelim finals'; there is a sense that the coaches and players know what the goals (these three things) and their roles are, which is steady as she goes. Consequently we seem to have lost the strong voices for youth and risk, whether through departures, or through people themselves changing.

And we don't have the currency to go to the draft. Everyone talks about bundling up picks to get a high pick but every club is hunting for quality, not quantity; counterintuitively, it's therefore more likely that quantity is where value can be found. So, while we'd all love an elite young mid or three, we have no way to get them (although a few years of Ross Lyon might have Sam Walsh wanting a change of scene). I almost think things are so bad we should do the opposite of the 'bundle to get a top ten' mantra and, instead, scrape what we can together to get a collection of picks in the 30s, try and get a cohort (has been foundational for Brisbane and, although not talked about in that way, also for the Cats 20 years ago), and build for the later part of this decade. Because the middle years of the decade have effectively been written off by our current strategies.

 

[Partridge]

So, I think we have to look at changing it up a bit for this final. Inject a bit of youthful vigor and enthusiasm. I went a bit overboard with changes immediately after the other night but there are a few that just need to be replaced. Dahlhaus and Kolodjashnij the main two. Rohan should go too but unfortunately we need him to play well. He’s a barometer. He plays well, we win. It’s as simple as that.

Just on this, after watching the replay, It's really striking how frequently Kolodjashnij gets brought up (not just by you) as a player who simply must be dropped. He was - can't say this loudly enough - NOWHERE NEAR our worst player Friday night. Nowhere near. Henderson was much worse. Rohan was (of course) much worse. Dahlhaus was much worse. Guthrie to be honest was worse. Miers was worse. Blicavs was worse. Higgins was worse.

He's not a superstar, but he was not in the main two that need to go. Sorry he just wasn't.

 

[catempire]

The points are all well made, but changing to a pressure game means a complete change of philosophy in drafting, development, team selection, training methods, and probably assistant coaches and game plan. It's a cultural issue too. Such changes either need replacement in leadership and then root and branch review.

You might be right about coaching. I find it hard to believe Scott will go 180 on this. He has backed himself to unpick and undermine the pressure trend. This year he has nearly pulled it off with controlling football but it won’t stand up for long enough in finals.

But in terms of personnel we are already recruiting and selecting players who are tailor made for the pressure game. The issue is that we are doing it from a reactive starting point. Under Scott it’s all about absorbing the pressure and counter-punching in a methodical way. That doesn’t work in finals. Winners take the initiative and get the game on terms and then go for the kill.