2023 Gameplan

Yep

Tackling and defensive pressure needs to improve a bunch across the forward line and midfield.

Ridley needs a foot up his ■■■■.
Instantly we’re a 2-3 goal better side.

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I think the bedrock of a game plan isn’t so much what your best players are good at so much as figuring out what the bulk of your players are good at and how to use that to let your best players do what they’re good at. We had the rebound with Saad and McKenna but really didn’t have the defensively minded midfielders and high quality one on one defenders to cover for them when they blew the structures by running off.

I don’t know what the most common above average trait of our list is, although we can be pretty sure it’s not repeat sprint endurance given what we looked like trying to play like richmond.

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Under woosh the forward line defence was a legit strength - we were top 4 in forward half tackling. Solid at centre square clearances. Good ball movement.

I don’t think it’s realistic to say we relied on back half scoring, other than the 10-12 weeks at the end of 2019 when we had no rucks, and had to change things up significantly.

The club decided to move away from that defensive emphasis.
I don’t really know why - and what’s worse, I don’t think the club knew, nor have they learnt much of a lesson off it.

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We can design game plans around strengths as much as we like, but if the players won’t defend, nothing much will change.

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I think the stats said we were top for scores from transition, but towards the bottom for inside 50s and retention (plus stoppage clearances). So I think it’s fair to say we relied on rebound to generate scores.

But people treat that like it’s a bad thing here. Collingwood this year relied mostly on generating scores on the counterattack

Part of planning to your strengths is using those strengths to defend. There’s no point telling Draper to drop back into defense like Gawn does when he doesn’t have the overhead ability to do it. We need to do a bunch of mindset work to do for sure, but defending isn’t just mindset.

I don’t like it because i don’t think it’s really accurate.
There was a huge - forced - change of plan once Bellcho (and Joe, and I think smack ?) went down, leaving us with ZLarke one out. It was pretty impressive coaching no doubt, but it wasn’t the plan.
It was really a year of two halves, in terms of coaching.

This club has a culture of making the back 6 do all the defending, while the rest of the team chase kicks.

If I was coach I’d be banning players from looking at their own stats. The amount of stat padding, and useless 15 meter kicks to the boundary line (to boost kicking efficiency) is a disgrace.

The quickest and easiest way to jump up the ladder is ‘defence first’. That’s exactly what happened in 2021.

Here’s an article describing our 2017 season:

Essendon was ranked No.2 for scoring from turnovers last year and was organised to score that way. It was 14th for clearance differential, so John Worsfold’s men did not win the ball from stoppages very often. The Bombers concede a lot of marks in their defensive 50 because of their aggressive ball movement, leading to a ranking of second in the AFL for defensive-half turnovers. With Essendon’s backmen leaving their opponents to stream down the ground, they face a tough task to turn around and pick up a forward quickly if the footy is coughed up. The Bombers’ midfield was too often dominated in 2017, particularly for a team that made finals, and adding more talent in there might see more of their first possessions become clearances.

The high-octane Bombers ranked third overall in scoring last year – behind only the South Australian teams – and much of that owed to their efficiency. All Australian defender Michael Hurley and his merry (backline) men, primarily Martin Gleeson, Mark Baguley and James Kelly, repeatedly repelled opposition attacks and launched scores. Essendon ranked only 12th for total inside 50s with 51.4 last year, but scored off more than half of them. That value for money – no doubt aided by having a dominant forward in Joe Daniher – makes more sense coupled with their impressive uncontested possession differential. Having more disposals under less pressure than the opposition will generally produce a more desirable result

Interesting.
A lot of rebound in 2017, then wasn’t a feature of our gameplan in 2018, or the first half of 2019.

Which I guess tells us what we already know, we’re all over the shop.

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There seems to be some belief amongst Bombers supporters that because we’re a good Centre Clearance team, that we’re a good clearance team.

Which is just non-sense. We are average at around the ground clearances. Draper struggles when he’s rucking body on body. And our midfielders just aren’t hard nosed enough in congestion.

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This is why we often play well in shootouts. Less around the ground stoppages and more centre bounces actually benefit us.

I wasn’t super keen on Shiel when we were rumoured to be chasing him, as he was a centre clearance specialist, when we were already good at those

Not sure what our squad-wide strengths are, but at least half our regular 22 last year were poor kicks or slow decision makers. Based on that, offensively I’d want to us to play more direct, meaning opting for longer and possibly rushed kicks with the intent of not giving the opposition as much time to anticipate where the ball will land. Hopefully this would offset the usual hesitancy many of our players exhibit when given the chance to weigh up their options.

When we do slow the ball down, often our players aren’t skilled enough to find the one free player among the zone. Merrett, Redman and Perkins did this well but most others struggled and turned the ball over regardless of how much time they took. How often did we see a player in red and black hold the ball up after a mark, only to bomb long to a completely setup zone?

Defensively, I have no clue. We make zones look like rocket science, and those last few games of the year were close to 0 effort. Certain players will just never be what we need them to be defensively, so I expect we’ll only see improvement here if the balance of the team is addressed (e.g. actual pressure forwards and an accountable midfield mix).

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Play fit players.

No more easing back into fitness in the AFL,
No more finding form in the AFL.

That’s what the VFL is for.

For last year it was Stringer, Langford and Snelling that spring to mind. Previously there’s been Zaka, Heppell and many many others for years on end.

We have multiple players to choose from in all positions who are worthy to get game’s into if fit and in form.

Play fit players and play to win.

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Spot on. This is Scott’s biggest job. Introducing a culture where defensive effort is a non-negotiable

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Surely you dont believe the players are deliberately and knowingly padding there stats at the expense of the team… by accident or out of habit maybe but no player is out on the ground thinking “I should be kicking it to X position as we have been instructed but ill just kick it to the loose man 15m on my right to keep my kicking efficiency up”.

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I think Scotts blend of talls and smalls is better than in previous years, albeit are inexperienced. And more pace across the ground as well.

My gut feeling is this should bode well for the season even though i think we lack big bodies with endurance in key positions and the tanks of the midfielders likely still an issue.

If scott can keep list on fit and rotate players across games and the season could be half a chance of top 8.

I remember Cooney years ago saying that after Supercoach was introduced, players definitely started padding their stats to boost their score. It definitely happens.

I don’t think Tom Mitchell or Matt Crouch care much other than getting it 30+ times a game

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As long as he doesn’t do anything like put a player with some defensive stuff to work on in another role, or VFL.

If he tries anything like that, clearly he’s got no idea.

Tackle your guts out
Run your guts out
Zone your guys out
Play on your man
Pressure
Mentally be switched on from start to finish no fade outs

Rest will sort itself out

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