The whole list need to harden the F up and get some intensity about stopping the opposition. We shouldn’t give them an inch yet frequently give them 5mts.
It’s all mental application and attitude.
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Absolutely I think that is the case.
When the game has gone to sh*t, the players start looking after their own backyard. Which is absolutely what we seen this year.
Getting 35 disposals in a game we get thumped by 60 points, it’s a good way to stay clear of Criticism…. No matter how useless those disposals are.
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Didn’t he delegate game plan to others it’s was more the Neeld, Harding, Rutten styles of which the Harding was by far the best we have been in a long time.
Track watchers…let us know what you are seeing in pre-season
I think its a lot more likely that they care a lot about winning, are incredibly competitive people and are just great at gaining possession of the ball and less great at using it effectively to create scores.
Its also likely what a player would do if hes desperately trying to change the momentum and win the game. Not sure how you determine if a player is just doing it to pad stats compared to doing their very best to win the game.
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Some statistics are a reflection of the strengths and weaknesses of the list, and some are more related to the game plan and structures Rutten was implementing. For example, we’ve been strong in clearances for a few years, but some of that might be related to our structure. Perhaps we routinely send an extra man to the contest, where our opponent leaves a spare sitting a kick behind the play.
I know its a fun thing to discuss, but it can be difficult for us to figure out strengths and weaknesses without working directly with the playing list. I remember David King saying that we’ve been near last in the comp in post clearance contested possession for years.
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We have not been strong in clearances for a few years. Our average clearance differential ranking over the last 3 years has been 7th (2020), 9th (2021) and 11th (2022).
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I think in open play we’re pretty good with the footy and can kick a winning score. 2022 we lacked confidence and out of form which resulted in some very poor skills but when we’re on it’s pretty hard to stop us on the outside. However we’re the complete opposite without the footy on the outside and teams can easily go coast to coast. To me that’s a Russian roulette plan and the probability of winning is not going to get us into the top 4.
I know our list is young but we have a plethora of options inside 50 and I think the plan would be selecting the best 7 forwards on form and just get the ball inside 50 and let the forwards get to work and let our mids and defence press up and keep pumping the ball in there. When Wright is not taking marks the ball is usually hitting the deck he doesn’t often get out marked. Same can be said for Stringer, he doesn’t take as many marks but the ball usually hits the deck. So with a potent forward line our mids and defence should be conservative in its approach and not allow a speedy rebound.
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If we don’t score behinds we can’t concede coast to coast.
Better not try score unless it’s running into an open goal.
Teams are going coast to coast against us because none of our mids actually set up behind play and defend the middle of the ground. Especially after disposing of the ball.
We’re too desperate to try and set up a forward press but we don’t set up well enough or work hard enough to execute it.
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I’ve always found the “handball to player and then run past to get the ball back” a good indicator of a stats padder.
Theres plenty of situations where its just a good way to get out of traffic. It could even just be a mistake with no intent to pad stats. You would have to look at it case by case not just “oh X player had a lot of the ball and we lost therefore he was padding his stats and only cares about getting 30 touches a game.”
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Scott mentioned that he will design a game plan that suits the list i have some concerns with that.
Our list full of one way runners that don’t value defense espically the mids last thing we want is to play an offensive brand that’s easy to score against.
I’m having Matthew Knights flash backs thinking about it
FFS…use some analytical skills.
Scott is not going to develop a game plan that plays to out weaknesses…I’m pretty sure that he means that he will be looking at the player’s various strengths and then developing a plan that will make use of the strengths and at the same time be working on areas of weakness during training.
I half agree with you. The area I don’t agree on is that Scott will address deficits by trying to teach players on the list to do things a high level that aren’t remotely part of their individual game. Most successful sports coaches I listen can this approach and say it’s better to identify what you have, build a plan that makes the most of the strengths you have and then bring in people that are strong at your areas of weakness. Or midfield is poor defensively, which we have seen attempts to address by bringing extra numbers up from defence to contests up field leaving us open and out numbered out the back and also attempting to keep shape and expect the midfielders to run back defensively and neither has worked. I can’t imagine that this is entirely addressed by getting guys like Parish and Sheil, who get plenty of the ball but don’t have a very good defensive side, more fit to run more. Mainly because I believe you have to have some level of defensive instinct in the first place to be good at it. I’m also of the opinion that Setterfeild may be helpful on that front but not enough to make a significant difference. I’d like to think that Perkins physical stature helps, but I’m inclined to think his game is weighted heavily to offence too. So I guess I agree that Scott isn’t just going to develop a plan that ignores our non-defensive midfield, but I think it can o my be properly addressed through bringing in players to address the deficiencies rather than trying to get guys to do things that they’re not instinctively driven to do. One area that I could see being addressed relatively well is kicking. Oliver’s and to an extent Petracca’s kicking seem to have benefited from having a coach who is borderline obsessed with improving kicking in Chocco. And the improvement is probably less than 5% anecdotally. If we can improve delivery into F50 by an average of 5% it would probably help us out a whole bunch.
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I think, broadly speaking, that’s the best thing a coach can do: get a team to play to their strengths.
But are our strengths as a team both viable and sustainable?
Our team defence is a nightmare and that’s the foundation on which most modern, successful teams are built. Our record against finals-bound teams is getting worse and worse as the years go on and that’s because either we’re trying to play a way that we can’t, or we’re actually trying to play to our strengths and they aren’t good enough.
I know everyone is bullish about him but if Scott can’t get us to defend as a team, he’s going to follow an ever-growing list of unsuccessful Essendon coaches on the scrapheap.
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Except he has done this before and done it at a reasonably high level. I’m happy he is designing a game plan, with his team which includes high level game strategists like Caracella, around the list. It says we will play to accentuate our best assets and protect our weaknesses.
Something we have not done since 2016.
You could look at it from a weakness point of view and try to mitigate those whilst using the few strengths we have. One of our key strengths we have/had was outside offensive running. And that’s also where we have weakness in defensive running. We could go for the Hird era run and gun style and try to build a defensive setup behind the ball to limit the damage on the counter.