Essendon Pre Season Premiers 2023
Which ones are they ā¦let me give a start:
- Our Captain
- Ham
- ?? well we did play Stringer & Parish injured/underdone
- We gave a couple of VFL standard boys a go, but no dice
Mmmm getting tough now, help needed
I posted this in another thread.
These are the concerns I have with our list.
Stats from 202215th for Clearances
17th for tackles
17th for contested disposals
17th for 1%ers
16th for contested marksWe are a soft club. Our reputation is that we are a soft club. And I donāt believe coaching alone can turn these areas into 1st-4th.
In the last 10 years we have been constantly bottom 4 for Contested disposals and clearances, we had 1 year in 2015 where we were 8th for Clearances and contested disposals.
This is my main gripe with our List management strategy. We pick players who arenāt competitive and donāt have an appetite to scrap hard to win the ball.
You canāt legitimately win finals, without being a top 4 contested side imo.
Disagree. We were soft because Woosha & Truck & their assistants let us be soft. Thats itā¦ be ruthless, let the boys know their careers are on the line, they will respond or they must be fired out of a cannon. Its as simple as that. Might take a year or 2ā¦but our hard edge will comeā¦ it may even come this year
The same issues under Hird and he knew it was a problem. he had them on full wrestling training on mats over preseason to address it.
Itās clearly a List management deficit.
Agreed
You see it at the Swans. Players come in, need to play a particular way or donāt play seniors/get spat out of the system
Being hard at the contest is a non negotiable really.
And the list manager working accordingly with them on that
You look at someone like Dylan Stephenās who was a top 10 pick. Heās been given opportunity eventually on wing but in the end came out of team for McInerney who I think was a rookie and just works his butt off to do the team things and crack in.
Under Woosh whose mantra was to provide a fun work place for the players post saga and also at West Coast placed a premium on running side the contest work it seems was not drilled in hard enough
Skipworth who did look after our midfield was big on it and tough on certain players accordingly (like Langford), and then we end up seeing Skipworth leave when Rutten came in and sat above in hierarchy and wanted us to play Richmond way which hasnāt been much about contested footy.
Rutten spoke about blue collar but I donāt think was demanding enough on the players such that it took so long for Shiel to actually extract the digit.
If it was Ross Lyon heād have had none of it and all played would have been on notice.
I really hope Scott can bring that non negotiable side to things and we keep turning over players who canāt/wonāt adhere to
We were soft because Woosha & Truck & their assistants let us be soft.
If a playerās hardness depends on who is coaching him, then he is just soft. Hardness is non-negotiable and comes from within.
The game plan, the drills, the guarding spaceā¦ sure, its on the team plan, must stand in a certain spot at the contest FFS and cracking in willy nilly against team rules you knowā¦gotta guard space
Kelly: Defence a priority under Scott
Dons aim to improve team defence.
4 hrs
Defender Jake Kelly has revealed Essendon is narrowing in on rectifying its team defence for 2023.
The Bombers endured a challenging 2022, and found their defence exposed at various points throughout the year.
By round 15 last season, the Bombers had conceded an average of 94.8 points a game, ranking 15th in the AFL.
New senior coach Brad Scott has made his intentions clear, emphasising on improving defensive pressure, and reducing turnover movements across the field.
Kelly says the Dons have made a concerted effort to address their defensive flaws this pre-season.
āThe main thing we wanted to implement over the pre-season is our ability to defend the ball and stop the ball transitioning from the forward 50 to the defensive 50,ā Kelly said.
āItās really just tidying up the finer details.
āIt doesnāt take a long at all if youāre just clear on the finer points. Which are generally things players can fix very quickly, not skills that need to be trained extensively.ā
After being secured during the 2021 free agency period, Kelly has quickly become a core member of the side playing 21 games last season.
The 26-year-old has embraced the new processes under senior coach Brad Scott, speaking highly of the two-time premiership player.
āBradās been fantastic, heās a very smart operator, heās got a very clear plan and vision,ā Kelly said.
āHeās super clear on what he wants and what he wants to implement at the club. I canāt speak of him more highly; heās definitely got us on the right track.ā
Essendon plays its first practice match against the Gold Coast Suns on Thursday, February 23 at Metricon Outer Oval.
Well there arenāt that many on our list who would have the foggiest idea what the right track is. However Kelly may be one of them.
It would be nice.
So we needed to go through all that off season upheaval to get a new coach who says team defence has to improve due to us bleeding out end to end goals?
Even the bluntest tool in the shed could see that was a massive problem at Essendon . It had been a problem before Truck to be fair.
Remember that night the Dogs went through us like 4 boxes of Laxettes.?
That was 2019 !
When Truck came on board it was his remit to fix our defence. Even though he had fhe Richmond blueprint, he never fixed it, either as a line coach or senior coachā¦
I hope Scott can fix it. I suspect he might need to move some players around or toughen them up a bit
We know what the problems are.
It all comes down to whether our solutions actually work against the rest of the league.
If they actually do work, can they be sustained once teams start putting more time into combatting whatever it is your succeeding to.
I donāt think we have the faintest idea whether we are on the right track right now. We are most likely having the best pre season weāve had since 2020. Seriously, think about it. 2020/2021 was the late season due to the 2020 stoppage of the game so pre season was compressed. 2021/2022 still had some restrictions as everyone was coming out of lockdowns and being infected.
This is the first unrestricted pre-season these players would have experienced since 2020. Everyone thinks they are flying. Pre season games and the first few weeks of the seasons is where we know if weāre on the right track.
We know what the problems are.
fans accepting mediocrity?
Iām hearing from within that Brad likes playing a spare in defence ā¦ā¦maybe thatās part of the defensive revamp ?
Time will tell. This time last year I heard players talk about ādefensive actionsā but the way they played out on the field couldnāt have been further away from that. The proof will be in the pudding. If he can at least get us to concede no more than the AFL average after being one of the easiest teams to score against last season, thatās decent progress for meā¦
Just wordsā¦
All will be apparent soon, once we start playing games.
Lid is on.
Whatās a lid?
Time will tell. This time last year I heard players talk about ādefensive actionsā but the way they played out on the field couldnāt have been further away from that. The proof will be in the pudding. If he can at least get us to concede no more than the AFL average after being one of the easiest teams to score against last season, thatās decent progress for meā¦
No it wonāt.
Kelly: Defence a priority under Scott
The 26-year-old has embraced the new processes under senior coach Brad Scott, speaking highly of the two-time premiership player.
28yo not 26yo.
Majority of the time teams will play 5 perm forwards and the other fwd will push up the ground.
From what Iāve seen at training weāve maintained 6 defenders but it wasnāt clear that if a fwd line maintains 6 forwards would we drop a 7th defender behind the ball.
The thing Kelly repeatedly referenced was the clear, well articulated instruction on what Scott wants defensively. Now, we wait with apprehension on how the boys execute the plan