Story of his life.
A very good footballer, but not a good leader, and not a winner.
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Screw Buckley and Collingwood.
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On this particular matter involving a foreign club and player, Diggers and I are in agreement.
another great article written by Jimmy this week. Is the only person worth reading.
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I want hirdy in footy again.
Don’t give a flying where.
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Can you post it pls?
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Expert Opinion
Opposition analyst one of most important men in preparing for a final, writes James Hird
James Hird, Herald Sun
August 31, 2017 5:57pm
THIS weekend is the calm before the storm — for most.
Fans are planning a day at the local footy or in the garden, but the coaches of the finals combatants and their coaching teams have been on all week. Big time.
The eight senior men and their staff will have spent all week analysing every game played by their upcoming opposition, poring through vision for trends, strengths to combat and weaknesses to attack.
Clubs may try to tweak their game plans before the finals, but coaches largely will believe what they have seen. Information is all.
Long gone are the days where the senior coach would try to devise a winning strategy in isolation. More than ever, the top man relies on the team around him.
At Essendon I depended on every member of my team, but leading into big games and finals none more than opposition analyst (and current Melbourne strategy coach) Craig Jennings.
Every club has such a strategist.
Their influence is measured almost solely on the accuracy of their information.
Craig would travel across the country picking up every and any piece of information possible. Six weeks before Round 1 in 2013, Craig spent a week watching the Crows in Adelaide.
After watching them train with a lack of intensity and seeing “Tex” Walker riding a motorbike around the players during the warm-up, he declared we would win Round 1 at Football Park. The Crows simply would not be able to run the game out.
Result: Essendon by 35 points.
Finals are won by teams that execute best under pressure.
Every single set play becomes more important because it is now best versus best.
Pressure skyrockets physically and mentally. If both teams bring equal effort then the only difference can only be execution of skills in that heightened environment.
It’s why the team with the best kicking efficiency wins the premiership most years.
This is an interesting note in the context of the Geelong v Richmond match-up next Friday.
Geelong is the best tackling team in the competition.
Richmond is renowned for its forward pressure and concedes only 73 points a game — the second-best defensive team.
Under this pressure, which team has the individual players to execute and hit the scoreboard? Dustin Martin, Trent Cotchin and Jack Riewoldt or Patrick Dangerfield, Joel Selwood and Tom Hawkins?
At match committee this week your club’s strategy coach will provide minute detail — clips, tables, action plans — on how to deny the opposition’s strengths and how to take advantage of its shortcomings.
Greater Western Sydney will know Adelaide is one of the best ever turnover scoring teams. The strategist will know exactly how to negate this after studying countless Adelaide scoring chains against every opponent.
Strategists pick the eyes out of the best games to glean the clearest insight.
The most recent match against that opponent also will be critical, but what if you haven’t played that team since the early rounds?
Strategists will find a game that ideally was played at the same ground as the upcoming final against an opponent that plays similarly to his own team.
Therefore the Giants’ strategy coach this week might prefer to see how Sydney, Hawthorn and Melbourne denied Adelaide’s scoring at Adelaide Oval, more so than how the Eagles did the same thing at Subiaco on the weekend, or how the Kangaroos achieved the same result in Hobart three months ago.
At Essendon, I wanted to know how a team most commonly scored and how we could best nullify that with our defensive set-up.
This year Essendon loves coming through the corridor and also has a mantra of wanting to be a high-scoring team.
Sydney’s major focus on Saturday week will be to deny that corridor ball movement.
If they can, will Essendon still score by moving the footy through the wings? Or can Essendon increase stoppage scores to make up for scores lost through the middle?
Essendon will get great confidence from the fact its game style against Sydney was a winning one for 99 per cent of the game.
Some late errors gave Sydney the win in Round 14, but expect Essendon to replicate most of what worked in that game.
Sydney is best at absorbing pressure in its defensive 50 and not allowing teams to score, but Essendon found a way.
One of the important things I implemented at Essendon was to get Craig Jennings to prepare video of how to beat the opposition’s best four or five players — finals are often won by occasion stars.
This video would be on replay on every screen at the club all week.
In planning to take on Port Adelaide, West Coast will build a strategy around minimising the impact of Paddy Ryder, Brad Ebert, Robbie Gray, Justin Westhoff and Chad Wingard.
Beating the opposition’s best player is a team effort and doesn’t just come down to a single match-up.
West Coast’s strength is its kicking, marking and outside game.
Port Adelaide will be aiming to lock in the Eagles’ contest and territory game to keep the ball in its own half, creating a record number of forward-half stoppages and giving West Coast minimal time and space to click into its kicking game.
Port won’t need any specific tricks to beat West Coast. They just need to execute their own game style with precision.
The top four can’t win the premiership in the first week of the finals, but they sure can lose it.
Injuries to key players and a loss by Adelaide, GWS, Geelong or Richmond makes it very hard and a certainty that they will play an interstate preliminary final, if they get that far.
Outside the top four, my head tells me Sydney is the only team that can win the premiership. But, along with every Essendon supporter, I dream that the remarkable year the Bombers have already had could end in the greatest fairytale finish of all time.
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Only needed this paragraph.
Go Bombers!
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I love reading Hirdy’s write-ups.
And without wanting to sound condescending in any way - it is worth noting just how complex games are and what it takes to make even slight differences. The popular catch phrases bandied around on public media are just simplistic filler.
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Wonder if L FRANKLIN! has been circling his teammates on a motorcycle?
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what a class act James Hird is!! After everything that’s happened and gone on he still ■■■■■■■ loves this club.
A true Essendon legend in every sense of the word
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I ■■■■■■ love Hirdy
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delete
Believe they banned him from that after he rolled his 4wd in to Lewis Roberts-Thompson one preseason.
Running over LRT was funded by the entire swans supporter group after the coaching team kept playing him.
It also puts into perspective how ridiculous some of the comments on Blitz are. People wanting to make wholesale changes after a loss and assuming the coaches are idiots, when it’s guaranteed the coaches have put a lot of time into strategy and development of players.
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I put it down partly to the communication format and medium. But only partly.
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This forum is really limiting in its ability to facilitate a conversation.
And for a forum full of mad Bomber supporters there is a ■■■■ tonne polarisation. Makes no sense.
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2017 Premiership Cup ambassador Brent Harvey says James Hird is a football legend and he’s rapt he will be involved on Grand Final day.
4:19 PM - 4 Sep 2017
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https://www.facebook.com/EFCNSF/posts/1917941235200162
James Hird’s contemporary Brent Harvey is pleased the Essendon great will present the Norm Smith Medal at the AFL grand final.
It will be Hird’s first official involvement in the game since he resigned as Bombers coach just more than two years ago.
The league confirmed at Monday’s finals series launch that Hird will present the medal, given to the player voted best afield in the grand final.
“I don’t have a really strong thought on it - I think it’s fantastic he’s coming back and presenting the medal and the AFL are sticking to their plan of past winners coming to present it,” Harvey said.
“He was next in line, so I wouldn’t see why he wouldn’t get that opportunity - I’m very pleased he’s taken the opportunity to do so.”
Harvey said he has a lot of respect for Hird.
“He’s a football person, he’s one of the best football people, for me, growing up watching football in general,” Harvey said.
"I wasn’t even Essendon, but I nearly had a tear in my eye when James Hird retired.
“He’s a football legend and I’m rapt he’ll be involved on grand final day.”
Harvey is the premiership cup ambassador for the finals series and Mick Malthouse will present the Jock McHale Medal to the winning grand final coach.
Source: SBS
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