I don’t think Worsfold instructs the players to run over the top of the footy, be second to the ball, fumble the ball, overuse it and kick blindly to a nest of Carlton players. However, one thing he should be held accountable for is failing to engage Sam Docherty, who was allowed free reign to stay a defensive kick off the play unattended, mopping up with ease and setting up Carlton on the counter. Let’s not get too carried away with one bad performance in atrocious conditions. It doesn’t automatically make us a bad team, nor does it mean season over, which if you read most of what has been posted in here after the game we might as well pack it in and go on holiday. It is very disappointing that we failed to adjust to what we encountered, but how we respond to that setback will define where this group is heading.
Good post.
How to you account for the fact that there are three other coaches watching the game, and they all missed this or didn’t have a solution?
I don’t know, unless they thought if they have a +1 then we can have a +1 too and we will back him in to have a greater influence, but Docherty is an All-Australian quality HBF so for me it was startling that nobody was sent to try and nullify him. Initially I thought Walla might’ve been assigned a forward tag on him, even Hocking would’ve been a decent shout because he is a tagger by nature and down forward he can kick goals. Whoever played spare man for us in defence certainly didn’t have the desired impact for mine. Carlton moved the ball better, played percentage footy (eg - taking front position), the amount of times the ball dropped short onto a Blues player’s chest with a Bomber trailing 2m behind was doing me spare! Again, hopefully lesson learned and next time we are confronted with those conditions we handle it far better than on Sunday.
Perhaps we aren’t at a win at all costs mode as yet, but more a "Do as instructed, or lose " learning phase.
“We are not going to assist you in there, … you need to rise to the occasion and do what we told you if you want to win this game” - J Worsfold (Paraphrased)
There are times when coaching is about much more than the week on week results, and if ever there was a team in a situation where it’d be more about the learning than the earning, …
I agree. What we get out of players as individuals, as players and as on field leaders is where our focus needs to be. We want the forward team, the defenders and mids to get used to playing together as a unit and the whole group to get used to playing at a unit. The results then flow from that and we make decisions on personnel to bring in or let go until we get where we need to be.
For us, the focus on coaching should be 80% off field in my opinion.
See this is the problem. Making excuses.
Returning players, existing player and new players. Every club gets a new group at the start of each year. Nothing different about that. Ours was just a bit bigger
“Make sure they are fit to start the season.” If they are not fit to start the season they shouldn’t be there, they are not fit to be paid.
“Teach them four game plans with four variations” and…? They have had 16 weeks 8 hours per day. More than one entire semester of study, to learn 4 game plans and 4 variations. And they have only learnt one?
“Lots of drills to control the ball with one hand…Diesel teaching them handball…”
With the exception of Connor Mckenzie these players didn’t come to the club with zero football skills. Nor zero handball skills.
One would expect them to have training drills to hone their skills but to suggest they have so much to learn that they only learnt one game plan…
And most of them have been around a few years and should understand game plans whether or not they played last year. Not difficult stuff.
“Someone forgot to tell them about short handballs in the rain”
Someone forgot to tell them? Their mother perhaps? FFS do you realise what this sounds like? Someone forgot to tell them.
High paid professional athletes and someone forgot to tell them what happens when it rains? What? None of them capable of independent thought?
Lets just continue to make excuses. They are only young, they have no confidence, they have to learn to play together.
Lets be completely clear, there is no excuse for what was dished up on Sunday.
And if we ever want to be a good club again we have to stop settling for that type of performance. Rationalising it with all those excuses is not doing anyone any favours.
It was unacceptable.
We all have a right to expect better.
Not fit to start the season so shouldn’t be there!
Have you forgotten why 10 blokes might not have been fully fit?
So players who have fitness issues at the start of the year ought not be paid?
Too ■■■■ ing right!
The sooner that we bunch of numpties on a social media forum site for one-eyed fanatical fans stop accepting these type of performances and trying to make excuses for why their team performed poorly in ■■■■■■ conditions the better off we will be as a professional sporting team and will win all the premierships ever after.
This is the reason why we have been poor for the past 15 years, 42 years, since the first world war!
Didn’t you know that the team hang out here every evening?
Depends of the definition of fitness issues, but they are being paid to do a job. And that job presumably includes being fit.
I would assume professional athletes shouldn’t have too many fitness issues.
Not fit to start the season?
Scorpio, I am not making excuses, I am telling you why it happened. At best Woosha has yet to train them in the rain how to play wet weather footy as a team. At worst, he doesnt actually know how to play wet weather footy.
Remember, most of these players have played 50% of their games on Etihad, which is perma dry and perma calm wind wise. 3 days a week they come out in the open at Tulla to play outdoors.
I am pretty sure Woosha is a very good coach, his weakness may be as a tactician on game day. Like it or not, this is not a settled group. Even Hawthorn say they are having trouble integrating Mitchel, JOM and a spud into the Hawthorn team, our situation is 3 x worse.
I was not happy with the way we played, but I believe we have been trained to play well in 20 out of 22 games this year, when the ground is dry.
I am not necessarily disagreeing with what you are saying. What I am really trying to get to, is professionalism, and value for money.
And I don’t want to make it just about money, but I cant help thinking if I, or many others here, were paying $250K-300k for someone to work in my business I would expect a very high standard. And If they failed, individually or collectively, I wouldn’t be making so many excuses for them.
Most of these players have been there for years. Even if they never play in the wet, they should have at least have an idea of what they are supposed to do.
The conditions were woeful, there is no doubt about that, but professionals IMHO should have been able to come up with something a little better than what was delivered.
Its not even about losing. Its about what was dished up on the weekend.
Yep. I was disappointed… I expected them to adapt. They didnt… I think they were trying to find a way to play "the way they wanted to play ( to put it in Wooshas terms) :, but its not possible to play that way in the rain.
Simple as that.
So if those really highly-paid people you employed had to fight it out with my really highly-paid people… and lost…what are your options, excluding replacing them all, or paying others more?
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Mindset is a big thing - the Carlton players went in believing they could win if it was wet as per a previous post.
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In the rain, the most skilled team doesn’t win but the team that’s best at clearances and contested ball - and we are one of the worst teams in the comp at this key component of the game.
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On a dry track in the first two rounds our small forwards would race up the the ground and then spin back. This caused havoc with both Hawks & Lions because they can’t let them get free ball in between the arcs and be free to use it. This doesn’t work in very wet conditions, like Sunday, because the ball delivery is not there and the speedier types can’t run and bounce ball and create space. So, the half backs are instructed to take the risk and stay in their D50m area and let the HFs try and win a wet and slippery ball knowing it’s a) hard to win and b) even harder to run & carry the ball when the ball is like soap. This is why the Blues always had “spares” back. They actually weren’t spares (other than perhaps one at times) but defenders who let their forwards go free up the ground in the expectation that the very wet conditions would negate the forwards’ influence, which it naturally did.
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The biggest issue was the stoppage work - we kept trying to do sharp, quick handballs in close that increasingly were impossible to execute as the ball became more slippery. The Blues let us do this and dropped a man back and to the side of the pack and simply tried to knock it out in his direction - requires no finesse, just general knowledge of direction. We tried to finesse and be precise in close. This became a massive problem in Q3 when we lost complete control of the game despite what the scoreboard was showing.
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I would be staggered if we play the same way again in similar conditions. There are massive learnings that are both easily understood and easy to apply.
It’s neither the end of the world nor a “one off” you can brush off, simply because our biggest weakness - clearances & contested ball - is even a bigger handicap the wetter it gets. You need a Bird playing, not a Zaharakis/Stanton type.
We will only address the clearance & contested ball problem by changing the players rotating through. I would be looking at giving McGrath midfield time from now given that’s where he is meant to end up playing anyway. McKenna comes in and back-fills him. Bird must come in for one of Stanton/Zaharakis. Myers, when fit, comes in for the other.
I don’t buy this “one paced” nonsense people go on about regarding midfielders. Midfielders who know how to win the ball and use it are gold. It is speed & cleanliness of ball movement from from inside the stoppage to outside, not leg speed, that is the real “speed” in football.
If you don’t believe me, look at Hawthorn now they’ve gotten rid of their two most one-paced midfielders in Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis. Both might lack “leg speed” but they were #1 & #2 respectively last year for clearances/contested ball at Hawthorn. Hartung might have leg speed but he doesn’t know how to get his own ball.
I said it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about professionalism.
People need to chill out.
We will improve, your favorite player will get his chance, young players will be developed and Worsfold will round out our game plan.
A big factor that seems to be missed is that Hurls/Hepp/Watson are still getting up to speed and Hooker is finding his feet up forward.
Our ruckman had just come back from a hammy, Hocking hadn’t played since forever and half the team are playing in new positions.
Sure we played shithouse but those calling for wholesale changes are over reacting and need to calm down, the data from that game is completely skewed.
This bloke knows what he’s doing, got full trust in him and his ability unlike our last 2 coaches Hird and Knights.