Lid On 2019: The Lid remains on, until a final is won

^^^
That’s ‘very realistic’?

Daniher is my favourite player but I gotta keep it real. He’s done as an elite player. The type of player he is and the injuries he’s had… his ceiling is drastically reduced.

RIP.

Lid nailed down.

I so desperately want us to have a great season but it’s looking more and more unlikely to be anything than a middle tier team.
I recently went and watched Richmond train and the contrast was alarming. Their size, skill level, confidence and simply just a better and more professional team.
I went down to see us train and faith hasn’t been restored one bit after seeing our dismal performances in the JLT. Skills still seem to be going backwards, slow from a marking contest, panicking in congestion and not many players are thinking one step ahead of the play. From what I witnessed it seemed morale and confidence has dropped and a bit of negativity in the air.
It’s pretty embarrassing that not just once but many instances of missing kicks that badly that the target doesn’t even bother to mark. This was happening in a simple 20-30m kick to kick type drill. As for the kicks that hit targets and in kicking in other drills/sim very rarely can a defender not impact the kick with a punch or easily outmark. Kicks either miles off target, floaty or makes the target flat footed.
As for match sim, disposal was poor coming out of congestion, very rushed and no one taking it on to compose. Disposal from mark/ free kicks was very early 2018. So slow to move it and targets stopped moving once the kicker slowed it down. Still look like our only scoring opportunities come from McKenna or Saad or from a blatant error that any team would score from.
I dunno maybe some type of win soon will get the players back on track.

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Hmmm sounds like the Essendon of the last 15 years haha

Just worried that we are going to waste our talent.

I was replying to a post which quoted part of the post.
Move on

Don’t worry. They will start to gel by round 8.

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It’s interesting you say this i remember thinking the same thing the previous year i got to a number of training sessions and thought the same thing. Most of the drills seemed to be focused on handballing in congestion and in close work, the kicking drills seemed minimal. I would have thought there would be extensive training for the defenders exiting d50 into a midfield zone press (via kicking) and the mids trying to find a target inside f50 against a defensive zone press (via kicking). It’s all good to practice kicking when nobody is around but i would hope they are training kicking into zones as much as possible as that’s the real skill in the modern game. Ball movement via elite kicking skills have been a concern for years.

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They have been, and also a lot of contested marking drills. Like you - it’s an area I wish we were better at - would be so nice to be a team with exceptional field kicking.

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Can be hard to compare training sessions of 2 clubs as they all have certain programs on each day at different intensities etc.

I remember this time last year Jonathan Brown slating Collingwood for their training that he went and watched and looked how their season panned out.

That said I am also worried from what I’ve seen on here in regards to skill levels at training but it is always pretty windy at the hangar so hopefully that is a factor. Most of our players have runs on the board and we already know what their skill levels are like come game day.

The comment that Dylan Sheil thinks that GWS train harder than we do is interesting.

Where was this? Also, could explain why half their team is always injured. Smith has come good since he’s been on our training program.

Must be hard trying to play/train against your own side though, as everyone would be pretty predictable. If our defense was trying to clear the ball, the other team would know to just man up on everyone except Longy, and then when they kick it to Longy, they’d just tackle Longy.
Seriously though, we just won’t know until the real stuff starts.
What we have seen isn’t very good, we just have to hope it all clicks into place at the first bounce on Sunday.

My recollection of where I heard it is vague but my recollection of what was said is quite clear - and I know I thought “hmmm - not good” at the time

I think it might have been an interview with one of our assistant coaches (maybe on a fan podcast??)

But what this person said was that when Saad first came to the club he had to lift his training but when Shiel joined he said that GWS train harder.

Yes, it could explain why half their team is injured. But it could also explain why they have made finals for the past few years.

You could infer from the comments that our training is ‘mid table’ and maybe this is why we are a middle of the ladder team.

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My memory of the Shiel comment re training is that it was actually more nuanced
GWS were said to train flat out every session, whereas Essendon varied their sessions with flat out sessions vs specific focus or tactical sessions
Would explain why GWS has basically one game system and cracks when it doesn’t work

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Harsh on GWS I feel.

Not sure if you followed their injury list last season… But it is a pretty compelling reason why they didnt get to the pointy end of the season.

Wonder how many of their injuries were soft tissue though. Did have a couple of ACLs and also Scully had the busted ankle.

I’ve always felt that our boys are huffing and puffing earlier than other teams and we struggle to run out games. I think @wimmera1 asked when was the last time we over-ran a team in the 4th quarter and also done it consistently? We’ve had a couple of games where we have outscored a team in the final quarter but I cant think of a game recently where we were able to overturn a 3-4 goal deficit.

EDIT: best of last year was we were 3 goals down vs North in the first quarter and won.

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We were 20 points down at 3qtr time against Adelaide and won by 12.

Against GWS we were 5 points up at 3qtr time and won by 35

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I looked through it and we’d won 2-3 last quarters convincingly, and had another 3 or 4 where we had waaaaay more shots and kicked ourselves out of it.

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Pots and kettles…
Glass houses and stones…

Things that come to mind when reading the above.

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