In the HS (Sun Apr7), Zac Merrett is quoted about how the players “were allowed to play the way they wanted to”.
“We unleashed the shackles a bit and played with a fair sense of freedom” he said. He praised Heppell and Worsfold for allowing the players to “play the way we wanted to play”
???
Is this a thinly veiled criticism of the way they were asked to play in the JLT/Rds1&2? It certainly sounds like it.
Is it the much touted Rutten “team defence”? And has it now been abandoned?
I hope that’s wrong because against a good side we would have got beaten on Friday night.
Reading way to much into it
I don’t believe the gameplan has changed but the mindset. From the get go I saw composure and the want to attack. I think it was Fantasia that got the first link out of defence that led to the first goal. He turned inside(attacking) and weighed up what he wanted to do(composure).
Other things we did better was our disposal and inside 50’s from centre clearances and stoppages. We’d been competitive in the clearance stat but it had no impact. Parish and Shiel especially got some serious territory. Some of our overlap and use of the flanks was great too but that might of been the venue and opposition.
Overall and to put it simply we just attacked more than we had been this year and made better decisions.
How can players play other than the way they want to?
You’re the fricken ones playing! Coach can’t drop you all.
Melbourne put on very little defensive pressure. That’s what happened
next week is gonna be a test, brisbane floods.
I’ve been thinking about this. We kept our forward structure deeper than the first few weeks which gave us more confidence and space to move the ball quicker. Melbourne defending the ground very poorly though. We looked far more free and confident when we had the ball. We need a better defensive plan but we can’t lose our weapons. It’s concerning that we can’t find any balance at all. I’m hoping that we are still looking to build these better defensive structures into the plan more slowly and not throwing it all out because it wasn’t working.
Of course they changed things up just like in round 9 last year from the first bounce i saw a structural change. Fortunately this year wooshas job is under threat early so he didn’t waste half a season again. The players intensity returned because they weren’t sulking, again just like last year.
I actually feel the dees are currently going through the same issues at the moment as we have early 18 and 19, trying to implement something new with no player buy in and the players wanting to play the way they like to play.
If we play like this against Brisbane we will lose. Really need to stop teams scoring so heavily against us. Our bad percentage (again) essentially puts us a game behind everyone else.
I think its great to get the win and get our game flowing, but we can’t expect that much freedom every week, and to allow that many goals.
May be too many cooks spoil the broth. Head coach , line coaches, defence and key position coach, game intelligence and opposition strategy coach, GM football - that’s a lot of input for the players to absorb. Going by Zerrett’s comments, instructions were not coming from all directions this time.
Also, we had a different set-up in the midfield. With Myers and Langford out, others stepped in — and did a better job.
No freeloader one way slow running unaccountable Myers or Langford is black and white for us
Gameplan still sucks though because we often have no forwards in the f50
You need to leave one back just in case, it drags an opponent away and gives you a chance to kick a goal or trap the ball in, it’s just common sense.
There is very very very little change to the game plan (any team’s game plan) during the season from what was rehearsed for the entire preseason, and possibly multiple preseasons. Similarly, there was no difference in the game plan in Q1, Q2 & Q3 on Friday night, but we saw an enormous difference in our ability to execute our game plan over those 3 Qs.
I think Zack is referring to the players loosening up mentally, they lost the fumbles (I don’t think fumbling is part of the plan) and because the Ds were unable to stop our outside run and particularly our run off HB, we played the way we wanted to - except when they kicked 7 goals on the back of gawn’s dominance and what seemed like our guys tiring a bit.
Can anyone provide any detail whatsoever as to what our game plan actually is? We do know we plan to provide maximum pressure around the ball, move the ball quickly and use our superior speed on the outside. But that’s not the game plan, that’s just a style of play we aim for.
Anyone who thinks Worsfold changed the game plan in Rd 3 hasn’t been paying attention.
Perhaps “playing the way we wanted to play” means that the opponent didnt put much pressure on us?
Whatever the game plan was on Friday it’s not going to win you a premiership.
Skills were a shade better across the park and the players simply out worked Melbourne.
I still am unsure of our fitness, I thought the side dropped some intensity in the last.
Melbourne played some good footy Friday.
Effort, intent and pride changed.
Still more to do though. We seemed hesitant , especially early, as if we didn’t quite trust ourselves at the contest. And our ball use swung from sublime to wasteful and allowed Melbourne to score when they shouldn’t.
Yup. Thought we handed them some football through poor disposal at times.
Merrett was a big difference as well.
Much better player.
I don’t care if the opposition scores 100 against us each week, as long as we are capable of scoring 101+ every match.