The "gameplan". What was different against the Ds?

Boot may be right. My info suggests the old and new clashing. I wasn’t told this, but my guess (reiterate just a guess) is that Skip, Harvs, maybe Harding have their view and that it is opposed to that of Richardson and Rutten.

All teams have that.

So much this

Yes, richmond won a premiership with a certain game style. But they also had Dusty playing almost the best individual campaign I’ve seen since Kouta in 99, Rance headlining a backline that has unique characteristics, Cotchin admirably role modeling for a midfield that had a ruthless team first ethos, Nankervis playing out of his skin for a year and a forward line that had a range of avenues to goal.

The game plan needs to suit the personnel.

For us that means being wary of our lack of size around the ball, our lack of guys who can truly tear you up by foot, and T-Bell’s relative lack of mobility and leveraging our strengths:

  • we have a lot of guys who can genuinely rotate between forward and midfield and are proven goal scorers at afl level

  • we have a strong backline and our tall backmen are the envy of the competition

  • we have electric pace off the half back line and should be the best in the league at generating scores from back half turnovers

  • Francis and Hooker when fit should form the best intercept marking duo in the comp

8 Likes

add in Gleeson for the best intercept marking trio

2 Likes

Let’s have a go at this game plan.

Bearing in mind that confidence is 80% of the game at elite level - the players may intend to play the same game plan rash week but when confidence is down, it looks very different to the same plan when confidence is up, marks are held, balls not fumbled, dangerous kicks hit their targets more often than not.
Game plan elements
1 Win the stoppages preferably by using one big / tough / contested player to feed it wide or slightly back to our good distributors. Good distributors have footskills and or pace. Don’t overcongest the stoppages- keep blokes back a bit and outside to offer the outlet. We’re not afraid of stoppages & creating positives from them.

2 Use the corridor whenever possible between the arcs - if necessary switch back and forth until you can release a free man going forward in that corridor.

3 A subset of this is to take the game on from halfback- by foot - Francis Ridley Conor or with pace - Conor Saad McGrath

4 We prefer a quick ball into the forward line to back our forwards one on one - Tippa Fanta Stringer Joey- or at worst to bring the ball to ground where we are not outnumbered (This sounds obvious but compare it to Geelong who are happy to bide their time until Hawkins can lead up at the ball even from a stoppage)

5 Use our relatively greater number of flexible mids / forwards/ backs throughout the game to wear the opposition down, and make it hard to defend- Tippa Fanta Smith at centre bounces- Conor McGrath as mid / wing / defensive players for example.

I know someone wanted 10 dot points but that’s my stab at 5.
Some I believe are more apparent as a choice by us if you think about what another team’s style or preferences may be.
Eg Hawthorn forwards happily lead wide to the flanks
Richmond chaos ball
The Weagles kick long and wide from defence then look to hit up the leading forwards 40 metres out

3 Likes

You 2 realise the made the prelim last year too right??

And prolly up until a month out of finals they were favs to go back to back.
They were too primed too early in the season qnd xouldnt sustain it through a number of reasons.

Qnd while i hope their downfall is this year, theyve lost to xollingwood and gws 2 top four teams after losing their equal most important player.

See there inlies a problem and maybe its your take of it , or thats what was said.
But if it was said that this is so far feom what they are used too, that should be a good thing cos no one playing foe this team has any form of success behind them in the afl, bar 1, so the way they “know how to play” isnt exactly that great , its just familiarity. But just because uts familiar doesnt mean its good

1 Like

Yep and I’d argue it’s a mix of personnel and game plan - but getting the game plan right for the personnel they had is what has made them great.

When hardwick was trying to implement Clarkson’s game plan with a bunch of right footers with average foot skills they were ■■■■.

2 Likes

Huge if true

Having a plan is great, but being able to execute it is the challenge. Especially if the plan is negated by the opposition. Some parts are in your direct control and others depend on what the opposition does and how you respond… plan B/C/D. For your points I think it goes:

  1. This tactic is in our control. We can decide how many go fully in for the contested ball and who stays out.

  2. This can be negated by the opposition by blocking the corridor. That’s fine and probably expected. So the challenge is whether we back ourselves to run through it, or we have a plan B and skills/smarts/composure to execute it effectively. You indicate a good alternative. We have struggled with the plan B or C.

  3. Similar to point 2, having the skills/composure to execute this tactic or the plan B.

  4. Round 3 we got this right. Plenty of space. Good skills by hand and foot to get the ball (marking or the loose ball) and kicking the goals. Opposition will block the space, loose man back etc. Comes down to how hard we work to offer a good option. And midfielders to see it and execute the proper delivery.

  5. This one is in our control as we can run and rotate as needed. Round 3, with an onballer down early on, we showed we had the fitness to run out the game. Which is an excellent sign our preparation is good.

2 Likes

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Rounds 1 and 2, we got punched in the face.

Be interesting to see if we can keep playing the way we want to play for the duration of the season. We seem to have a habit of coming up against some resistance and going into our shells, not working hard, not hunting with aggression. It was good to see us fight back a bit against Melbourne but by the same token, it was Melbourne.

1 Like

Matthew Knights says hi and would like to discuss this theory further

1 Like

There seems to be a bit of confusion between ‘players driving their standards’ and ‘players coaching themselves’, and ‘players adjusting in-game’. They are all different things.

3 Likes

LOL

“Hey guys. What we’re going to do is try to not win the ball”

Do you actually think about this stuff before hitting ‘post’ ?

Not sure why you find that so humerous.

There was an interview with Pops from memory in the preseason discusssing what Truck was bringing to the club and that point was raised.

It wasn’t so much standing back allowing the opposition to just take the ball but more just having our players setting up more defensively behind the ball to stop the opponent running forward.

If you have more players set up defensively behind the ball then you are obviously more likely to concede the stoppage.

It is what Richmond does.

2 Likes

Yeah.
Nah.

Any coach at any level who asked a player to try and not win a contest would be laughed out of their club.
EDIT: Let alone “the richmond way” being to “take short steps”. WTF? When they’re up they’re the toughest, hardest working side in it.

This site has a collective need to find and/or invent reasons why plans or game styles don’t work or haven’t clicked. Last year it was Neeld telling everyone to get to half back for the slingshot, or something.

EDIT2: People can’t cope with the fact that when ■■■■ starts to go off the rails, for any club, at any level, you almost always see players confused and second-guessing what they’re doing - start taking overly safe options, slow decisions, half-commit to contests, lose marking, etc etc.
Classic signs of a loss of confidence… no coach plans to do that.

1 Like

You are missing the point.

Its not about asking a player to concede a stoppage its about having less numbers at the contest.

1 Like

It’s called ‘playing the second ball’ in soccer

https://www.quora.com/What-do-second-and-third-balls-mean-in-soccer

1 Like

“…of letting the opposition win the ball first”

Call me stupid, but I interpreted that to refer to… letting the opposition win the ball first. Because those are the words. Verbatim.

Perhaps Baker misquoted himself?

2 Likes

Fair enough.

I assume he means just numbers at the contest rather than literally allowing the opposition to take the ball.