Technical skills and confidence with ball in hand, with the inevitable overlap, have been areas the team has seen a steady decline in over the past five years. That weakness, set against strengths of height, improved contested/stoppage output lead to the low risk ball movement and press - mostly a down the line, territorial assault. That's all well and good to have as a strategy, but we lacked the ability to change things up or take the game on when an opportunity presented itself. Maybe the Adelaide, WB and NM games being an exception to that rule from memory.
What surprised me was we did finish right up the top end for marks inside 50. Whether our failure to top the scoring ranks was poor set shot conversion, marking in trickier positions, passing when better advised to kick for goal, or a low output from play on situations - I'm not sure. I guess a combination of the above.
There were absolutely some glaring examples of matches where our ball movement into the 50 was awful. But easily as many matches, if not more, where we had far more opportunities but just failed to execute the last plays.
Really good write up of our strategy, fits it to a tee.
Intetesting stat, I hadnt given it much thought. Id love to know our entry/mark ratio. We were notorious for 50 entries with no score i feel.