Coach Justin Longmuir Pt 2

[Farrand]

Ah, a joke? I guess comedy is not your gig.

Nor basic comprehension yours?

Regardless, new week. New chapter.

 

[Piggy Smalls]

We're 41-3 under JL when we score at least 80 points*
We should be able to score 80 points more often than not going forward with the cattle we now have.

*source - Purple Reign poddy

 

[dominguez]

I haven't sifted through the threads to find exact quotes, but there was a lot of love on this board for sacking Longmuir and replacing him with Luke Beveridge.
Based on yesterday's game, which coach had the better day? Personally, I didn't see any strokes of tactical genius from the Doggies, and Longmuir seemed to sort out ways to cover for 3 missing players in the last quarter. He seemed like a man with a Plan B to me.

Dogs are missing something like 6 of their top 10 from last years BnF. Dominated inside 50, on paper they should have won but that 8 minute burst in the second quarter got us home. Not sure JLo deserves much credit for that run unless it starts happening regularly.

 

[blue shark]

Dogs are missing something like 6 of their top 10 from last years BnF. Dominated inside 50, on paper they should have won but that 8 minute burst in the second quarter got us home. Not sure JLo deserves much credit for that run unless it starts happening regularly.

Freo should be at least a 12-13 wins a season team.
We have our greatest list available, more 1st rounders than ever and
have been rebuilding since 2017.
Yet we always lose key personnel and have faltered the last 2 years.
As you say it wouldn’t even be a contest if we were missing 6.
The good coaches manufacture wins or can win ugly, we have had years to fix
this and it’s still a concern.
There are coaching deficiencies, things that JLo can control, but the reality is
he is not even as good as Ross Lyon.
If there is a better qualified or more experienced coach available, IMO he should be
let go.
Jlo can obviously coach, but a 50 percent wins a season isn’t asking for
much. Our home ground should be an advantage, a team from WA is nothing without
it.

 

[TimN2]

Dogs are missing something like 6 of their top 10 from last years BnF. Dominated inside 50, on paper they should have won but that 8 minute burst in the second quarter got us home. Not sure JLo deserves much credit for that run unless it starts happening regularly.

And Freo were missing 4 from our top 10 for last year's BnF in the last quarter.
I'm not saying that Longmuir is the best coach ever. I'm just saying that he's better than Beveridge, on what we saw at the weekend. Even if Longmuir doesn't deserve credit for the win, Beveridge demonstrated that he doesn't have the nous to get his team across the line, despite the inside 50 domination, despite Darcy being THE dominant forward for the game, and despite Freo having very limited rotations in the last quarter.
By all means, give Longmuir the chop if the side doesn't deliver this season, but I am firm in my belief that Beveridge is not the answer.

 

[rgauci]

You are just hearing what you want to hear. Anything to criticise.

He didn't pot Voss, just said that Treacy gave the best contest as the back up ruck. Banners thought he was supposed to roll back but he made a mistake as he didn't realise the rucks had rotated. Simple.

Why give an opinion who was the best back up ruck? What purpose does that serve aside from criticize Voss.

 

[Purple Suit]

Dogs are missing something like 6 of their top 10 from last years BnF. Dominated inside 50, on paper they should have won but that 8 minute burst in the second quarter got us home. Not sure JLo deserves much credit for that run unless it starts happening regularly.

Bulldogs were missing three by my count.

• 1st: Marcus Bontempelli (314 votes)
• 2nd (tied): Adam Treloar (245 votes)
• 2nd (tied): Bailey Dale (245 votes)
• 4th: Liam Jones (203 votes)
• 5th: Ed Richards (188 votes)
• 6th: Tom Liberatore (170 votes)
• 7th: Lachlan Bramble (168 votes)
• 8th: Rory Lobb (163 votes)
• 9th: Bailey Williams (161 votes)
• 10th: Taylor Duryea (152 votes)

And we were missing 4 in the last quarter plus a Doig medalist winner from a previous season.

Some of the hate needs to be backed up by facts.

 

[Piggy Smalls]

Why give an opinion who was the best back up ruck? What purpose does that serve aside from criticize Voss.

They're big boys. I'm sure they can handle it.

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

The tweaked gameplan alluded to by Champion Data is worth a bigger discussion intertwined with our own "eye test" observations. According to Hoyne

• We got slower than anyone by a fair margin
• We are 3rd for metres gained by hand
• We go more direct than anyone (or equal with GC).
• We have supposedly cut out the uncontested mark plan

Lets include some things we know about JL and the team to understand the plan.

The man hates being scored on turnover and loves contest. The plan seems to be to not back the cattle to hit Brisbane and Hawks like short sharp kicks to scythe through but set up slowly taking the full time off a mark to just hammer it down the line backing our excellent talls and increasingly better smalls to contest. Switching is stupid and increases risk of turnover without appropriate set up.

This is different out of contest though which explains the speed and directness of kicking. He still wants to control out of contest by hand and go direct via hand which is where we are getting the metres gained by hand. He does not want long hack kicks out of contest where avoidable as it increases the risk of rebound out of position.

So the main tweak is slowing down possession maintained via kick and going direct to contest. For his gameplan to work, the handpassing out of contest needs to stand up under pressure. This is the biggest concern and we've yet to see he can get the metres gained by hand against good teams.

I have typed this up in my car avoiding going into work so apologies if I've missed something up along the way haha but wanted to get my driving to work thoughts out haha.

 

[Outshined]

The tweaked gameplan alluded to by Champion Data is worth a bigger discussion intertwined with our own "eye test" observations. According to Hoyne

• We got slower than anyone by a fair margin
• We are 3rd for metres gained by hand
• We go more direct than anyone (or equal with GC).
• We have supposedly cut out the uncontested mark plan

Lets include some things we know about JL and the team to understand the plan.

The man hates being scored on turnover and loves contest. The plan seems to be to not back the cattle to hit Brisbane and Hawks like short sharp kicks to scythe through but set up slowly taking the full time off a mark to just hammer it down the line backing our excellent talls and increasingly better smalls to contest. Switching is stupid and increases risk of turnover without appropriate set up.

This is different out of contest though which explains the speed and directness of kicking. He still wants to control out of contest by hand and go direct via hand which is where we are getting the metres gained by hand. He does not want long hack kicks out of contest where avoidable as it increases the risk of rebound out of position.

So the main tweak is slowing down possession maintained via kick and going direct to contest. For his gameplan to work, the handpassing out of contest needs to stand up under pressure. This is the biggest concern and we've yet to see he can get the metres gained by hand against good teams.

I have typed this up in my car avoiding going into work so apologies if I've missed something up along the way haha but wanted to get my driving to work thoughts out haha.

Strong effort for a pre-work procrastination thought bubble

It does seem that these changes were born out of a reasonably logical appraisal of our strengths and weaknesses. We don't have the kicking game of the best sides but we do (usually) have stoppage prowess and height. Our good run of form last year was built around clearance dominance.

As you say, this can all fall apart pretty quickly around the handball chains. They look great when they come off and get us into a position to gain territory through a more desirable long kick to contest which we'll back Treacy, Amiss etc to win more often than not. There are still a fair few occasions where we concede ground and still end up turning it over.

A brilliant defensive opening quarter last week held things together until we could get rolling but it still feels like things are fairly shaky atm.

 

[dockerfemme]

This has quite a lot of analysis of our game plan, if you scroll down a bit.

Round 5 2025 – This Week In Football

www.hpnfooty.com

 

[ignoramus]

Nice stuff, snuff.

He does not want long hack kicks out of contest where avoidable as it increases the risk of rebound out of position.

This is key I think. Some people will call it being “risk averse”; I’d call it risk management. Every so-called game plan, even the most aggressilvey “attacking” ones, is a trade-off between minimising certain risks and maximising certain rewards, creating opportunities that advantage a playing groups strengths rather than play to their weaknesses.

I for one am very happy to be no longer watching hacked kicks out of the contest (formerly a Serong speciality) come straight back over the midfield to the advantage of the oppo forwards.

So the main tweak is slowing down possession maintained via kick and going direct to contest. For his gameplan to work, the handpassing out of contest needs to stand up under pressure. This is the biggest concern and we've yet to see he can get the metres gained by hand against good teams.

The argument is that “all” it takes is elite pressure to undo the strategy of handballing out of the contest, as though elite pressure is the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s obvious that the strategy comes undone under enough pressure, though seeing as we’re yet to see an infallible strategy (afaik, happy to be corrected on this point and educated on why this perfect strategy isn’t being used by every team, to the result of drawn games every week), I’m not sure the very fact that it can come undone is reason enough to declare it unfit for purpose. The back 6 have been using it to great effect for years now, though possibly because the arc of exposure to pressure decreases significantly closer to goal.

What I think the Bulldogs game showed, however, is that if the oppo give us an inch, we’ll take a mile. In other words, anything less than elite pressure* just won’t cut it in terms of bringing the strategy undone.

*I’m speaking here only of “without the footy” countermeasures.

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

The argument is that “all” it takes is elite pressure to undo the strategy of handballing out of the contest, as though elite pressure is the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s obvious that the strategy comes undone under enough pressure, though seeing as we’re yet to see an infallible strategy (afaik, happy to be corrected on this point and educated on why this perfect strategy isn’t being used by every team, to the result of drawn games every week), I’m not sure the very fact that it can come undone is reason enough to declare it unfit for purpose. The back 6 have been using it to great effect for years now, though possibly because the arc of exposure to pressure decreases significantly closer to goal.

What I think the Bulldogs game showed, however, is that if the oppo give us an inch, we’ll take a mile. In other words, anything less than elite pressure* just won’t cut it in terms of bringing the strategy undone.

i think the problem here is the aim is to win a flag, that requires winning finals where pressure is at its greatest and mostly unavoidable (unless you get Sydney is a GF). If we can come out of the month after the next two weeks looking good then I might have some faith restored.

 

[ignoramus]

i think the problem here is the aim is to win a flag, that requires winning finals where pressure is at its greatest and mostly unavoidable (unless you get Sydney is a GF). If we can come out of the month after the next two weeks looking good then I might have some faith restored.

Agreed that pressure is higher in finals, and that we will want to see improvements in how we handle pressure over the rest of the season. I’m hoping that everyone (coaches included) “took some learnings” from the Geelong game and have worked on positional adjustments to be made in situ specifically to counter high-pressure counters by forcing repeat stoppages when possession chains are disrupted.

Which brings us to the other thing to keep in mind, re. Rd 1: we were missing a big piece of the puzzle in one Sean Darcy. Up the percentage of quality HTAs and the opportunities for the oppo to exert that kind of pressure diminish accordingly.

 

[chaosball32]

And Freo were missing 4 from our top 10 for last year's BnF in the last quarter.
I'm not saying that Longmuir is the best coach ever. I'm just saying that he's better than Beveridge, on what we saw at the weekend. Even if Longmuir doesn't deserve credit for the win, Beveridge demonstrated that he doesn't have the nous to get his team across the line, despite the inside 50 domination, despite Darcy being THE dominant forward for the game, and despite Freo having very limited rotations in the last quarter.
By all means, give Longmuir the chop if the side doesn't deliver this season, but I am firm in my belief that Beveridge is not the answer.

I haven’t seen many seriously suggest Beveridge as a replacement for Longmuir. Most have suggested Longmire, some have said Simpson, Freomaniac has been championing Hinkley as per usual, some have said we should go with an untried assistant, but I haven’t seen many say Beveridge.

You are saying Longmuir, a guy who’s taken his team to finals once in 5 seasons for an average finishing position of 10th, is a better coach then Beveridge who’s won a premiership and taken his team to 2 Grand Finals? That’s certainly an interesting take, what’s your basis for this, one game? Because you could just as easily make the reverse argument when the Bulldogs beat us by 11 goals last year.

 

[Stinky Lomax]

A lot were lamenting our slow starts last year.

This year we’ve won 3 of 4 first quarters played, if there’s any credit to be given, does that go to the coach or the players?

 

[Deveraux]

I think the better comparison will be done in a few years time after JL is allowed to work with the team he has built, not just judged on it after the handwork of building it.

Let the man cook now.

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

I think the better comparison will be done in a few years time after JL is allowed to work with the team he has built, not just judged on it after the handwork of building it.

Let the man cook now.

Hes been here over 5 years mate, shit or get off the pot...

 

[Deveraux]

Hes been here over 5 years mate, shit or get off the pot...

Are you saying the list build has been failure? You can't have it both ways

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

Are you saying the list build has been failure? You can't have it both ways

No one gets to see 7 or 8 years to "let them cook"

The list build is good, hes got a list, if he can't get this team contending now he's got to go.

 

[Purple Jesus]

No one gets to see 7 or 8 years to "let them cook"

The list build is good, hes got a list, if he can't get this team contending now he's got to go.

Agree - to a point. When we're not the youngest and least experienced team going around, then expectations become concrete.

 

[88mph]

A lot were lamenting our slow starts last year.

This year we’ve won 3 of 4 first quarters played, if there’s any credit to be given, does that go to the coach or the players?

I think credit really goes to all of us here moaning about it constantly.

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

Agree - to a point. When we're not the youngest and least experienced team going around, then expectations become concrete.

Yes and no, I do think you have to read between the lines a bit on the age. The key players are old enough.

 

[Purple Suit]

Hes been here over 5 years mate, shit or get off the pot...

Dimma got the 7th year and delivered, JLo on his 6th.

 

[Purple Jesus]

Yes and no, I do think you have to read between the lines a bit on the age. The key players are old enough.

Close to old enough, yep. 1-2 years from ideal.