Coaching Staff Senior Coach: John Worsfold - Thank you John

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JayJ20 said:
Laverde has a lot of improvement left in him if he’s developed correctly. Myers shouldn’t be playing unless we have injuries or form warrants it. He wouldn’t be a walk up best 22 player in any of the other top 8 contenders.

His round 23 game shows what he’s capable of. I’d be happy to give him an extended run in the seniors so that he can adjust to the speed of AFL football.
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Myers is neither one thing nor the other....at his best when he gets it on the outside but doesn’t have the running ability to do this regularly. Has the body to win the ball inside but he is appalling by hand (his right is non-existent and his left is remarkably shit by AFL standards) so he ends up just bombing the ball by foot.

Some of the issues are the cumulative impact of his injuries but how a bloke who has been in the system for 10years or so can be this bad by hand baffles me. It’s the basic tool of trade for an inside mid and something that should be easily enough improved.
 
Vander18 said:
how a bloke who has been in the system for 10years or so can be this bad by hand baffles me
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What baffles me is how many players we have that can't kick and yet they chose AFL as a profession.
 
ant555 said:
You are correct in what you say about the Pies and the Tigers but we are not going after their exact plan.

We just want the pressure and the team defence aspect which we have been very poor at. It is not about playing small forward lines. It is about not allowing sides to march the ball up the ground and get easy possession inside 50 and exposing the defenders. We need to be able to play team defence if we are to release the running power of McKenna and Saad out of half back. In games like Sunday they get stuck in the back half defending because the pressure through the middle of the ground is non existent. Take the first goal. GWS simply chipped forward along the edge of the zone. We did not slide so they had 3 x 25m kicks forward down the wing and then kicked it to the pocket where Hurley was stuck defending 3.

Our biggest issue is the lack of ability in the marking department. No one takes a telling mark coming out of defence so the ball is always in a contest. IF we could take a mark we could move the ball quicker and bring the running players into the game.

Worsfold is not a great in the tactic department but has always been a team defence man which is why he won a flag with the Eagles.

Clarkson is considered the best coach but his tactics are not radical. Find skilled players who limit turn overs. Demand players play their role and sacrifice for the team. Team defence and players who can play at both ends.
We have some players I suspect would get moved on in his game plan.

Bucks actually took a lot out of his game plan to make it more a simple pressure and defend game. With the help of his captain he managed to get most of the down hill skiers to defend and went back to Mayne who was not flashy but was prepared to play the team game and give a bit more defence.

I am not going to say Woosha is the man because the jury is out on his ability to be able to get the buy in. He has to be able to sell the message. If he can not then he has to go. I will say his wanting team defence is the right way to go and anyone else who comes in will be asking the same thing. Question the coach for sure but also question our club culture and the fact leading players like Zaharakis and Merritt do not seem to be on board with team defending. Richmond, West Coast , Collingwood and the Bulldogs all went forward on the back of team first buy in various forms.
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I agree with Bruno that despite how ordinary we looked for most of the game last week, we did hold good field position for the first quarter. However, obsession with the structure behind that seems to reduce the focus the players have on pressure around the ball. It also seems to effect how they move the ball forward. I believe those two negative consequences far outweigh the positives in field position. In fact, I would say we're better off having shitty field position so that we can break into a fairly open forward line. This takes advantage of the speed we have off half back and the marking ability of McKernan as well as the chaos ability of Tippa and Stringer.
 

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fishardansin said:
I agree with Bruno that despite how ordinary we looked for most of the game last week, we did hold good field position for the first quarter. However, obsession with the structure behind that seems to reduce the focus the players have on pressure around the ball. It also seems to effect how they move the ball forward. I believe those two negative consequences far outweigh the positives in field position. In fact, I would say we're better off having shitty field position so that we can break into a fairly open forward line. This takes advantage of the speed we have off half back and the marking ability of McKernan as well as the chaos ability of Tippa and Stringer.
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So our players cannot execute the game plan because they're not smart enough, or they're too lazy?
 
Vander18 said:
Myers is neither one thing nor the other....at his best when he gets it on the outside but doesn’t have the running ability to do this regularly. Has the body to win the ball inside but he is appalling by hand (his right is non-existent and his left is remarkably shit by AFL standards) so he ends up just bombing the ball by foot.

Some of the issues are the cumulative impact of his injuries but how a bloke who has been in the system for 10years or so can be this bad by hand baffles me. It’s the basic tool of trade for an inside mid and something that should be easily enough improved.
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Myers is KOTD. I’m utterly confused how he gets a game at AFL level?? I get he’s a personality, but obviously it’s enough to give him the nod every week.

This is Essendon
 
fishardansin said:
I agree with Bruno that despite how ordinary we looked for most of the game last week, we did hold good field position for the first quarter. However, obsession with the structure behind that seems to reduce the focus the players have on pressure around the ball. It also seems to effect how they move the ball forward. I believe those two negative consequences far outweigh the positives in field position. In fact, I would say we're better off having shitty field position so that we can break into a fairly open forward line. This takes advantage of the speed we have off half back and the marking ability of McKernan as well as the chaos ability of Tippa and Stringer.
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Where do our line breakers play ? Saad and McKenna play half back. What happens when our midfield does not defend or roll over in defence ? both end up defending and not able to provide run from behind. You have totally missed what they want to do so we can have our speed players zipping through the middle of the ground. The midfield simply has to be able to roll over and pick up the opposition half forwards.The defence has to learn to slide in the zone and not just guard a 2m x 2m area of grass.
We got our run back last year when we started to pressure sides and defend better.
 
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ant555 said:
Where do our line breakers play ? Saad and McKenna play half back. What happens when our midfield does not defend or roll over in defence ? both end up defending and not able to provide run from behind. You have totally missed what they want to do so we can have our speed players zipping through the middle of the ground. The midfield simply has to be able to roll over and pick up the opposition half forwards.The defence has to learn to slide in the zone and not just guard a 2m x 2m area of grass.
We got our run back last year when we started to pressure sides and defend better.
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I think the biggest issue from JLT and round 1 is that we have to go to Saad and McKenna to break the lines open and generate a score. Not sustainable, especially against quicker teams with high work ethic (eg Richmond).

I already voiced my concerns after the 2 JLT games. It’s almost bizarre how much percentage of our goals have to come from defence because we simply do not cause enough turnovers in our forward half. Our midfield also doesn’t capitalise on clearances because they keep bombing it inside 50. I’d like to know how many times we kicked to Walla as our target inside 50.

This is more of an effort based issue rather than a structural/game plan issue. Players that aren’t willing to work defensively need to go back to the twos and learn what it means to defend.

Rutten isn’t completely overhauling the way we play. It’s only a little bit different to how we played late last year. They can’t use a change of gameplay as an excuse when we played a solid pressure game last year too. The issue is laziness.
 
JayJ20 said:
I think the biggest issue from JLT and round 1 is that we have to go to Saad and McKenna to break the lines open and generate a score. Not sustainable, especially against quicker teams with high work ethic (eg Richmond).

I already voiced my concerns after the 2 JLT games. It’s almost bizarre how much percentage of our goals have to come from defence because we simply do not cause enough turnovers in our forward half. Our midfield also doesn’t capitalise on clearances because they keep bombing it inside 50. I’d like to know how many times we kicked to Walla as our target inside 50.

This is more of an effort based issue rather than a structural/game plan issue. Players that aren’t willing to work defensively need to go back to the twos and learn what it means to defend.

Rutten isn’t completely overhauling the way we play. It’s only a little bit different to how we played late last year. They can’t use a change of gameplay as an excuse when we played a solid pressure game last year too. The issue is laziness.
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I agree. Have been saying it is not a massive change to what we did last year. Fantasia being in poor form does not help either. He is another we need to provide some run through the middle.
 
the minute saad was manned up on greene we were going to be in trouble - green just dragged him back and had im occupied so he couldn't be the attacking weapon

Its funny, there are losses and there are losses, you don't really know which kind you have had until the media come out and analyse your fate post match

most times they come out and say this worked, this didn't, they were unlucky here, it was a good game ect

but on rare occasions, a loss is so bad the narrative turns to something wrong inside the club, desire ect - usually these end up with a line in the sand and either a revival of form, or a coach sacking...

not sure if its lucky or not that we had ours in round one so the damage may not be terminal, id rather have a kick in the guts and revival in round two than half way thru the year when the season is good as done
 
Old Campaigner said:
As far a bad opinions go this is right up there. What did Clarkson do as a player? Belt a few blokes? Bolton wasn't even an AFL player and he's well on the way to turning Carlton around and on their current trajectory they'll be winning their next flag long before us.
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Bolton hasn't done anything yet. Most of the coaches who have achieved success were solid players. Give me more examples?
 

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Lore said:
Ben Collins, not Barrett. I would laugh so hard if the premier columnist on the AFL website spent his time writing about how wrong people on bigfooty are though. Bad enough that Ben did..
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To add to this, there is another opinion piece (that is actually by Barrett) that quotes no one but claims our leadership is down the toilet and we should knee jerk restructure our leadership group after one game.

Talk about overreacting..
 
Lore said:
To add to this, there is another opinion piece (that is actually by Barrett) that quotes no one but claims our leadership is down the toilet and we should knee jerk restructure our leadership group after one game.

Talk about overreacting..
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he’s got a point...
 
Lore said:
To add to this, there is another opinion piece (that is actually by Barrett) that quotes no one but claims our leadership is down the toilet and we should knee jerk restructure our leadership group after one game.

Talk about overreacting..
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Fake News 101: Opinion piece leads to discussion. Discussion leads to seeking comment from club/player/coach. Comment from club/player/coach leads to further articles, but this time with quotes. All the while media companies are racking up the clicks. So the cycle continues...
 
Good to see he’s put the senior players on notice. Another 8 or 9 games like that and you’ll be considered as the single player to maybe be dropped.
 

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Coaching Staff Senior Coach: John Worsfold - Thank you John

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