padre wrote:
Its interesting how the first game played out..... The new game plan failed because it was not drilled into our players well enough. A good coach worked out the predictable malthouse/ collingwood/ carlton implementation game plan, and planned.
He found a game plan that worked against us. It may not have worked against a malthouse collingwood that would have had the benefit of many years of drilling the game plan. But it worked against us. It was made much easier due to their midfield dominance. Richmonds midfield cotchin, martyn,tuck, deledio are elite. They gave their team the first use of the ball at clearances and allowed the planned strategy against us to work. Would it work against a carlton setup under mm that had had the benefit of a settled structure, more time to be drilled, more instinctiveness? Debatable. But it worked round one.
Go back to pagans philosophy.... Develop the game plan, and stick to it. Play it better than the opposition can counter it. It worked with north it didnt work with us. But we didnt have the cattle. Same with mm. Collingwood were predictable but were able to execute better than the opposition could counter. Why? Because he stuck to a strategy. He recruited and developed players specifically for his predictable game plan. He had all those years of development behind him to give him a pool of talent that was specialised in his game plan.
Opposition teams did not recruit, train, develop, drill to counter collingwood specifically. They had 15 other game plans to worry about as well and had to counter them with their players and game plans. Again, mm stuck to his belief about his game plan, executed it very well, and the opposition werent good enough to counter it effectively. Not too different to the pagan philosophy at north.
Fast forward to round one again. The execution of the mm game plan, was not good enough, or more accurately we didnt play it as well as richmond was able to counter it. A good opposition coach with a great midfield outplayed us. But then the game plan changed at half time.
The well coached, schooled richmond team were found wanting. They had streamlined their response to our game plan so well, that once it changed, they were found wanting. They had put their faith in competing against the mm game plan so much, that their structures werent able to cope with the post half time carlton. And here is my point. The modern day game has become so strategic that we need to realise that there are different rules applying to coaching.
The pool of ex players all wanting a chance to coach is ever expanding. The money is there now to keep quality people/potential senior coaches, in the game. Consequently there are a lot of great coaches going around. More than ever before. Its just not that easy to counter the opposition coach. They are all good. They are all strategic.
Malthouse , i think realises that we have the cattle,but they are a different herd to the collingwood herd. Today you have to execute your game plan better than the opposition can counter. Mm has lost his advantage , the team isnt yet specialised/ honed into his game plan, so it becomes much more difficult for it to succeed, especially considering it is well known, and malthouse is a first year coach with the group, and the opposition have a greater experience in countering it with their playing groups. Recognition of this leads to the realisation that mm needs a few alternative plans to allow the group time to assimilate what it is that he is trying to do, and still achieve some modicum of success. Pagan was on the same track i believe , but was simply shafted by lack of cattle.
Rnd 1 showed us all how important it is to be able to execute your game plan, by winning the clearances. The first use of the ball allows the team to implement in a more concerted, less rushed way. Your structures are much more likely to work if you can find time and space. So it must start here, at the clearances. Clearances are game plan independant. We got smashed by a superior midfield in the first half. Which made our game plan look far more ineffectual than it might otherwise have. Mm has to sort this out quickly. Our rucks are getting tap outs but not to advantage. Is this the rucks problem, or is it that our midfield is being out bodied? Either way it has to be solved quickly.
When we get the clearances we have shown that we can be competitive. We can implement our game plans. Without the clearances we cant implement anything other than react to the opposition. This will slow down our development . Its ridiculous to think that we let jacobs go in order to keep hampson, kreuzer, warnock, and yet none of these three can find a way to give our talented midfield first use.
Once our midfield gets its act together, i think we can expect to see some real signs that the mm effect is working. It may not happen every week, but it needs to start showing signs and soon. I hope Wiley was the correct choice.
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I don't believe that for a minute but its a nice counter scenario to yours.
