I dont have any claims to knowing the game better than anyone else but IMHO, we are playing down the line a lot more. Previously we would look to centre the ball off half back or switch to the opposite flank as much as possible to open up space. Now we are just a likely to hit up 45 degree kicks boundary side or even moreso, go long to a marking target. As a consequence, we are kicking the ball longer than previously.
Mind you, the fact we have marking targets available to kick to makes a big difference.
Last year we had to play a possession game and utilise space as we had no one over 5 foot 6 to kick it to.

The players are definitely playing with more confidence at the moment and a bit more of a fanatical approach. Having half a team on the injury list saps the team of on field ability and as a consequence, confidence in your ability to succeed. Having a coach who is new and "outside" the club has taken away a bit of certainty of selection for some players which is a positive. Everyone is expected to perform to hold their spot.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Winning.

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long kicking - much more long kicking

along the boundary to the 50m arc then centering to the top of the square

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*(grow - fun - gah)

Yeah but whatabout your whataboutism.

Manic ball contesting

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T E A M

I too dont claim to have much footy structure knowledge but from the outside it looks similar to the filths structure from the malthouse days, would this be a fair comment?

I know it's probably too early to tell and Malthouse may just be putting down the first few cornerstones of a solid workable game plan but from my POV we are a much faster team than the pies so I would hope we can still harness the use of open space because there are not many teams which can beat us on the spread.

The other question re the pies structure is .......... what other teams did to combat that and which teams did this successfully? Im sure Malthouse is intimately aware of which teams his game structures struggled against, the scum comes to mind!!!

Don't think I've seen us look for Betts as our first option when kicking inside 50.
We're going less direct, yet we seem to be playing the percentages better, kicking to advantage, no more players taking stupid shots.
Our centre bounce set up appears more team orientated (this is possibly just a reflection of no Judd in there), rather than structuring around getting Juddy or Murph a clear path.
Seem less inclined to get the wrong bloke loose around half back. We seemed hell bent on getting the ball in Warnock's hands by himself last two years or creating a stoppage around there.
Positional changes seem a bit more elaborate than Bower/Jamison/Duigan forward.

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What will be interesting is how much the interchange cap changes the make up of teams. Will tall targets and long kicking be a good tactic over 30 mins a quarter? will it be unsustainable as it was barely sustainable before the cap? Will the cap effect both teams therefor even things out so there will be no change to the game?

Who will be the first coach to "park the bus" for 10 mins a quarter, save their interchanges, wear the punches, minimise scoreboard damage and then flick the switch and dominate the rest of the quarter with quick interchange rotations? Or do it the other way around and smash a team hard using up all the changes and then sit back with the 18 in defense repelling. The game could get ugly.

It looked like that, but I recall saying the same thing in the first 3 rounds last year...manic.

Long kicking to marking players seems the go, and interestingly where last year we had injuries to most talls and not many to choose from, this year (albeit NAB games) we are kicking it to 2 talls going for the mark, and sometimes 3....truly amazing that we are getting those sort of numbers presenting when they're 4--50 metres down the ground.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

WOW. Good point there club...it could get ugly...like Terry Wallaces flooding did back in 2000.

I'm guessing capped interchange will happen in 2014...unless the rules committee is given an overhaul and replaced with modern day players who understand the game a bit more as opposed to the politics of yesteryear.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

What .. you already want him to Go. I thought you were pro Tricky Micky.

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I am as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!!!

Har Har

I'm pro Carlton -
Mick hasn't even coached us in a senior game yet.
He deserves a chance to develop a winning game plan.
I'm backing him

Buckley just suggested that that is what he will do to buffer a quarter. Mass numbers behind the ball for minutes a quarter. Imagine that tactic starts working so the opposition stop banging their head against the wall trying to break the flood so they sit back themselves.
What we will be left with is the ball sitting in the middle of the ground with teams at either end waiting for their moment.
It will be like those track cycling races when they go real slow until someone blinks.

Id suggest the afl just cap it at whatever was the average was last season.

We all know football is a game of ebbs and flows and its what you do with your flow that counts...

Sounds like Mick wants to minimize the damage during opposition flows...

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Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you.

Mick sucess will be governed by who he can keep on the park , if he loses all his big targets forward and a few key backs like Ratts did last year we are screwed .
Blokes like levi rowe and hammer seem to be able to get their hands on the ball and levi seems to either clunk in or bring it down to where the smalls take over . We have a couple of Rolls Royce smalls there .

If the big blokes stay we will go a long way . Ball will be brought in quick and direct into the forward 50 . Ratts was forced into a situation where every forward entry had to be pin point it brought him un done

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They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

..he's not the first to mention the dreaded 'flood' may yet return.. ..though i reckon the flood has had it's time, and any coach that really tries this in the H&S will cop it severely.. ..if a team floods, the opposition will now push their fwd press and lock the ball in their fwd half, and teams with extra talls fwd [e.g's nicnat, hampson] can use long kickers to go over the flood, and drop the ball on their tallest players that can jump and mark, at about 15ms from the goals..

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..if you can't be good, be good at it..

With 36 players in and around the arc i cant see too much scoring going on. What does would be minimal and that would be the plan until you have buffered out the time that the 40 interchange rotations that have been taken by the AFL is used up. From there it is business as usual. Teams will probably stop trying to score through the flood and save their own energy and then we will have a joke of a game where 10 minutes of each quarter is wasted on both teams conserving energy by both teams.

The AFL wont achieve what they are trying to by limiting the interchange to 80. It will get ugly. At least until the new style of super endurance players come through the ranks.

.don't be scared of the flood, it was worked out and worked over long before the interchange numbers soared through the '100' barrier.. ..the flood was used primarily by weak teams, during the very early, to mid noughties.. ..by the time stinky clarko was beginning to implement the 'zone' ['07, '08], the flood was already a thing of the past and the average interchange numbers of the '08 season was 80..

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..if you can't be good, be good at it..

Geez this guy doesn't waste time getting you into grand finals!!

But will we win it?

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Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you.

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#DonTheStash

Hope he does some Robbie Williams covers?

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BLUES 2010: PAV AND JUDD = FLAGS. DOING IT FOR THE LOVE OF DICK PRATT.

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