Leigh Colbert, Kepler Bradley, James Clement

What do the aforementioned have in common?

Their coaches watched Carlton's dominant Wizard Cup performance, and decided to stick the above three blokes in front of Fev and Lance's leads (Bradley was assisted by Fletcher at times too).

Quite simply, it has not only completely f*cked up our forward structure, but these defenders have racked up possesions and been in their side's best each week.

I love Dennis Pagan, I really do, but his answer to this problem has been either pathetic or non-existant. Sometimes he has sent Fevola to the wing instead (is that the best he can think of????)

SO, any suggestions on which Port player will sit back and cut our forward line to shreds while picking up easy possies? Or will Dennis come up with a belated answer?

I'll forgive Dennis for the Roos game, but it should've been countered by round 2.

Go Blues.

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They will know that they've been playing against the famous old dark blues

They dont have a surplus of tall defenders this week - Wakelin is the only pure defender. Thurstans normally plays as a forward, Chaplin is a kid (and very light). The only thing they could do is drop one of their ruckmen back.

Whoever plays in the ruck for them.

They won't want to have too many talls in their forward line or else none of them will get a kick.

Thurstans has been named at CHB.

I'd expect him or Brogan/Lade to drop back in front of Fev and Lance.

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Writer for SuperCoach Paige www.scpaige.com.au
Twitter - @johnfeeney24

Solution generally is to man up with a defensive forward, or even a defender, but that clogs up the forward line. Pagan doesn't want that - he wants a 5,6,7 structure and thats what won him premierships. He needs space in the forawrd line and great accuracy with the kicks.

Losign Chambers was a problem for Pagan, losing Campo and Scotland fading away have / will be issues. We need great delivery into the forward line and an attacking presence when in there ie if it spills, we need Eddie chasing them down (which he has done) but also Fev and REd. Pagan isn't going to change because of a spare defender getting kicks - the players need to think more and finish better.

Too many players in our side aren't capable of finishing better. That said, there's mobody to kick it to if Fev is starting too far out from goal.

For some reason, there have been many times when FEv starts on the flank with deluca in the square.

There was a farcical situation in the Essendon* game where barnaby gave a beautiful tap to stevo, and stevo ran out of the square looking for a lead, but Fev was already too close to him so he had to pass to wiggins (no, i'm not kidding) further on. Wiggo dropped it and Bradley/Fletcher just ran off with it

WHY NOT PUT FEV 1 OUT.


Additionally, the opposition's spare man is allowing them to run the ball out of our attack easily and expose our shoddy defence.

We must clear out the forward line or go 7 on 7, 8 on 8, whatever it takes.

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They will know that they've been playing against the famous old dark blues

I think Pagan would prefer his forwards to fix up their defence on the way out, with pace from midfield, rather than play 7 on 7 or 8 on 8. Its just something he won't do, its not his gameplan.

Adam Kingsley will probably play as the 'spare' defender. He usually gets the role. And they like to have someone with pace and skilful delivery bringing the ball out.

Sometimes you need to change your gameplan to suit circumstances as per last quarter against Dons.

And as yet we haven't been forced in to a 7 or 8 man forward line we've chosen to go with a 5 or sometimes 4 man forward line and bomb the ball on Fevs head with 3 defenders around him.



He also won premierships with Carey at CHF, we don't have that. We need to use players strengths. Fev's strengths are quick leads and long kicks from 50 or so. That's what won us games last year. We have to be creative and not so predictable. I understand what he is saying about the defence needing support, but I think we need to back our midfield to get the ball and get it to leading forwards in space. Playing extra men down back usually limits losses, but doesn't win that many games. At the end of the day we have a talent problem, nowhere near enough of it, but I'd rather revert to a structure that makes best use of our forwards and concede goals to the opposition and occassionally lose by a lot than play extra men back and lose by a bit less

Gerry - I would contend that Q4 v Bombers was Game Plan A in action - fast kicking, fast clearances, we overcame Fletcher playing back there with ease, kicking to advantage and a few lucky bounces did wonders for our pace.

Your probably right molsey. i guess like most fans i'm frustrated that our Wiz Cup form seems to have evaporated or been worked out by the opposition. I just think we have to stop the opposition having a quality defender without an opponent

molsey, it seems to me that your opinion is - "it's just the game plan and we're not gonna change it cos that's how Dennis coaches". In my opinion, you're dismissing a massive problem:

Our forward line (our perceived strength) has looked ridiculous for 11 out of 12 quarters because of the spare man back.

When Fev starts on the wing/flank/CHF our structure looks terrible, but this has been Dennis's only answer.

Surely you think he's gotta come up with something better. You can't just blame the delivery as you seem to do.

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They will know that they've been playing against the famous old dark blues

Massive problems are easier dealt with byignoring facts!

Pagan is a 'tried & true' coach not renowned for changing tack half way through a game. I don't think game plan changes are worth arguing for - for this reason. Thats all. I think Pagan is prepared to come 16th in the year if it means that the boys all learn, keep learning, his way. Thats the impression I get!

Taking that to the side, I refute the whole 1 quarter comment. First half v ROos + Pies, our forward line looked great in my view and far more threatening than the opposition. If we'd have done better than 3 goals from 10 shots in Q1 last week we wouldn't be having this discussion. Missed shots are hurting us; losing our run in the second halves of both losses was what hurt us. We need more & better midfield run and better kicking - Chambers in is great for us but the loss of Campo will hurt.

Whitnall dropping back

Fevvie CHF

TLo one-out....

END OF STORY

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Love Cricket? Love me

What story is that? 'Blues rue ruse and lose by 100'?

The only way around it is to look for and find alternative targets. When Fev and Whits are bloked from the ball, guys like Lappin, Davies etc should be sticking their hands up and presenting an option.

Deluca has been doing this in patches. Davies has been doing this but missing easy shots. Diggers is a possible alternative but seemingly out of form.

We really miss Brad Fisher in this respect, and I am desperately hopeful that Troy Longmuir can contribute to filling that breach.

If you are getting goals from your non-key forwards, the onus is on the opposition coaches to change their structure instead. I reckon Deluca could prove a real handful for them this week, but he HAS to kick straight.

How it looks is irrelevant.
Our accuracy in front of goals is the only major problem up forward.
We are getting the ball inside 50 an average of 56.6 times per game.
Our conversion is very poor once we get it there.
You can argue a congested forwardline is contributing to our inaccuracy but some of our missed shots have been disgraceful.

Our midfield is performing well.
Kouta and Nick Stevens are top 2 in the AFL for clearances and centre square clearances.
We are 1st for hitouts, centre square hitouts and throw in hitouts.
We are equal best in the AFL for scoring from a centre bounce and we concede the 6th least amount of inside 50s.
Stevo and Campo are top 10 in the AFL for putting the ball inside 50.
This tells me Kouta and Stevo are performing well. THey could use more help but our midfield is very efficient.

As I stated above, we concede the 6th least amount of inside 50s yet we concede the highest average score against.
What does this tell us? Our backline is haemorraging.
Our opponents are averaging higher scores per inside 50 than us.
That is why we play a 7 and sometimes 8 man backline and will continue to until we get some tall defenders back.
Pagan rightly believes our forwards can win enough ball to win us the game.
They just need to kick straight!

In the Wizzer Cup, our opposition manned up our spare defenders congesting their forward line.
Now they prefer to play a spare in our forward line.
The current gamestyle is statistically effective bar scoring accuracy.
I dont believe the congested forward line is the problem as much as poor execution and poor concentration.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Blue Vein

BV I also cringed when we missed sitters, but i think it's more complicated than that. Who's missed them? Davies and Waite
- not our moneymen.

Every commentator has said that for us to succeed this year we need Fev and Red to kick LOTS of goals.

They're not - and it has nothing to do with inaccuracy. It has to do with the fact that Pagan hasn't countered the spare man back.

Consequently, I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen Fev lead, mark, and goal. We thought he'd kick at least over 80 ffs!!

There has been too much emphasis on our inaccuracy and opposition's accuracy on this site lately. There is a deeper explanation - we're missing cos our BETTER forwards (fev + red) aren't getting set shots, and they're scoring cos our backline is crap and isn't forcing pressure shots.

Why aren't our better forwards getting set shots - setup/coaching/shit passes. Simple

Blue Vein

Once again. I think the answer to this whole question is a little more complex than inaccuracy. Our forward setup is crap at the moment. We're getting inside 50 but they're not QUALITY INSIDE 50's.

Go Blues

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They will know that they've been playing against the famous old dark blues

see this is where i think people are going overboard with ti all.

You take your CHB and FB out of any team and see how the defence goes.

Teams may have depth - but the key position players are hard to replace.

I dont think there is any team in the AFL that could cover the loss of both CHB and FB

When we are fully fit we are awesome.

We had that in the Wizard Cup campaign

Fevola
Whitnall
Stevens
Thorton
Livingston

we havent been able to field that same spine once this season and IMO that is the difference between us being 3 - 0 and 1 - 2

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Got to love the stare Down by Setanta on Llyod

Lance and Fev have had 25 shots at goal in 3 games!
The fact is Fev has been beaten by 3 good opponents.
He has led into space numerous times and been spoiled by a good opponent.

We have missed too many shots that AFL players should swallow whilst Licuria, Tarrant etc are kicking goals from the boundary.
Davies has kicked 2 goals from 10 shots.
Waite has less than a 50% scoring ratio including a miss from a 35m set shot on Saturday.

We are lacking confidence and concentration shooting for goal.
Our opponents are not getting easier shots, they are just doing it better.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Agree Verbeek. Fevola basically played CHF against Collingwood with Whitnall and Deluca in behind him. He is getting very few 30m set shots at goal. We know he's at his best when one out in the forward 50 and Whitnall is at his best roaming the 50m line. The forward line funtions well when we look for a leading target like the way we played during the Wizard Cup yet several times this year we revert back to bombing the ball to CHF like we did in the last 1/4 against Collingwood where both or all of Whitnall Deluca and Fev fly for the one ball and with extra defenders back in our forward 50 the opposition run it out easily once the ball goes to ground. The sooner we get back to Fev one out at Full forward the better the side will be.