Forgive me if this has been discussed elsewhere, I am overseas and and haven't spent so much time on here of late. But I did want to bring something up that has concerned me all year. I know that this has been mentioned here and there in part, but I think it warrants a proper discussion.

And before I spell it out, let me say that while I have my own personal views, I don't want this to be an attack on anyone particular in the football department. I write this purely as an observation, and would appreciate a discussion based on observation and thought/ideas, rather than attacking individuals.

It seems to me that our game style is to play wide, around the boundary. I purposely didn't write game plan, as I don't know what the coaches instruct the players to do. But certainly on the field, the players tend to go wide most of the time, and it seems that the first thing they do when in possession is look to a boundary option. I wrote this even after the Richmond game in Round 1, that even though we slaughtered them, I was concerned at the way we hugged the boundary, and that against better opposition this would cause problems.

The result of this is that against the better teams, who zone and clog the space in front of the kicker, we become static. We get no movement. This was evident again last week against North (I watched thanks to Justin, and dad sent the DVD). Being up against the boundary, in order to have any forward momentum, you have only a small area to go to, and it is easy to defend against. So we end up going sideways or backwards.

This flies in the face of our strengths. Our strengths are our midfield, and Fevola. By playing the flanks, and chipping around slowly, we don't get the most out of our mids. It also means that when we move into our forward 50, we are coming from the boundary. There is only one area to which we we can kick. Fevola has to lead wide, Setanta follows him, they end up in the same spot. How many times do you see Brown/Bradshaw or Franklin/Roughhead contesting the same ball? Occasionally, but not often. Fevola and Setanta should be leading to different parts of the forward 50, but they can't, because they both know (as does the opposition) that the incomnig ball is only going to hit one area. The number of times last week they were competing for the same ball (and Setanta seemed very concerned about getting in Fev's way) was terrible.

What this also does is make it really easy for the opposition to sit a loose defender in front of Fevola. They know exactly where Fevola is going to lead to, so they sit in the space. Doesn't help us.

Imagine if you will that we tried to own the corridor. Yes, there is a risk of being hurt to a greater extent if we turn the ball over. But if we backed our strength (Judd, Murphy, Gibbs, Simpson, Stevens...all generally good users of the ball), played through the corridor, we get run, momentum, the opposition doesn't have time to flood numbers back or to zone (and yes, against Hawthorn, Adelaide and St Kilda, you need to work quickly through their zone to do this). But also, it means we are entering our forward 50 from the middle of the ground. This means that Fevola can lead straight up, left or right. It means he can go one way, and Setanta can lead in the other direction. It means the defender playing loose and sitting in the hole, doesn't know which hole to sit in, giving Fevola much more space to work in. And if he sits in front of Fevola, then we can hit up Setanta in the other area. It opens up our whole attack, playing to our strengths.

Thoughts?

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Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

Very well put...and it's due to our negativity going into a game.

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

Seems pretty straightforward really doesn't it...?

The thing that gets me about the "Is Rats the man?" argument/discussion is that many of those who think he isn't "the man" seem to think we need some tactical genius to get us playing great football but from where I'm sitting we just need a coach who can get the buggers playing down the middle and applying the sort of pressure that Betts/Garlett and Fevola (when he's switched on) do when we don't have the ball.

When we do both of those things with this list we'll win about 70% of our games and as we gain experience and size we'll increase on that.

On the other side those backing Rats as "the man" often ask for him to be given time but does it really take so long to get a team to follow two basic instructions?

Or maybe there's some masterplan that I'm just not seeing...

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"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen."

Mort Sahl

So you are fence sitter?...

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

It's got pickets...

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"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen."

Mort Sahl

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"Truth, for the tyrants, is the most terrible and cruel of all bindings; it is like an incandescent iron falling across their chests. And it is even more agonizing than hot iron, for that only burns the flesh, while truth burns its way into the soul"     — Lauro Aguirre

All sides in the AFL that are any good are flooding the corridor - They zone off in there and if you try to take them on especially the better ones you will get smashed

Teams like St Kilda Geelong and the Bullies and even Adelaide have far better ball handlers than some of the clunkers we have in our team so if we tried to run down the middle with handball and foot we would turn it over for sure . these team just keep moving the ball around like a hot potatoe until an opening appears . Collingwood have noted this and go wide and try and hang on to the football - They are better at it than us as they are better drilled at bringing the ball into the fifty
Having 2 key forwards and 3 -4 crumbers has helped them a lot .

If you want to use the corridor your ball skills have to be good- ours are not
You also need something to straighten you up - Our key forward because he is so good has someone filling the hole at centre half forward so he is forced to run to the flank - this is easier to defend and harder to convert when he gets it

Ratts has used the tactic of try hang onto it as much as possible even if this means going wide. Where we have fallen down has been our ability to create the space in the forward fifty that is because we only have one maybe two proper forwards the rest are make shift.

Ratts has banked on the spillage in the forward fifty so he has tried to put players in that will force a turn over and apply defensive pressure such as Garlett - Betts - Wiggo and Russell

You have to dance with what you bring and with Juddy - Murph an Gibbs getting heavily tagged each week a lot of ball movement is left to the clunkers - better off clunking it wide than in the middle

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

That's all fine but the times we do run down the middle (usually throwing caution to the wind after being torched in the first half) we look a whole lot better.

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"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen."

Mort Sahl

I agree with all that except the use of the word clunking. It means something different these days. To clunk something is now a good thing.

That's what I notice. Soon as we attack we are so much better and the reason why we nearly beat St.Kilda and flogged the Swans in the 2nd Half. Also why we've come from behind recently in games too after, as you said, being torched ion the first half. We need the confidence from the coaching staff in the players to do that from the beginning. Something I want to see tomorrow night in a game where I believe we have nothing to lose.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=25680

After you've given your thoughts on our game plan, please try this thread and give your thoughts on the other 15 teams...just so we know what we're missing

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

I think Siegfried makes some good points, but I think Sydney Blue has pointed out why going wide is still a legitimate playing style. We are also still only talking percentages as there isn't a team in the AFL that only plays the corridor. It is a defensive tactic, but it hasn't hurt the Saints who are another team that play wide, although where they kick to in the forward fifty is very different to us at times. As is their abilty to centre it to players in better positions once in the forward fifty.

It is also pertinent that despite the issues that Siegfried rightly points out we are still the fourth best offensive side in the AFL less than fifty points behind the Saints. Although we are much better than in previous years, we are probably not getting the defensive benefits from going wide that the Pies and Saints do.

I will also qualify this by saying that I don't think we play quite as wide or as often as some seem to believe

Our second halveshave been better because we step up our defensive pressure and apply more tackles .our tackles in the 2nd half of games have often doubled that of the first
the added pressure often results in a turn over and usually in the corridor that's why it appears that we use it more because that is our starting point
play often opens up after a turn over

apply the same defensive pressue in the first half and it will look like we are using the corridor more

The more defensive we are the more attacking we become

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws

Astute points SB

Possesions gained is still the greatest scoring source in the game and the best way of doing that is applying pressure with the real leading to perceived. Or occasion as we have found to our cost and as Richmond did in the first round (although our pressure was really....really good)

You can't always rely on a team being as kind as ourselves who just give it back all the time under little pressure

Just going back to Siegfried's points about going wide... not only is it a reasonable defensive tactic it is also another way of beating the zone. Running at the zone and using handball is a good way of beating the zone if implemented skillfully, but so is outnumbering the edges of the zone. Siegfried used the Tigers example, but I thought we did quite well at breaking the zone by using Cloke especially as a target on the wing with smaller players streaming past to pick up any spillage..thus outnumbering the zoners in those areas.

GAME PLAN?.............................. WTF is a game plan, ratten asks....

Comedy gold 30!



I can hear the Comedy Club calling from here.

Regards Cazzesman

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Ricky Gervais - “Everyone has the right to hold whatever beliefs they want. And everyone else has the right to find those beliefs f***ing ridiculous.”

Well, playing wide along the boundry isn't always because of the coach. A lot of times it can be the result of the oppositions preasure forcing you to play wide.

But,............. we do it EVERY-SINGLE-WEEK!

In fact, if you watch the games live, you'll usually see the corridor completly empty or, if a player is in the centre, he usually has his back to ball.
So it gives me the impression that we don't even want to play through the middle.

The sad thing is, watching Judd / Gibbs / Murphy and even Simpson charging through the middle is one of the sexiest things i've seen at the Carlton football club in a long long time. What's more, it's usually pretty effective when we do this too.

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"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit"
- Aristotle

Its quite simple really......PLAY ON, RUN AND TAKE A RISK.....I'd rather turn the ball over that way than the way we do !

That was the other half of my original post.

The Saints apply huge pressure for four quarters.

Why do we only do this after half time?

Can Ratten convince the players that it might not be a bad idea to give it a go in the first half too?

I'm not so much a fence sitter on Ratten as I am aware that I'm in no position to know how astute and capable he is. I think it's the same with all coaches and it's the reason I was willing to give Pagan (and now Ratten) some time to show what they can do. Any change of coach is going to result in a period of transition as the players become comfortable (or otherwise) with what's expected. I can't remember a coach at any club arriving and instantly tahing a poor side straight to the top.

What concerns me is how blatant the difference seems between our attacking best and our defensive worst and how there are some really basic things that we still do really poorly (4 quarter pressure, kick ins etc). That four quarter pressure regularly applied and a couple of improved kick in strategies (along with a bit more use of the centre corridor) and we'd be third or fourth on the ladder at the moment.

All teams have room for improvement it just seems that our capacity to improve is probably much larger than most.

Does that mean we're poorly coached or are we simply taking smaller steps forward than we'd like?

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"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen."

Mort Sahl

I think it is more smaller steps than most of us hope for - I don't think the coaching staff started at game 1 and thought we could give this a good tilt - I think they thought we should just make the 8 but when Warnock didn't come up and Waite went I think they changed their thinking some what

To me they have been getting games into a lot of players who quite frankly are not ready for senior footy - Often I look at the selections and think you have got to be kidding but then you can see they are rotating - About round 9 there were lots of changes week by week and up until this week it has been 3 to 4 out and in each week - I'm certain if Bentick, Warnock and Pfeiffer had of been fit they would have been given a run and maybe we will still get to see them before the end of the year and that we mean using 40 players - Saints up until this week have used 26

I think this year has been about getting blokes in giving them a task and see how they handle it and it has been clear if you don't follow the instruction you get put back as Grigg Stevens Cloke and Scotland have found out

Next year will be the true test of Ratten and the coaching panel

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If you allow the Government to change the Laws in an emergency
They will create an Emergency to change the Laws