Effes wrote:
The words are bullshit but the stats in the hard copy of the article are very interesting.
RD: 1-8; 9-16
Points 20 12
Percentage 119.18 90.5
Position 5th 11th
I50 49.2 (10th) 52.5 (6th)
Marks I50 14.1 (5th) 10.5 (14th)
% Goals once I50 31.5% (2nd) 22.9% (15th)
Points for 104.9 (4th) 83.4 (12th)
The scary part of the stats above are that we've increased our number of inside 50s since the first eight games yet we're scoring less and taking less marks inside 50. Opposition coaches have worked out how to limit our scoring and it is up to the coaching staff to come up with a system when moving the ball inside 50 to increase our marks inside 50. In the first 9 games we appeared to be playing this counter attacking style where opposition defenders would be sucked up the ground to the wings and then we would use the pace of the three smaller forwards running back towards goal to score. Now these defenders are staying back in defence instead of coming up the ground. There is therefore little space for Betts, Yarran and Garlett to run into - they can't be relied on to take overhead marks yet given the numbers the opposition are putting in defence we are still going to them thinking that they can compete overhead with players who have a massive height advantage on them.
I reckon in the first 8 games we hurt teams wth an open forwardline steaming forward with kicks into space...(dare I say like a Pagan's paddock). Since the North game, everyone has worked out what we were trying to do, and as such they simply get numbers back to clog up our space. let us have our inside 50s but make sure there is no clean entries, and give our little blokes no space to use their attributes. then when we inevitably turn it over, run like buggery forward and watch us all look at each other to see who is picking who up and in the meantime kick it in to isolated one on one contest.
What the plan to stop it is, is anyone's guess. I don't know th solution, but I'm not getting paid hundred's of thousands of dollars to find the solution