How frustrating is it to watch our midfield continually kick it to 2 on 1 contests. It appears this comes from poor game plan combined with poor decision making under pressure.

We facilitated Geelong's game plan tonight by actually encouraging them to drop a man back behind the play b/c we kept kicking it to them. From the half way point of the first quarter it was obvious that we had no direction or alternative route to goal other than aimless kicking to congested forward line.

and another thing why do we play on so often after a mark across half back even when there is nothing on offer up the ground, wouldnt it be better to wait 5-10 seconds for forwards and mifielders to offer something. I understand the concept of moving it on qickly but pretty pointless movin it on quickly to nobody.

Now that the newboys have tasted defeat i hope they remember its awful after taste and come out inspired next week.

Our game plan is fine as long as the players doing the required running to put themselves into the right position to win the ball. It's the kind of game plan that wins you premierships. However if the players don't put the required effort in then the results can be embarrising.

type of game plan that wins you premierships you say........ummm sorry but we are not talking premierships yet and thus there is no point play a particular game plan if you cant pull it off consistently. Maybe it works for the doggies but we dont have the foot skills or leg speed to try such an ambitious plan.

Lets concentrate on refining a more realistic game plan that imvoloves creating 1 on 1 contests and having a small front and square waiting for the innevitable crumbs

They'res no point in playing a game plan if its not going to lead you to the highest stage. We're in the business of premierships, not in the business of finishing ninth, and if that means that we have to suffer now to teach our kids the right way to play footy in the future then so be it.

If you want to watch us piss fart around with the ball go watch Richmond or the Hawks, I'm sure they'll live up to your expectations.

Does that gameplan involve pleading with opponents not to zone off their man to allow 1 on 1 contests in the F50?

Of course. Its all the players fault!
The game plan is just fine.
A premiership winning gameplan! Its just the players are'nt putting in the effort.

How simple it all is.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

geelong didnt allow carlton to play football.
when we had the chance to punish the cats, bad decisions were being made.
the players need to take responsibility of this bad performance.
i praised them for their work ethic in the nab cup and against richmond.
they let their guard down against the cats and got rolled.
it's a lesson they had to have.
..and by the looks of it, they need a few more along the way this year as well.
kicking blindly to a contest was pretty sad
we had no chf
we had no leading pockets
all in all it was a miserable effort by the forwards.

How boring you've become BV. Not even going to bother this time.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Sorry but I'm not going blame the players to excite you Jim.
Thats your rubber dolls job, not mine.

The players are doing their best, I'm not here to kick them.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

The number of times we got the ball, forward of centre and we'd kick it to a contest at CHF, Fev would be 2x or 3x teamed and Kennedy would be in the pack as well.

It's like we got the ball in midfield and then we would just try to get rid of it as quick as possible.

Direct doesn't mean kicking it blindly in and kicking to a contest.

Kicking it to a contest is all well and good when you have more numbers at the contest than the defenders but when Geelong had often 2 spare men back then what's the wisdom of doing that. Better off to hang back and force Geelong to play man-on-man - so that then we kick to one-on-one contests.

There were no crumbers last night and no space in our forward line. You could have parked the Queen Mary 2 into the Geelong forward line - you would have barely sent a mouse through our forward line. All our forwards got so frustrated at the delivery (which started in the first quarter) that they all went at the contest in the 3rd and let their men just run it out of defence.

Put simply, the midfield didn't run hard enough when they got the footy (which was rare - too many times we were 2nd to the footy) and when they got it, they bombed it in a la 2003. The forwards didn't present hard enough, didn't give it enough space - the forward line of the last few games did not show up - did not give each other space. Selfish football.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

If by doing their best you mean that their spent at the end of the game, then I agree with you.

The players were like headless chooks last night. Sure it's a by-product of being young but they allowed the pace and flow of the game to be dictated to them by Geelong, when we'd been playing a reasonable brand of tempo footy to this point (albeit at full throttle 90% of the time).

They were over-awed and until they can let Pagan out as a runner, there's very little he can do to stem that on an individual level at the breaks.

_________________
29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Well isnt that a shock to the system.
We've been playing reasonable footy and our opponents did their homework and came up with a plan to counter it. Revolutionary!!!!"

What should we do? Blame the players!!!

Take it elsewhere Jim. Surely somewhere on this site someone will tolerate you better than I do.
It just might take a bit of time.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Read it again, I just blamed the players AND the coach, though one more subtly than the other.

Everyone else is one or the other.

_________________
29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

I don't know why they kept trying to get it to Fev if there was 3 guys on him. Fish and Betts were kicking goals. If they kept kicking it to either of them, then they would hopefully have left Fev alone and he could've kicked some.

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Karma

Loyal & Proud

Yes it is the players fault. They're inexperienced and they weren't up enough to stay with Geelong, or confident enough in themselves to believe they could stay with Geelong.

That'll come and I'm patient enough to wait it out.

And yet the inexperienced players handled it better than most.
Funny that.

Next.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Come on BV. Even you don't believe Pagan, Rats and Braddles tell the players to kick the ball to 2 on 1 and 3 on 1's in Fev's case. Alot of our players were flat and lazy last night. Several played plain dumb footy and wouldn't lower their eyes when entering the F50. The game plan may be to get it in long and quick to FEV but when he is covered I'm sure the players are given leave to reassess and improvise. Rats is the forward coach I'm sure he would say.."look for options if Fev is covered'

You can blame DP till the cows come home for various reasons but when players up the field won't lead directly at the ball carrier then I blame the player not the coach. I sure he doesn't say....Ignore the lead of Josh and kick over his head to the well covered Fev".

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.”

Surely not. Surely every decision made on the field can be directly attributed to orders from the coach. After all we all know that players don't have a mind of there own and are all just autonomous drones blindly following the will of the coach.

I can't see why Pagan wouldn't want the players to kick the ball to Geelong, to not put pressure on the opposition ball carrier, and to not run into space to provide a target or shepherd a teammate. That damn Pagan, its all his fault!

Sorry Cazzesman but telling players how to do something doesnt cut it.

You have to train it, you have to practice it consistently and give the players drills and more drills on how to react in varying situations.
They play on instinct, instinct that is honed on the track.

This is not something I've been saying for a couple of weeks. I've been posting about this since 03!
But surprisingly to some, I'm not here to bag Pagan. I'm just surprised to think that anyone would expect the players to react differently. Everyone can bag the players as much as they want but they are creatures of their environment.
You cant tell them how to function for 4 years and then criticise them for not functioning differently.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

I agree but there's just some things you can't simulate efficiently.

Flooding is one.

If we don't have the systems in place already, I relish the day where some of this new money comes into video testing of player decision making, or generating simulations that test it.

All the equipment to do so is within reach. This is why I don't begrudge Pagan and other coaches of other lowly clubs too much if their financial situation is a factor.

Having said that - from what I have seen of training - Pagan doesn't ignore the idea of mindless bombing into the forward line, he strictly encourages at as a last ditch option - that or having a ping at goals. You have to question the mindset of the players when Geelong turned the heat up. They responded in previous weeks, but this time they just fell over.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least if there was a battle of words out on the field. Young minds indeed.

_________________
29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.