I was actually fortunate enough to attend the AFL National Coaching conference in February Indie.
People like Rodney Eade, Stan Alves, Michael Broadbridge (Freo assistant) Leon Harris (AFL high performance coach), Chris Bond (WB midfield coach), Craig McRae (Richmond), Mark riley (Melbourne Defence Coach), Alan McConnell (AIS High performance coach), David wheadon (Geelong), Alan Richardson, (Collingwood) etc etc etc attended.

They held sessions on how AFL clubs train, the reason for different methods and where the game is headed. There were interactive sessions, plenty of video analysis and Michael Broadbridge (Who was brilliant) among others went through a lot of their drills on video giving interactive demonstations of drills and the thinking behind them.

Every club had several assistants attending the sessions and most of the TAC coaches sat in all the sessions they could. There was only one club who didnt bother to attend the sessions.
Do you know who that club was Indie? Have a guess?

I asked one of our assistants recently why we didnt attend. Do you know his answer?
"We got the book that they handed out!"

So you see, I dont need to fly to Perth, adelaide etc Indie.
I just needed an inclination to be informed. Too bad your mate Denis could'nt give up a few days to do the same.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Was that before or after Pratt was appointed BV? You might have noticed that there's been a bit more money coming into the footy department since Pratt came. Do you think that makes it a bit easier to run the footy department?

Suprising that Sticks wouldn't have made sure that Ratts or Braddles could go up. Wonder why not?

Tell us all about the 7 on 6 drill then BV. My guess is that it would be favoured by the possession teams such as Adelaide and Sydney. Do any of the teams that favour quick and direct entries to the F50 use it?

The thing is, if you have a static 7 on 6 drill, it encourages players to hold onto the ball and chip it to the flanks or pockets to leads. That would undermine the overall strategy that we have.

If you were to have a drill that reinforces our gameplan, then you'd have 7 on 6 with a kick coming in from the midfield and pairs of players running inside 50. That way, if the ball carrier hesitates too long he will be faced by a full-on flood inside 50 to negotiate. Then he can be pulled up by the coaching staff who will point out the cost of his hesitation.

But I fancy the drill that you want is one which involves only the 7 defenders and 6 defenders and the kicker outside 50. The forwards would then run leads to different parts of the F50 and the kicker would wait until one of them had a break on his opponent or at least the ball could be kicked to his advantage. And the emphasis would be on kicking well away from the loose man in the corridor.

In other words, I suspect you want us to adopt a different gameplan. You're entitled to your opinion. But don't expect the coaches to introduce drills that are antagonistic to our gameplan.

Jesus....................that's piss-weak, seriously................

Just a question on-training:-

Has anybody actually seen the team practise kicking for goal? And i'm not just talking Fev or Waite or Whoever our forward line up will be, i'm talking the whole team in general?.................anybody?

Our conversion rate has been awful, you would think that it would be something that would be ontop of the 'things-to-do-at-training' list. Wouldn't it?

I was listening to Mark Allen (SEN's golf expert) the other week who brought up an interesting point.
He cannot understand why so many AFL players get paid so much money yet still manage to miss goals, sometimes from 20-30mtrs out. And he wasn't talking about once every now and then, that he could understand, he was talking about 3 or 4 misses a game.

As a football player, your one quality over ANYTHING ELSE should be your kicking.............Its what you get paid to do!

He mentioned that when he was studying in the US, his room-mate was playing college basketball and he went along to watch him train one night. After the training session, each player on the team was made to shoot (& complete) 100 free-throws before they were allowed to leave. Not all in one go,..............just get 100 in, then you can leave.

SOME teams actually made the whole team stay untill each player had made 100 free-throws.

As a golf pro & very respected tutor, mark allen says he quite often makes his students hit from the bunker and wont let them leave untill they sink (i think it was) 3 or 4.
And this isn't just his students, nor is it his idea, the pros do this quite often...................it's called practice.

I'm a bit dissapointed with our ineffective kicks to be honest. At the moment, i'd say that perhaps Bryce Gibbs is our most effective player by foot........................and i reckon that's because he is so new to the club. It will be interesting to see how he's kicking is by the seasons end.

I see the paper this morning (Herald Sun). If you haven't read it yet, take a look at page 76. What do you thinks gonna happen come friday night?

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

p.s.

Denis's horse was Judgement Justified and it won. Race 7, paying about $4.70 for the win.

Congratulations Denis.

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

Murphy for mine... good under pressure as well.

Right with you on the goalkicking training. That skill is the one thing paramount to winning a game. Goes without saying really when you think about it, so why is the club not rectifying it?!

That's a good one................because Murphy was probably the most effective last season. But this season, he's kicking for goal has been dissapointing and he has missed what he normaly would have slotted through with ease (i watchd him in at least a dozen LIVE games through 20 games through the Championships and with Oakleigh (GO CHARGES) and he was always a danger when near the goals!)

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

Am very happy with this attitude. As I mentioned on another thread recently, I was very critical of the negative play over the last few years, happy they have had a change of attitude on this, even if it does expose ourselves to the odd belting.

They just need to get more organised in the forward half, and not be so Fev conscious.

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Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

It's not just bloody goalkicking either. Basic field kicking is just as bad and the turnovers we continually cough up every week - especially from our supposedly skilled players such as Waite and Foolihan - are disgraceful.

There is something to be said for two sets of two poles, 15 metres away from each other, and the poles are a metre apart like mini goals - and concentrating on kicking to a partner in those goals. Each training session (or at the end of them) should incorporate this sort of basic drill and players are not allowed leave until they kick 50 goals on each foot. Should only take 1/2 hour at the most but this basic drill would improve our footskills 10-fold.
I know it did mine when I was growing up.

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Ryan, I heard that interview with Mark Allen as well, interesting.

Clearly, kicking for goal is the one area that doesn't seem to have improved in modern football (certainly not to the extent that the other disciplines have). Having said that, the way Fev holds the ball (apparently pioneered by Nathan Brown) is now being copied by others, will be interesting to see if it makes a difference.

In the interview, they also talked about the place kicking in rugby. What they didn't say is that there is a significant point of difference between the place kicking / golf, and kicking in our game. With both a place kick and a gold stroke, the ball is stationary...you know exactly where it is going to be when you strike it.

In our game, the ball is moving as it hits the boot, not only that, it is moving through the air, out of contact with any part of the body. This makes it different to a basketball throw, where the ball is in the hands until it is launched.

To me, that makes a kick in Australian Rules much more difficult to master than a place kick (which they used to use in our game), a gold stroke or a basketball throw.

_________________
Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

Yeah good point, but this is the way i see it.....................

Let's just say that each and every player MUST slot through 100 goals before leaving training.
Nobody out there is gonna have a 100% effective rate. at the very minimum, it will take 100 to 200 or more attempts before reaching the 100 quota!
It's not about the ones that go through, or even the ones they miss, the most important part is that we are subjecting our players to atleast a few hundred kicks AT A TARGET.

In this case, the target is a goal....................but i can see that benifiting around the ground also.

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

True, we wouldnt want Denis to shelve out a whole $295.00 from his 600K per year to improve himself.



Yes, lets not practice what occurs in games Indie in case the players make mistakes. Its far better to make those errors in the games!

Unfortunately the structure of your zones is also dictated by the opposition Indie set ups as well Indie. The role of your opponents is to (Surprise, surprise) actually limit your ability to score. Getting numbers back is the preferred option.
Good teams practice those set ups so the players know how to react in different situations. Chipping ball around may undermine Denis' strategy but unfortunately bombing the ball to Mathew Scarlett isnt always the correct option.
The players need to practice different scenarios that they encounter in games to enable them to make the right decision.

But god forbid we should practice any of those drills in case the players make a mistake or undermine Denis' antiquated strategy!

If you've been sent here to sprout pro Denis propaganda Indie, tell those who sent you to replace you with someone less embarrassing to their cause.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Isn't it amazing that you haven't given any specifics BV? You haven't described the drills other than to say 7 on 6. You haven't identified who gave the presentation on it or from which side he or they play. You just came up with the usual generalities, drivel, and personal swipes.

Seems to be that you've either taken it on yourself to try to stick your nose into any thread to trot out the same "I know better than real AFL coaches" routine. Whose bidding are you doing? I can tell you that I have no associations with the Carlton coaches. I don't pretend to be a supercoach like you, and I'm not a hanger-on who thinks he absorbs ability by hanging around real coaches. I'm just a Carlton member (having been so for a long time). Am I still allowed to express my opinion?

Yep, that's right BV. Things are either black or they're white Given our previous debates on this issue, I know that you're aware they do 6 on 6 leading drills. That's right - not bombing it to the key defender drills. But don't let that get in the way of your attempt to dumb down the debate.


Again, another attempt to mislead. How many senior coaches attended? How many of those attended only to do a presentation? How many of the assistants attended to do presentations?

How close to our opening round of the NAB Cup was this conference? Wasn't it the sort of event that was more appropriate for the assistants to attend. Was it more for the edification of coaches below AFL level?

I smell an attempt to present a distorted view in support of your own hobby-horse here. I really can't see AFL coaches getting together to give opposing coaches hints as to how they can improve

I dont know about you Siegfred but I read that as

Tank!!!!!!

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

Think you need new glasses Sydney

_________________
Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

Indie, the problem is that pretty much all sides drop a man back. I don't know how much footy you watch apart from Carlton - but there is always a defensive midfielder being placed a kick behind play by pretty much all teams in the comp. When or if the ball is turned over by the team in possession, that extra man provides a link option out of defence. If the ball is bombed into a contest like we do, that extra man stays down knowing that the ball is not going to be marked (or won't be 9 times out of 10) and tries to get to the drop of the ball or at least be in a position where he can run it out of defence as the link option.

Against teams we've played:

Enright of Geelong does it, as does Corey - even Scarlett was doing it against us. McPhee does it for Essendon*, Welsh when fit. Howat, Deledio for the Tigers.

Teams we haven't played:

The Dogs do it all the time to teams who try to exploit their short defence by bombing it in long - all the spoiler needs to do is create a contest and their loose man, or a man who leaves his opponent to create an immediate and local overlap and they're away. McMahon, Gilbee, Griffen are those players. Teams that have beaten the Dogs have not fallen into the trap of bombing it in - because the Dogs have gotten used to the fact that teams will bomb it in and have developed a plan against it.

Team isolate the Dogs one-out now and don't let the Dogs zone off and run and get the local loose man. The Dogs short-comings down back are now being exploited because of this.

Thompson is a crap coach - he didn't realise this against the Dogs and he tried to exploit the Roos defence on the weekend by being arrogant and letting the Roos just zone back - Wells, Simpson - all doing the same thing.

It happens all over the AFL Indie - wake up and smell the roses. 7 on 6 is a staple diet against good forward lines. There are ways around it - like isolating and getting good mis-matches up and running and rotating mis-matches so that when a counter is found, another takes its place.

Good coaches find plans to beat the opposition - rather than just hoping our gameplan is good enough on the day. Concentrating on our gameplan and ignoring the opposition's is like only doing half the job. What if our gameplan (which might be fine in principle) fails because the opposition coach is good and found a way to counter our good gameplan? Well, our team rules and plan must change accordingly otherwise we will keep getting beaten and beaten...

A new plan forces the opposition coach to find a new way to counter us. We can then go back to the original plan once in a while in order for us to keep the opposition coach guessing.

It's about flexibility. Pagan doesn't give us that. He hasn't countered the opposition game plan except against Essendon*. When our game plan hasn't worked (like against Geelong), did he try anything different? No - we did the same thing all game - bomb it long to the 7 on 6 which we had no defence against. We didn't even try holding it up until we had even numbers in the contest before we bombed it. We didn't even try to make it 7 on 7 - we didn't try to create space for the other forwards - we just bombed it long and all the forwards were drawn to the contest leaving space wide open to the sides and to the back of the contest. No wonder the ball came in so thick and fast.

Opposition sides have worked out how to play Hawkins - he took us apart in his first game, then the 2nd game, he was good - but coaches have started planning for him and his last 2 games have been very very quiet. They've worked out a plan for the opponent he gets and in the last 2 weeks, it's worked. Now Thompson has to find a way to beat the opposition's plan on Hawkins. He can try moving him up the ground or planting him in the goal square - but obviously what worked for him in the first 2 games doens't work now because sides are ready for him.

Even Laidley, a coach we all think is inadequate worked out a plan to beat Geelong (with a bit of help from Geelong and Thompson).

Everyone says that Denis is a meticulously prepared coach. I've yet to see it. If you're meticulous you analyse the opposition as well and try to come up with a plan to counter them once you see they're trying the tactic you know will frustrate your own game plan.

A meticulously prepared coach will have:
1) his own game plan,
2) worked out what the opposition will do to stop it,
3) found weaknesses in it
4) and finds changes that should be made if the opposition coach finds the way to stop the pre-prepared gameplan.
5) They will also see what kind of game plan the opposition has been employing in the previous games
6) and find a way to stop it -
7) If the opposition coach changes his game plan because we've found the solution, then:
the coach (and his assistants) have to be able to see how he can counter it.

Denis does 1, 3 and 5 in my opinion. Our poor starts in games in my opinion stem from the fact that his preparation on how to stop the opposition is poor and we get jumped.

Sorry about the rant but I don't buy your opinion Indie that Denis is doing his job correctly and that it should be about concentrating on your own game plan.

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

- Igor Stravinsky

Brown had a hand in 10 Goals, dropping a man in front of him to take up some space wasnt rocket science and as Clem said other teams do it all the time. Doing that for 20 mins to help try and win the game isnt being negative its just showing some common sense.......losing after playing well doesnt do much for young kids confidence either. If we were twenty goals behind then fine go man on man but when its close try and make Setantas life a bit easier...a player like Lance who wasnt doing much in terms of possies could have filled that space and given Setanta a bit of guidance.

Coaching and leadership points in the last quarter went to Matthews and his men....you would hope we would learn something...

And for those saying that playing a man in front of Brown was flooding, negative and bad for the game get a copy of the Geelong vs Carlton game and study it...Geelong played some great free flowing footy, their kids all played their part, they kicked plenty of goals and they managed to negate Fev........smart coaching......we should have learned something but didnt....

_________________
"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

Going for two POWs in a row there ryan. Goal kicking and the lack of practice is one of my pet hates as well.

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Thanks for the update MonstaBlue, missed the interview so it was good to catch up on a quick summary. And good to see that a lot of what is debated here is actually in practice.

Yes, CC, clearly other teams do drop back players. No one is suggesting otherwise. The question is whether there is any utility in a 7 on 6 drill as opposed to a 6 on 6 drill. The latter is designed to promote leading and blocking by the forwards in a co-ordinated way with crumbers taking up correct position. Addind another defender doesn't achieve much.

I don't agree with your observations about the Geelong game. I went to the game and took particular note of whether there loose defenders being used. From what I saw, there were not. The Carlton F50 had even numbers of defenders and forwards. The number on each side varied from 5 to 7, and the latter was caused no doubt by Thompson trying to engineer a loose man and that man being matched up by Pagan. The trouble is that on TV it looks like there are loose men when you see a shot of Fev attempting to mark and you see halfbacks coming in from the side. That's because our half-forwards have led out and their opponents have zoned off. As the defenders would do in a 6-on-6 training drill.

The fact is that Geelong beat us in the midfield, as did WCE. They didn't win by initiating flooding. The complaint seems to be that we didn't initiate a flood to prevent the beltings. And certainly the Lions didn't beat us by having loose men.

And I don't believe that the new wisdom concerning the Bulldogs is to go man-on-man in the F50. Adelaide went against conventional wisdom by electing to return to an old game plan. Instead of trying to go man-on-man with them in attack and using smaller and quicker forwards to do that, they used tall forwards and instead corralled them on the way out. Adelaide's tall forwards took marks and kicked goals. When they were able to bring the ball to ground, the Doggies found that they were able to run unopposed for a short distance, but Adelaide manned up the players ahead of the ball or alongside so that there were no obvious uncontested options. Instead of being able to draw one or more Crows to them and thereby creating a loose man, they sat on their opponents until forwards could pressure them. In confusion, the ball-carrier would stop and eventually kick the ball to a contest when the pressure increased.

I think that trying to go one-on-one with the Dogs in F50 is a recipe for disaster. They will flood the F50 and leave heaps of free space ahead of them which they'll exploit with clean kicking skills and pace.

Remember that the change in interpretation regarding marking duels (chopping of arms and hands in the back) make contested marking a greater possibility inside 50. Presumably the pressure on umpires to reward marking attempts will continue in future years too. The emphasis on preventing defenders or midfielders killing the ball by diving on it also makes it harder for the defenders. When AFL coaches are setting future strategies, this has to be taken into account.

The problem is that coaches are often reactive rather than proactive. The sheep will try to mimic the current leaders of the competition irrespective of differences in player stocks or alternatives that exist. We have an emphasis on tall runners now, and we are developing a strong spine. To buckle and adopt a chipping style is not in the club's interests. Let's see how we go in developing a style that will allow us to enter F50 before the midfielders have a chance to flood back.

There are some stats provided by Mark Stevens about pressure in the F50. He notes that the Kangaroos were particularly strong in that area against Geelong and had more tackles in F50 than St Kilda has had in 5 games this year. Eddie Betts was equal 2nd in this stat with 8 tackles, and Solomon with 9 is the leader. He made the point that Freo has been good in that area.

Yes, there will be different tactics used. But we have a lot of young players, so the emphasis at training has to be on training them in our preferred game-plan. That doesn't need to be by bombing it long, but it means sizing up the the best option without hesitation and executing without delay. That might be a leading player, going over the top of the leading players or kicking long to a contest at the hotspot. But the emphasis has to be on quick disposal. Otherwise they can't be blamed if they resort to a chip style when they are under pressure. That's my problem with the 7-on-6 or 8-on-6 approach. Unless you require the kicker to kick virtually immediately, such a drill pretty much encourages the kicker to resort to chipping. If you're training the team to do that, you can hardly complain if the team regularly resorts to that tactic when placed under pressure.

Isn't this year about the best game plan to develop players for 3 years time. last year we played an ugly rolling maul then tried to take as long as possible to chip it out of our backline before we gave it back to the opposition.

I am not that interested in flooding so we win some games we otherwise might not or reduce damage. I am happy to have a high scoring freeflowing confidence building approach that can then be refined as our talent develops and improves. For instance Santy will do better in the long run for having to take on JB in a genuine one on one rather than 5 players taking on JB. I don't expect DP to be there beyond this year, I am glad we seem more willing to sacrifice points for development.

At the end of the year that four points might be the difference between drafting a Judd or a Polak. I am not saying tank but I am saying development at the expense of points is fine. If we had taken our chances in the first ten minutes of the last quarter we might have been three up and then dropped soemone back. Dropping a man back to defend a one point 3/4 time lead wasn't likley to work.

PS

What were you doing at the conference BV? You're not Mitch are you? What level do you coach at?