Well drilled v. Talent

[SimonH]

Very interesting. It really has all been said before.

ROK was only half-right. In the same way that if you could assign an objective talent-o-meter to every player on every list, Sydney would only be in the middle rung of teams by talent, Lleyton would only be (and would only ever have been) roughly #15-20 in the world on talent (perhaps lower). And yet:
a) Sydney's won a premiership, and
b) Lleyton's won a grand slam and (briefly) been #1.

So it follows that he has beaten players with "more talent and smoother skills", just as we've beaten teams with the same.

I'm not so naive as to think that an infinite reserve of self-belief and determination is all you need: even if I convinced myself with absolute certainty that I was the young Rod Laver, I'd still get spanked 6-0 in about 8 minutes by the world's #1000. But if you have a certain baseline level of talent and skill, it's a valuable part of the mix.

[liz]

Originally posted by SimonH
And yet:
a) Sydney's won a premiership, and
b) Lleyton's won a grand slam and (briefly) been #1.

Has Lleyton not won three? (Certainly 2 but I think he won the US Open twice.)

If so, hopefully the parallels won't end there.

[Mike_B]

Originally posted by liz
Has Lleyton not won three? (Certainly 2 but I think he won the US Open twice.)

2 - 2001 US Open, 2002 Wimbledon

[CureTheSane]

Originally posted by liz
Some teams look skilful even when in second gear. The Swans aren't one of those. Even when in space they muff their kicks and drop handballs at the feet of team mates.

Lift the intensity and even at greater pace the skills suddenly become crisp and precise. It is almost as if they need hard running legs to pump blood to their brains.

Also, IMO, the Swans play poorly when we play teams lower down the ladder.

We tend to take it up to most better teams.

A lot comes down to mental preparation by the coach and the non existant team psychologist.

[stellation]

NMW made this comment in the Bulldogs game thread, I thought it was a good point deserving of its own thread and it looks there already is one so it may be best discussed here

The team is too drilled to go sideways and short and step back off the mark and take our time. In the last quarter with about five minutes to go when we needed to move the ball forward quickly, ROK had it at half back and didn't even look in the middle of the ground. All he wanted to do was kick wide and that was what he did.

Ain't that the truth! The Swans are amazingly disciplined and at times seem to exist purely to provide commentators with the opportunity to roll out the cliche "playing the percentages". It's low risk football all the way;

• we do well at stoppages, force stoppages!
• we're good in close; get a lot of people at those stoppages so that everything's in close!
• kicking it long to space may not come off; kick it sideways to an uncontested man!

It's been amazingly successful, the coaching staff really have an enviable success rate since Roos took over and as fans we've been spoilt for success (they were making a big deal about it being 10 years since the Bulldogs have made a prelim, that seemed like forever to me!) HOWEVER the game has simply moved on, be it through natural evolution due to a better understanding of sports sciences or due to unnatural evolution due to the meddling of the rules committee. The game is now more focused on trying to get back to a free flowing style; low risk footy is still going to win some games and will still have a place in the game plan of most teams, and I must admit that even with kids coming in I still expect us to be "thereabouts" for quite a while (although now "thereabouts" to me means playing finals, a little while ago it meant seriously contending), but it simply doesn't take advantage of modern football. This year I wasn't sure if it was our team members as much as our team style that lead us to look a little slow.

[NMWBloods]

It's been amazingly successful... HOWEVER the game has simply moved on

This to me is the most frustrating thing of Roos' recent coaching.

[SwanJoel]

What i really think the Swans need to think about is that if they are opportunities to play on then they need to be taken. There are so many opportunities that are available, but are shutdown as Sydney don't play on as often as they could or should.

[CureTheSane]

You'd think that a 'well drilled' team would not allow the true talent to surface to it's fullest extent.

You also think that a talented team, allowed to run free without adequate 'drilling' would be chaotic.

The simple answer is that it is a mix of both.
Some teams are better drilled, some teams are more talented.
Perhaps the truely awesome teams (Brisbane during their glory period, and perhaps Geelong now) found that perfect mix.

Likewise, teams such as the "Winmar/Lowe/etc Saints" never quite got it right.

[dimelb]

I suspect that being well-drilled is a foundation to work from, and does not function as a whole game plan, any more than constant repetition of a phrase makes a piece of music.
There must be variety. Our blokes can do it, as we showed last weekend, but the coach(es) need to encourage and plan for variety, as well as encouraging the particular players who can provide it - Goodes, McVeigh and Veszpremi for example.

[liz]

Geelong would have to be THE best drilled team going around at the moment. They play exactly the same way every week and every single player knows exactly what to do in each situation and what his team mates are going to do. They also have very good skills, are chockful of confidence, are very fit, and have a couple of players capable of the freakish. It's their "well-drilledness" that makes them close to unbeatable but it doesn't stop the flair of some players emerging either.

Hawks are also a pretty well drilled team as well, all playing that zone thingy with a lot of consistency. I think they rely on the freakishness of Buddy to finish things off, though, far more than Geelong rely on the freakishness of Ablett or Johnson.

West Coast are probably a contrast as a recent premier. I never had the impression of them being particularly well drilled - they just were able to take advantage of a super midfield. But take those stars away and it shows that there wasn't a great deal else underpinning their game style.

[ScottH]

They key to one of stellas comments -> The game had the least amount of stoppages for any swans game this year (81), and we are the best scoring team from stoppages, according to some comments I heard on the radio.

Sideways ball movement, and slow to move the game on was a real killer last night.