Did We Miss Ross Lyon & Peter Jonas?

[Boodnutz]

We were outcoached on Saturday night. I likened the first half to watching two football (soccer) teams playing each other when one knows it is inferior to the other. The inferior team drops back, defends and hope to score quickly on the break. They know they won't get many chances so when they do get them they can't waste them.

WCE knew they were inferior re personnel. And they sat back and took their chances - 8 goals straight from as many shots if I recall. All pretty much on the break-out from the mass flood.

I sat there and wondered after the first 10 minutes why they were being allowed to get away with it. Then the second quarter started and no change. Half time, no change.

After the game I really would've liked at least ONE journalist to ask:

1. Why didn't the coaching staff react to the dramatic game plan change of the WCE early on?
2. Why were they allowed to dictate the game for so long when the WCE personnel were apparently inferior?
3. Why was the Swans gameplan for the second half based on wearing down tiring opponents in lieu of some thing a little more aggressive?

In my view, if the coaching staff had've done their job the game should've degenerated into a low scoring stalemate in the first half. A poor outcome visually, but one that would've countered what WCE were doing.

With the exception of Jolly, I don't put any fault at the player's doorstep. They play to instructions. And the instructions were dumb and inflexible.

2007 might see how much we really do miss the smarts of Lyon and Jonas.

The coaches meeting on Monday morning should've had blood on the floor. But they should be grateful that (publicly at least) they were allowed to escape proper scrutiny.

[stellation]

What is the running count on the percentage of Roosy's friends on the coaching staff?

[liz]

So put yourself in the coaches' box. What would you have done to counter the Eagles' tactics?

[DST]

We were outcoached on Saturday night. I likened the first half to watching two football (soccer) teams playing each other when one knows it is inferior to the other. The inferior team drops back, defends and hope to score quickly on the break. They know they won't get many chances so when they do get them they can't waste them.

WCE knew they were inferior re personnel. And they sat back and took their chances - 8 goals straight from as many shots if I recall. All pretty much on the break-out from the mass flood.

I sat there and wondered after the first 10 minutes why they were being allowed to get away with it. Then the second quarter started and no change. Half time, no change.

After the game I really would've liked at least ONE journalist to ask:

1. Why didn't the coaching staff react to the dramatic game plan change of the WCE early on?
2. Why were they allowed to dictate the game for so long when the WCE personnel were apparently inferior?
3. Why was the Swans gameplan for the second half based on wearing down tiring opponents in lieu of some thing a little more aggressive?

In my view, if the coaching staff had've done their job the game should've degenerated into a low scoring stalemate in the first half. A poor outcome visually, but one that would've countered what WCE were doing.

With the exception of Jolly, I don't put any fault at the player's doorstep. They play to instructions. And the instructions were dumb and inflexible.

2007 might see how much we really do miss the smarts of Lyon and Jonas.

The coaches meeting on Monday morning should've had blood on the floor. But they should be grateful that (publicly at least) they were allowed to escape proper scrutiny.

This is an interesting topic Boodnutz.

JW has twice now adjusted his man on man game plan to put numbers behind the ball when playing us for two wins by a combined 2 points.

In some ways JW has now shown his hand on how he thinks he can beat us going forward and I think Roos and the coaching staff were happy to experiment on Satruday night with continuing with our usual game plan to see if this usual pattern of play would be succesful.

There is no doubt now that Roos and the coaching staff will have a look doing something different to un-lock the space around Hall & Mickey O and get us dictating our style of play (something that has not been the case for long periods of the last two games).

But in all honesty I would prefer that we worked this out away from the West Coast games and try it in our third of fourth meeting in 2007.

DST

[Lucky Knickers]

Block up the space infront of Lynch

[stellation]

So put yourself in the coaches' box. What would you have done to counter the Eagles' tactics?

Moved Leo away from FB? Dropped an extra man into defence?

[Boodnutz]

So put yourself in the coaches' box. What would you have done to counter the Eagles' tactics?

Hold the ball. Don't give it up. Do NOT pump it long into the forward line under any circumstances. Hold it and make them come out.

Hold the ball close enough to them to make them chase without giving it up. Somewhere around just slightly the defensive side of centre.

Sydney used to be patient with those types of situations - draw players out then deliver. Saturday night showed no initiative to break the flood. Kenelly, Dempster, Bolton etc got the ball tried one or two options then banged it in long.

[stellation]

Block up the space infront of Lynch

You are one smart lady

[liz]

Hold the ball. Don't give it up. Do NOT pump it long into the forward line under any circumstances. Hold it and make them come out.

Hold the ball close enough to them to make them chase without giving it up. Somewhere around just slightly the defensive side of centre.

Sydney used to be patient with those types of situations - draw players out then deliver. Saturday night showed no initiative to break the flood. Kenelly, Dempster, Bolton etc got the ball tried one or two options then banged it in long.

But isn't that precisely what they spent most of the goalless second quarter doing? Leo, B2 and Teddy were just playing kick to kick in the back half of the game, trying to hold onto the ball in the hope that something might open up in the forward line. And nothing did.

Beating an uberflood is a hard thing to do. We probably all still retain the scars from THAT Saints game in 2002 and there were a lot of similarities between the two games - although the overall skill level was higher this time round.

The only idea I can suggest is to instruct Ablett and Dempster to play around the wing / half forward area and get the team to seek them out as often as possible, with an instruction to them to just take long pot shots at goal. Chances are that many of them would miss and we'd get just as frustrated, but probably only as much as seeing a Wiggle defender pick off a pass forward.

What I saw change in the second half was players actually getting their heads over the ball and attacking contests, rather than holding off for that split second, and passes out of defence being placed in the path of the running player rather than just away from him, which had caused a lot of stopping and propping in the first half.

I am not trying to absolve the coaching staff of all responsibility but to suggest that the players were precisely executing their instructions seems a little one-sided to me.

[DST]

So put yourself in the coaches' box. What would you have done to counter the Eagles' tactics?

That is a hard question liz.

The first issue that needs to be addressed in West Coast games is how we clear space for Hall & Mickey O when they put numbers back. A lot of our game plan has revolved around being patient with the ball and hitting targets when going forward against a team that puts numbers into the space around Hall & Mickey O. This has been very succesful against most teams who want to drop 3 or so players back to block the space, but has failed against West Coast on the last two occasions.

We have also used ROK & Davis (hence why they both push up the field and work back hard to lose their opponents) as outlets going forward, something we didn't see alot of Saturday night. Has JW changed his match-ups for these two players, which has stopped this? Wirrapunda does not seem to get Davis anymore which has worked in our favour in the past?

One solution which has worked in spurts is to bench Mickey O and move Hall further afield in the hope that the spare men go with him. Then we manufacture a one on one for Davis or Goodes with space and hope that they can win the contest. This worked for periods in the 2006 GF with Davis and Goodes on Saturday night was sent forward in a similar role in the last. This works later in the game as West Coast find it harder to push back into the space giving Davis or Goodes free reign to beat just their opponent.

It will be interesting to see what Roos does next for West Coast but in all likelyhood he is not going to show his hand on this one until third or fourth game against West Coast this year.

DST

[DST]

Block up the space infront of Lynch

Putting an extra man into defence aint the problem as they have the midfield to carry that player and kicks goals.

We need to get the game style on our terms and in order to do that we need to free up the space around Hall & Mikey O and get our better kicks (ROK, Davis, Kennelly, Malceski & Buchannen) into positions where they can hit these two targets.

On Saturday night Hall & Mickey O had no space for a lot of the night and we were never able to get our damaging ball users into spots where they could do any harm.

DST

[NMWBloods]

So put yourself in the coaches' box. What would you have done to counter the Eagles' tactics?

Isn't that was Roos is paid the big bucks to work out?

[DST]

Isn't that was Roos is paid the big bucks to work out?

Who's to say he has and is just not ready to give it to JW before the finals?

DST

[stellation]

Putting an extra man into defence aint the problem as they have the midfield to carry that player and kicks goals.

I think it would have helped on Saturday night. They may have been able to carry and kick goals from the midfield, but on Saturday night the easiest path of attack for them was to kick to a leading forward so I think we should have at least done something to try to stop that early on.

[hammo]

2007 might see how much we really do miss the smarts of Lyon and Jonas.

Jonas wasn't exactly working miracles at AAMI Stadium on Sunday