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Keen for everyone's views on this. Generally we can dispose of non top 8 teams pretty easily - but we really have struggled against other top 4 contenders. So i have focussed on what we tend to do wrong in the big games.
1) Poor starts - the game on Sunday seemed to have all of the similarities of our losses to Collingwood this year and the final last year and Geelong and Western Bulldogs earlier this year. Bad early conversion and in the Collingwood game poor free kicks given away by Hall leading to us chasing our tails early and having to fight back later in the game.
2) Can't handle pressure - Unable to move the ball fluently into the forward line early in the game because of opposition pressure and poor disposals. Other teams are geed up and ready to go - we can't stop this but we can plan for it - need cooler heads and a very defensive game in the first quarter. This is tempo football and we have stopped playing it.
3) Very poor kick ins - our kick ins all year have been very bad and lead to turn overs often - we used to be much better than this - don't know if we can turn it around in a coupe of weeks but who ever the coach is who is responsible for this area needs a big kick up the bum.
To address these the first two problems we need a Big game plan by Roos that tries to unsettle the opposition early - we need to flood early and play lead and mark football around the boundaries in the first quarter, don't care if it is nil all at the end of the quarter. Secondly we need greater tackle pressure on the opposition ball winners. Thirdly Roos should not debuted Smith in this game he should have brought in an old head like Matthews to lock down an opponent - or Brennan who we know is a big tackler and generates plenty of run.
As for kick ins we need an innvoation here from the coaching panel because what we are doing has been figured out by the other top teams.
Mainly though we need to rediscover tempo football played by experienced heads - so we frustrate the opposition and wear them down - we are the second best last quarter team in the comp so when it does open up at the end of the game we have the ability and the skills to outscore any team in the comp. And the likes of Hawthron and the Bulldogs and in particular Collingwood have all been shown to be vunerable to a last quarter surge - so lets play the game on our terms!
A penny for your thoughts!
1) Poor starts - the game on Sunday seemed to have all of the similarities of our losses to Collingwood this year and the final last year and Geelong and Western Bulldogs earlier this year. Bad early conversion and in the Collingwood game poor free kicks given away by Hall leading to us chasing our tails early and having to fight back later in the game.
2) Can't handle pressure - Unable to move the ball fluently into the forward line early in the game because of opposition pressure and poor disposals. Other teams are geed up and ready to go - we can't stop this but we can plan for it - need cooler heads and a very defensive game in the first quarter. This is tempo football and we have stopped playing it.
3) Very poor kick ins - our kick ins all year have been very bad and lead to turn overs often - we used to be much better than this - don't know if we can turn it around in a coupe of weeks but who ever the coach is who is responsible for this area needs a big kick up the bum.
To address these the first two problems we need a Big game plan by Roos that tries to unsettle the opposition early - we need to flood early and play lead and mark football around the boundaries in the first quarter, don't care if it is nil all at the end of the quarter. Secondly we need greater tackle pressure on the opposition ball winners. Thirdly Roos should not debuted Smith in this game he should have brought in an old head like Matthews to lock down an opponent - or Brennan who we know is a big tackler and generates plenty of run.
As for kick ins we need an innvoation here from the coaching panel because what we are doing has been figured out by the other top teams.
Mainly though we need to rediscover tempo football played by experienced heads - so we frustrate the opposition and wear them down - we are the second best last quarter team in the comp so when it does open up at the end of the game we have the ability and the skills to outscore any team in the comp. And the likes of Hawthron and the Bulldogs and in particular Collingwood have all been shown to be vunerable to a last quarter surge - so lets play the game on our terms!
A penny for your thoughts!
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