Changes for Rnd 20 V Geelong

[Billericay]

It's hard to understand what Longmire is trying to prove. He's back to his failed 2 ruckmen structure. He's a case study for archaeologists, not football analysts. I understand keeping Hayward in because he simply loves Hayward and we all have our fetishes (sorry for speaking for those without fetishes). So Hayward stays and Dawson rots in the reserves racking every stat imaginable. How he can pick Sinclair over Aliir or Dawson is beyond comprehension, even if it means going back to playing 2 ruckmen. He's a stubborn (not so) old fool. Lucky Geelong are really down in personnel, so we are still in with a good chance to win even with a weaker side than necessary.

He hates making changes. It's effectively just Tippett in for the injured Naismith. All the others are regulars returning from minor injuries.

After the 0-6 start we started winning games with 2 ruckmen, so I don't think you can call it "failed". The 1 ruckman strategy also failed spectacularly against Hawthorn because our one ruckman got towelled up by Big Boy McEvoy, who both coaches gave best on ground. Naismith didn't go great against Longer the previous week either. v Hawthorn, our one ruckman went down injured and we were forced to play Sinkers, who I don't think he has a great future in the ruck (or in any position really).

It's quite possible that Horse's playing both Tippo and Sinkers because he doesn't really trust either of them. I don't think he'd have gone one taller otherwise and we might have seen someone else get a run.

[Billericay]

Reid, Sinclair and tippet. Back to first six rounds

It's a question of which Tippett turns up tomorrow. I don't know he was ready to come back, but Naismith is out and Sinkers is Sinkers so ...

[MattW]

I've never been jealous of other clubs team lists, even if they were better than ours. But I am jealous of Clarkson being Hawthorn's coach and not ours.

Maybe Horse took too many head knocks in those days before concussion testing and it wiped out his ability to project into the future. He seems to be stuck in football antiquity and can't see his way out. He keeps returning to places he knows best, regardless of their value.

This graphic tells the story. Even with his great record, Longmire is still considered a 2nd rate coach by his peers.

Harsh. Does anyone trust Tippett or Sinclair to run out the game as a sole ruckman, particularly v Smith? Let's see Tippett get through a game first.

[troyjones2525]

These are great ins and I thoroughly believe that all four of these players need to be in our line-up if we are to win a premiership this year!

There is no doubting they all have the talent when in form to be a dominant player for us so the question is not so much structure, like folks like Barry and Ludwig are upset about regarding getting back to our first 6 rounds, rather than actual form from these talls as when they are in form our structure still looks great as they are clunking marks and kicking goals!

Tippett isn't on big dollars for no reason. When he is fit and finds form he is an A grader and we just need to hope that he can finally get there from here on in for the rest of the season!

The 2 man ruck structure hasn't worked earlier this year but I believe it was more poor form from a lot a players, including an injured Tippett more than the actual structure that cost us.

People are forgetting that we were without Rohan, Heeney, McVeigh etc. And underdone Papley, Jack, Parker and a bunch of others so its naive to think that it was that structure that lead us to those losses more than actual poor form from our best players including Kurt.

I honestly feel we are 3 changes away from our best team that when in form can win us the flag this year! They are: Out - Sinclair, Towers and Hayward and In - Naismith, Kennedy and Cunningham.

This will give us a really strong line-up with hardened finals type bodies who when in form have all shown they are in our best side. We also have a good mix of youth and experience pushing for selection in the NEAFL should an injury or 2 hit us.

If we can stay injury free I'm bullish that that particular line-up can take us all the way this year, including a win tomorrow night!

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[liz]

it wiped out his ability to project into the future. He seems to be stuck in football antiquity and can't see his way out. He keeps returning to places he knows best, regardless of their value.

This graphic tells the story. Even with his great record, Longmire is still considered a 2nd rate coach by his peers.

I confess that some of those results surprise me. I'd have expected Clarkson to be higher, and I'm baffled by why Scott and Hinkley are deemed to be the hardest to coach against. Both seem - to me at least - to be something of "one trick ponies" in their approach to game style. I can understand why Lyon, Clarkson and Beveridge would be deemed to be hard to coach against. They might not always have the best cattle available, but they tend to throw things around, and give opposition teams something different to look at.

I think Longmire is probably a one-trick pony in that he has developed a style of football that suits the squad he has available to him and stands up most of the time. The team is rarely uncompetitive unless decimated by injury (putting aside the 2014 GF). He backs his side to be deliver "their style" of footy more often than not, and also backs it to gets results more often than not.

Clubs have many constraints that affect performance / results and one (often overlooked) is the time available to drill the squad. Coaching teams therefore have to make a choice between drilling their squad to play a certain way and to play it as well as they can, versus building in some flexibility into the way a team can play. It's a trade off, and if you think you have the cattle to play a style that will be effective most of the time, I don't think it's an inherently bad choice to focus most of the available training time on honing that style to the highest degree.

[troyjones2525]

What's wrong with Tippett/Reid/Sinclair?

Tippett is easily our best ruckman IF he's fit, needs to play seniors in preparation for finals.

Reid and Sinclair are quite agile for their size, and I suspect Reid and Buddy will rotate between each other i50 and up the ground. Having Sinclair at FF will allow guys like Rohan and Reid to get mismatches.

Can't point to our 0-6 as difinitive "proof" this lineup doesn't work. Everyone was playing badly, and our hardness/pressure around the ball was down. If we get 50+ i50s our forward line will be hard to stop

+1

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

[Ludwig]

What's wrong with Tippett/Reid/Sinclair?

Tippett is easily our best ruckman IF he's fit, needs to play seniors in preparation for finals.

Reid and Sinclair are quite agile for their size, and I suspect Reid and Buddy will rotate between each other i50 and up the ground. Having Sinclair at FF will allow guys like Rohan and Reid to get mismatches.

Can't point to our 0-6 as difinitive "proof" this lineup doesn't work. Everyone was playing badly, and our hardness/pressure around the ball was down. If we get 50+ i50s our forward line will be hard to stop

I can see your point. I, for one, have not referenced the 2 ruckmen in the 0-6 start, but include those games that we also won, but felt we could do better if structured differently.

Maybe the thinking is that we are playing 3 talls coming back from injury, if we include Sinclair's ankle roll. So perhaps they will have some limited game time and may see a game time split something like Tippett, Sinclair and Reid with 70% each and Buddy with 90%, so we only have 3 of the 4 on the ground at any one time, and If we do have 4 it might be Reid playing deep in defence as he often does at the end of quarters, or perhaps Reid playing a bit through the midfield.

I think it's a mistake playing 2 ruckmen because regardless of who we play in the ruck we will probably lose the hitouts to Smith, so we should play to defend the ball from the stoppages and it would be useful not to have a superfluous ruckman.

I'm worried about the mismatches that we experienced with Hawthorn with Geelong having 3 tall forwards plus Mackie playing through the midfield, clearly ready to pull a Roughy on us, go forward and get a matchup on Hanners or Lloyd. That's why I thought we would be better served with having Aliir in the side instead of Sinkers.

[Blood Fever]

I confess that some of those results surprise me. I'd have expected Clarkson to be higher, and I'm baffled by why Scott and Hinkley are deemed to be the hardest to coach against. Both seem - to me at least - to be something of "one trick ponies" in their approach to game style. I can understand why Lyon, Clarkson and Beveridge would be deemed to be hard to coach against. They might not always have the best cattle available, but they tend to throw things around, and give opposition teams something different to look at.

I think Longmire is probably a one-trick pony in that he has developed a style of football that suits the squad he has available to him and stands up most of the time. The team is rarely uncompetitive unless decimated by injury (putting aside the 2014 GF). He backs his side to be deliver "their style" of footy more often than not, and also backs it to gets results more often than not.

Clubs have many constraints that affect performance / results and one (often overlooked) is the time available to drill the squad. Coaching teams therefore have to make a choice between drilling their squad to play a certain way and to play it as well as they can, versus building in some flexibility into the way a team can play. It's a trade off, and if you think you have the cattle to play a style that will be effective most of the time, I don't think it's an inherently bad choice to focus most of the available training time on honing that style to the highest degree.

A lot of coaches didn't rate a mention. Also coaches could be playing games with their votes. Wouldn't take too much notice. Every team has match up problems against other teams. Doesn't mean the style they play is necessarily flawed. We recruit players to play a role in our high pressure system. Hawthorn obviously recruit and train up players who are excellent kicks and their style matches up well on us. If we play to our potential, we easily beat most teams. Longmire has been very good at getting consistent highly intense effort and pressure over a long period of time. We peaked in this area in the Prelim last year and niggling injuries cost us in GF. Can't win them all but our system has got us to 3 GFs in 5 years. Highly effective with the squads we assemble.

[Ludwig]

I confess that some of those results surprise me. I'd have expected Clarkson to be higher, and I'm baffled by why Scott and Hinkley are deemed to be the hardest to coach against. Both seem - to me at least - to be something of "one trick ponies" in their approach to game style. I can understand why Lyon, Clarkson and Beveridge would be deemed to be hard to coach against. They might not always have the best cattle available, but they tend to throw things around, and give opposition teams something different to look at.

I think Longmire is probably a one-trick pony in that he has developed a style of football that suits the squad he has available to him and stands up most of the time. The team is rarely uncompetitive unless decimated by injury (putting aside the 2014 GF). He backs his side to be deliver "their style" of footy more often than not, and also backs it to gets results more often than not.

Clubs have many constraints that affect performance / results and one (often overlooked) is the time available to drill the squad. Coaching teams therefore have to make a choice between drilling their squad to play a certain way and to play it as well as they can, versus building in some flexibility into the way a team can play. It's a trade off, and if you think you have the cattle to play a style that will be effective most of the time, I don't think it's an inherently bad choice to focus most of the available training time on honing that style to the highest degree.

One of the things I like about Longmire is exactly what you've stated. He love consistent predictable football, so practices the basics to get the structure and playing style he wants. My only real complaint is that he can stubbornly stick to a system even when changing times and game styles from opposition clubs demand some change. It's good that we are predictable to ourselves, but it also makes us predictable to others, which is why the best coaches find weaknesses in our game and exploit them.

We don't have enough unpredictable players. We have Buddy, Jones and to some extent Rohan. I've been pushing for Aliir to play because he's one of those kind of players that can get other sides worried. We need a bit more of that.

[Hotpotato]

Can our boys play in 8 degrees , if windy add an extra chill factor?
Bloody cold as .

[liz]

We don't have enough unpredictable players. We have Buddy, Jones and to some extent Rohan. I've been pushing for Aliir to play because he's one of those kind of players that can get other sides worried. We need a bit more of that.

Players who are unpredictable to the opposition can also be unpredictable to team mates. Sometimes - especially in today's highly drilled football - it only takes one player on a team not to play to the team structure for the whole thing to collapse. People (rightly) laud Clarkson for what he's achieved, but his sides have played the most structured football of any side in recent seasons. Yes, he changes it up sometimes to confuse the opposition, but his players always play highly structured footy.

I also dispute how unpredictable Buddy is. He can do things no other player can do (most noticeably, launch plausible shots on goal from 60m out and off one step) but I don't think that makes him unpredictable, per se. It just makes him hard to defend when he is "on".

Leo Barry - now that was unpredictability. Even he didn't know what he was going to do next most of the time...

[Flying South]

I've been pushing for Aliir to play

Really???? You wouldn't know.

[Ludwig]

Leo Barry - now that was unpredictability. Even he didn't know what he was going to do next most of the time...

How true! And that's what we loved about Leo, and Kennelly too. When they got near the ball you felt something special was going to happen.

Buddy's got that anticipation of something special is about to occur, and Rohan and Jones have it as less, albeit to a lesser extent. With Aliir, I think we've seen enough from last year to know that he's in this category as well. These are the players that really make footy enjoyable.

[RogueSwan]

Players who are unpredictable to the opposition can also be unpredictable to team mates. ...
Leo Barry - now that was unpredictability. Even he didn't know what he was going to do next most of the time...

How true! And that's what we loved about Leo, and Kennelly too. When they got near the ball you felt something special was going to happen.

Buddy's got that anticipation of something special is about to occur, and Rohan and Jones have it as less, albeit to a lesser extent. With Aliir, I think we've seen enough from last year to know that he's in this category as well. These are the players that really make footy enjoyable.

"Unpredictable" is probably not the right word but they are players that can take on anyone and turn a game with just a few touches. I would add Parker to that group too (think big marks in F50) but we just haven't seen it with Luke this year.

[barry]

Hawthorn beat us with a one ruckman team.