Is Longmire cooked?

[liz]

I agree with every reason you have given for things happening they way they have. You asked me what I would like to see done differently.
I am hoping next year with a fit list the transition from old to new will happen a bit quicker and we will see a more attacking mindset. Having said that we will probably win the next 4.

I agree that there are lots of things I'd love to see done differently. I just think it's hard to know what is attributable to game plan and what is attributable to execution.

One aspect of our game style (whether by plan or not) that does frustrate me (and has for a while) is the tendency to kick long and blind into the forward line. It's been such a common feature of our games that it's hard to think it's not, at least in part, the plan. Yet whenever Longmire is questioned about what changed when the team has turned a losing position into a winning one, he invariably talks about the players lowering their eyes and looking for targets. That suggests it's what he wants them to do, so I do wonder why they do it so little of the time.

I thought this was one thing they did quite well in the first half against Hawthorn but in the second half they seemed to revert to bombing it in long again. Some of this would have been due to structural/tactical tweaks that the Hawks made at half-time, but I still think our boys won enough of the ball in the second half to create more damaging forward entries than they were able to do.

[aardvark]

Hewitt had 24 in a tagging role, a fantastic effort. Could he have got 30-35 if he wasn't tagging and what effect would have that had on the game? Heeney had 19 and disappeared after halftime except for being the +1 for a while. If he'd played exclusively in the midfield in the second half could he have got 30-35? I'm only speculating but if both those things had happened I reckon we wouldn't have lost.
Bombing the ball long to McCartin and expecting him to bring it to ground for the crumbers was not much of a plan. The week before we sat the ball on Buddy's head a lot too.

[Ludwig]

The season has been ruined by the under-performances of Hannebery and Jack. Longmire should have insisted that they find form in the reserves before taking up spots in the senior side. It's hampered the development of a few players, particularly O'Riordan and Cameron, who might have been regulars in the senior side by now. We might have also stuck with Newman most of the season instead of having him go out of the side several times after just one game.

This has been the most disappointing season in the past 20 years for me. There were too many injuries and players out of form or below par. I was hoping this would be a breakout year for Rohan, but he's been a total flop. There weren't many games, or even parts of games, when we played exciting high quality football.

There are some excuses for Longmire, given our injury list, but when I see what Clarko and Buckley have done with their sides, I think Longmire might have done better. How we ended up 14-8, I really don't know. I doesn't seem right. I watched the 2nd half of the St Kilda-North game yesterday. For a game that meant nothing, both teams with with skill, speed and intensity. I don't think we could have beaten either of them on current form.

[liz]

The season has been ruined by the under-performances of Hannebery and Jack. Longmire should have insisted that they find form in the reserves before taking up spots in the senior side. It's hampered the development of a few players, particularly O'Riordan and Cameron, who might have been regulars in the senior side by now. We might have also stuck with Newman most of the season instead of having him go out of the side several times after just one game.

This has been the most disappointing season in the past 20 years for me. There were too many injuries and players out of form or below par. I was hoping this would be a breakout year for Rohan, but he's been a total flop. There weren't many games, or even parts of games, when we played exciting high quality football.

There are some excuses for Longmire, given our injury list, but when I see what Clarko and Buckley have done with their sides, I think Longmire might have done better. How we ended up 14-8, I really don't know. I doesn't seem right. I watched the 2nd half of the St Kilda-North game yesterday. For a game that meant nothing, both teams with with skill, speed and intensity. I don't think we could have beaten either of them on current form.

I watched about five minutes of the first half of the North Saints game and it was a St Kilda fumble fest. If it later turned into a game with speed and intensity, I suspect it was because neither team was applying much pressure to the opposition ball carrier. Both those teams have been pretty poor at it most of the season. Indeed, our game against North was probably the most free-flowing we've played (albeit in both directions), and against the Saints we moved the ball with ease, especially in the first half.

The underperformance of Jack and Hanners have been factors, but neither Parker nor Kennedy has had their best year either. Two years ago three of them made the AA team. This year none of them was even in the discussion to make the squad. They've both played a couple of good games and a few outstanding quarters, but all our mids have been well down.

I agree it's remarkable that we've finished 14-8, all things considered. I do tip my hat to what Buckley's done with Collingwood, particularly given their injuries. But bear in mind it follows a few years of constipated ball movement. Just shows that a little bit of confidence and maturity can do wonderful things. Clarkson remains fantastic at coaching his sides to win more games than they lose but I've rarely looked at them this year and thought they were playing particularly exciting football. They just have a few very skilful and wise players who can make the most of their opportunities.

[bloodspirit]

I agree our slightly disappointing performance this year is due to the underwhelming form of our senior mids. However even though those players were not at their best they showed their value to the team in terms of their experience and guidance for younger players etc which was evident when some of them returned after absences. For this reason I am not convinced we should have been playing more of O'Riordan, Cameron etc. You need a mix of youth and experience and we already had a fairly young side after a fair bit of list regeneration plus unforeseen (although possibly not unforeseeable!) injuries to experienced players like Tippett and Reid. It needs to be remembered that we have blooded as many players in the past three seasons as any team in the competition has over that period.

As regards bombing it long - I don't think it's simple. Coaches often talk about the value of "playing directly", "getting it in there" and then bringing the ball to ground and/or using pressure to force turnovers and keep the opposition pinned in their defensive 50. Recently one coach, noting that they had many more possessions but lost the inside 50 count said "we overused it", by which I inferred they avoided kicking long and used shorter kicks and handpasses but then lost possession before getting inside 50 which is obviously the risk. Clearly, just bombing it in wildly, especially when there are better options, is not the way to go but it's about finding the right balance and I think we need to try to be more sophisticated in our analysis than just saying "don't bomb it in/kick long!"

[Agent 86]

I think Horse has been and is an excellent coach. Horse doesn't play but he does dictate the way we play. I just feel the group would benefit from a different voice. Personally I'm just a bit over seeing the same game style every year and I feel it's time for a change. I understand most fans think the sun shines out his @%$# and that's fine, It's just my opinion. BUT I am in no way attacking him.

Maybe check out the Sydney Kings?

[Agent 86]

Bombing it to a congested area rarely works out, only a Heeney speccy or a Sinclair grab (huge improvement has occurred there) leads to possession.
Learn from Buddy when beyond his range (I understand he has a high skillset) : his low flying stab kicks to a player in space are a better option.
Hawks have always done this very well.
We do it well sometimes, other times downfield is in a state of inertia.

Can’t argue with that - & I doubt this was the instruction from the coaches. It was frustrating however, & even when we had a good run of being on top in the midfield, we botched the finishing.

One thing the Hawks did well was use the block effectively - wasn’t too hard as Sinclair looked like our only player capable of taking a contested grab. Pretty ironic given what Clarko said after last game.

[Hotpotato]

The season has been ruined by the under-performances of Hannebery and Jack. Longmire should have insisted that they find form in the reserves before taking up spots in the senior side. It's hampered the development of a few players, particularly O'Riordan and Cameron, who might have been regulars in the senior side by now. We might have also stuck with Newman most of the season instead of having him go out of the side several times after just one game.

This has been the most disappointing season in the past 20 years for me. There were too many injuries and players out of form or below par. I was hoping this would be a breakout year for Rohan, but he's been a total flop. There weren't many games, or even parts of games, when we played exciting high quality football.

There are some excuses for Longmire, given our injury list, but when I see what Clarko and Buckley have done with their sides, I think Longmire might have done better. How we ended up 14-8, I really don't know. I doesn't seem right. I watched the 2nd half of the St Kilda-North game yesterday. For a game that meant nothing, both teams with with skill, speed and intensity. I don't think we could have beaten either of them on current form.

The Seagull footy style is a pretty tedious , but finishing 6th was defintely remarkable.
Again it’s helped get through the dry cold short days (with thoughts for the farmers) and there’s one final to savour.
Don’t think much will change to be optimistic about going deep into September.
We just don’t kick a score to get too excited about, have hardly heard the Syyydneey chant this year.

[Kafka's Ghost]

He’s never shown much ability to take away Alistair Clarkson / Hawthorns strength.

We beat them on the MCG this year, and would certainly have won on Saturday with Parker and Franklin and Hannebery seeing out the match. A lack of composure in front of the sticks cost us, and that has a more to do with the youth of our forward line.
Oh, and the absence of Smith really cost us, given Puopolo was their major goal scorer.

[Kafka's Ghost]

We've only used Heeney as a +1 in defence late in this season and I suggest it is largely due to the toll injuries have taken on our tall stocks. Other clubs have had longer injury lists than we have, but ours has been particularly hard on our tall players, especially defenders. In the Melbourne game, for example, we were without Grundy and lost AJ early. Structurally our defence was also affected by the loss of Smith. We didn't have Reid to send down back late in quarters, as Longmire did last year. Nor did we have Mills, who might have played the loose, marking defender. It's not as if Heeney has been spending large parts of every game in defence.

I agree that defending so deep is not ideal but I don't think it's the plan, more an outcome of our poor midfield performance for much of the year, and the fact that many of our younger midfielders struggle to apply the tackling pressure further up the ground that has been a cornerstone of our game plan for most of Longmire's reign. While the defence has been good at absorbing pressure for many years, it has never had to withstand quite the volume of ball that it has this year.


Taking more risks coming out of defence will result in far more difficult to defend turnovers unless we have highly skilled players who can routinely make that kick into the corridor. I don't think we have them right now.


As for our "combative game style" I don't think it's much different to most other sides. Sure, GWS with their raft of highly skilled kickers (most of whom were high draft picks) can move the ball better. And Essendon do it with speed from half-back. But most other sides rely on pressure around the ball carrier to create turnovers.


This has been our worst season, IMO, in terms of comprehensive wins. It's hard to think of any. We've had good, narrow victories over other quality teams but there's probably not been a single game you could describe as "champagne football". But that's not been the case in past seasons under Longmire. We've had plenty of emphatic wins using "the Longmire approach", including some in finals against very good sides (eg two against Geelong, one against Adelaide). This year's output reflects the mix of young players and of senior players struggling to bring consistency to their games, for whatever reasons.

Spot on Liz. At times this year half the team had played less than 30 games.

[Muttley]

Has anyone else heard the rumour of Horse to Saints in 2020 with Stevie J or Brett Kirk taking senior job at Swans?

[Markwebbos]

Have now

[liz]

Has anyone else heard the rumour of Horse to Saints in 2020 with Stevie J or Brett Kirk taking senior job at Swans?

Bizarre rumour for (someone) to make up.

[Markwebbos]

Stevie J is a first year coach. Kirk has been around a bit longer but I don’t think has done level 4 has he?

[AnnieH]

Has anyone else heard the rumour of Horse to Saints in 2020 with Stevie J or Brett Kirk taking senior job at Swans?

Stevie J????
That will be over my dead body.
He can't have all the jobs.

He's been here for a year as a forwards coach (and what a wonderful job he's done there, I'm using our percentage as evidence) ...and isn't he being promoted to head of football? Who the F is he?
Appalling.
There are far more deserving servants of this club that can take that position and do a way better job.