The conundrum for Bevo

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Bevo and the coaching group have a big issue.. They clearly know it too. You don't win a premiership without being tactically and strategically astute.

We have a gameplan that has a heart beat around extreme, almost unseen levels of pressure and predicated on:

• elite fitness
• winning hard balls
• forcing repeat stoppages if the ball isn't looking like getting out on our terms with quick hands
• hard running, both ways
• elite skill moving the ball, leading to
• maximum time spent with the ball inside our 50.

All to generate a tonne of shots on goal and keep the game in our forward line for large swathes of game time.

This game plan accepts that an opposition is likely to score 6-7 goals from turnovers or clean ball movement per game. All acceptable.. IF...we:

• get the game on our terms more than the opposition, and
• get quality entries inside 50s resulting in shots on goal, AND
• we kick accurately more often than we miss.

Right now our guys are not fulfilling the last two criteria, by a long margin. And unless it's fixed we're going to struggle to be a top side in 2017.

First off the mark, our skill execution is not enabling us to control the game on our terms as we'd like. Uncharacteristic turnovers when we're trying to move forward is enabling opposition sides to get more of those easy inside 50's than we'd plan for.

Second, our entries inside 50 are inept. When guys like Dahl, Macrae, Matty Boyd, JJ and Hunter (when not switched on) just deliver the ball horridly to our forwards when they have the ball between 50-70 metres out. So many times, they take a mark....stop... and our forward has a one on one... They hesitate.. allowing opposition to get numbers back.... and then end up kicking it to the guy that was originally one on one, but is now one on two or three, or sometimes 4.
Why not pull the trigger when the odds are 50/50, if you're going to go there anyway??

3rd..When we do finally manage to get a legitimate mark and shot on goal, we're just murdering it and squandering it.

I think we're 68.99 in shots on goal, this year or something like that. That's cellar dweller stuff..

Caleb Daniel, Bont, Murph, Mclean and Hunter (when switched on) are the only guys I have any semblance of confidence in to lower eyes and find a target inside 50.

What is to be done? How do Bevo and the coaching team fix these issues?
Bringing the ball better inside 50 is at least something that SHOULD be able to be addressed via coaching.
But goalkicking? In the middle of the season.
That's all in the head for a large part. I think we're going to have to hope for a lucky break where we snap and kick 16.5 one week and it releases the pressure valve from the guy's heads.
What does everyone think?
Am I off the mark in my thinking?

[ledge]

I agree with it all except you haven't taken into account our injuries .. Cloke Crameri and Dickson our (straight shooter)is missing.
Roughead out means Boyd can't go forward and we have been forced to play our fullback in the forward line.
Admittedly the kicking straight at goal has no excuse on set shots.
But with Adams playing forward has he got his leading patterns right ?
Luckily Redpath was back as he is a natural forward and has had a few years in forward patterns.
Don't get me wrong I think Adams will make a good forward too but it takes time to learn the teams patterns.
Yes out delivery looked terrible , only had to get three more right and we would have won .. We aren't that far off,especially when we get our players back .. Wallis,Roughead, Dickson and Morris will make a big difference.

[Topdog]

Cellar dweller stuff yet lost to 2 premiership favourites interstate by a total of 11 points.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

Cellar dweller stuff yet lost to 2 premiership favourites interstate by a total of 11 points.

My reference to cellar dweller stuff was directly referencing our goalkicking ratio.
Clearly we are doing lots right. My point being that unless we fix the other parts of our game that are off then we're going to struggle this year.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

I agree with it all except you haven't taken into account our injuries .. Cloke Crameri and Dickson our (straight shooter)is missing.
Roughead out means Boyd can't go forward and we have been forced to play our fullback in the forward line.
Admittedly the kicking straight at goal has no excuse on set shots.
But with Adams playing forward has he got his leading patterns right ?
Luckily Redpath was back as he is a natural forward and has had a few years in forward patterns.
Don't get me wrong I think Adams will make a good forward too but it takes time to learn the teams patterns.
Yes out delivery looked terrible , only had to get three more right and we would have won .. We aren't that far off,especially when we get our players back .. Wallis,Roughead, Dickson and Morris will make a big difference.

Good points regarding our outs.
In fact whilst we'd clearly like to have all our key outs olaying, these past two injury riddled seasons may turn out to have a long term positive for us.
As ahown in another thread, we are running a very young and inexperienced side right now. The fact we have been ultra competitive each week is a real testamemt to our depth & we are getting vital games experience deep into our list.
Providing we can keep our list together we are going to have a good chance at being strong for many years to come.

[boydogs]

What's the conundrum?

Our best forwards not being injured will help draw the ball to the right places with our inside 50 entries and finish our work better

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

What's the conundrum?

Our best forwards not being injured will help draw the ball to the right places with our inside 50 entries and finish our work better

Which of our missing forwards apart from Dickson is a reliable shot for goal?
Crameri? Stringer? Cloke? I'd prefer not to have any of those kicking for my life from 30-40 out.

The shots we've missed haven't predominantly been shots from the pocket or right on 50. Theres a good portion across a wide spread of players from vety gettable shots.

[GVGjr]

Which of our missing forwards apart from Dickson is a reliable shot for goal?
Crameri? Stringer? Cloke? I'd prefer not to have any of those kicking for my life from 30-40 out.

The shots we've missed haven't predominantly been shots from the pocket or right on 50. Theres a good portion across a wide spread of players from vety gettable shots.

I think Bevo has finally conceded that we aren't playing good enough to keep winning close games unless we start to improve our set shot conversions.

Lets hope they focus on a few of them and start to work on goal kicking techniques.

[bornadog]

I think Bevo has finally conceded that we aren't playing good enough to keep winning close games unless we start to improve our set shot conversions.

Lets hope they focus on a few of them and start to work on goal kicking techniques.

We also need to fix up our field kicking. Passing the ball to some one and hitting them up, has been a real issue.

[Yankee Hotel Foxtrot]

We also need to fix up our field kicking. Passing the ball to some one and hitting them up, has been a real issue.

Yep. We have gifted a lot of goals to the opposition from totally unforced errors. Our super aggressive game is always going to see us budget for some easy out the back scores, but the raft of unexpected turnovers are seeing us get hurt more often.
Last year we slowed opposition movement, which allowed us the time to play team defense with 2 or 3 defenders going up against the opposition forward.
We are seeing our defenders get caught in mismatched one on ones with no support coming over the top due to the turnover up field catching everyone out of position.

[1eyedog]

Our depth has been tested again but we've proved we are still superior to a middle of the road team even with the worse injury list in the competition. There's 3 players who will make us an exponentially better team and they are Roughie, Morris and Dicko.

We can and have covered Wally but he provides inside grunt potentially freeing up Bont and Jack but Roughie in the team gives us a tall presence around the ground, something T. Boyd is simply not capable of achieving yet due to lack of a few more preseasons.

We've missed no one more than Morris, when he comes back in we will be back to our stingiest best. He is never beaten and we miss him dearly. Dicko provides that lead up target that we miss, badly and hits the scoreboard hard during the game and is our best conversion player. He provides scoreboard pressure and surety for our players moving the ball forward.
These three players back in the team make all the difference. Stringer provides the mayo.

[Danny the snakeman]

Roughead out means Boyd can't go forward

Boyd's taken about 3 marks this year so just as well he's not forward.

[chef]

Boyds not the answer for our forward line.

[Flamethrower]

The big issue with our forward line, and or forward entries, is that we are playing a bunch of defenders and midfielders in the forward line to cover all of our injuries. Defenders do not know how to execute leading patterns, and midfields naturally hunt the ball rather than make space for other forwards - that is why our forward line always appears crowded.

Having Redpath back meant we finally had 1 tall who was a natural forward. We will be far more potent once Roughead, Stringer, Cloke and Dickson are back.

Redpath at full forward, Tom Boyd in the forward pocket swapping with Roughy in the ruck, Trav at CHF and Dickson and Stringer rotating through half forward and on ball with the likes of Bont, Caleb, Wally, Toby, Clay, Lin, Lachie and Picko will give us a far more potent attack.

[GVGjr]

Boyd's taken about 3 marks this year so just as well he's not forward.

And yet in the grand final he was a genuine threat and looked comfortable in the role. I think people are way to quick to write him off as a key forward.