bornadog
23-04-2013, 10:57 PM
23 April 2013
Our feeling on the game is that we applied a lot of effort in the first two and a half quarters of the contest for not a lot of result. We didn’t make the conditions work for us and fiddled around with the ball in the wet, and made it too easy for Adelaide to put a lot of people to where we were trying to go with the ball.
The last quarter and a half, we clearly weren’t smart enough as a team, including where we set up and whenever the game stopped, we didn’t quite get what we wanted — and Adelaide were able to make the conditions work better for them.
We need to be able to make the opposition adjust more to us. We’ve got to find a way, and we are working overtime with the players to get some reward for effort, so that if we have a game that we’re competitive around the ball and very good around stoppages, it has to, in time, transcend to us being able to score more. As I’ve often said, all three areas of the game are so strongly linked, and if you look back on ten or 15 years of data — attack, defence and being able to score from stoppages — they almost always mirror where you finish on the ladder, particularly in the clubs that have sustained success.
We’re spending all of our time, training our players, in particular our younger players, in knowing how to play their positions so they can help an area of the ground work well, and how they can help us move the ball or defend the ground because that ultimately affects how the team shapes and looks. Their responsibility is high, to make the team function by their actions and behaviours, and that’s what we spend a lot of time with our players, coaching them to act and behave with the team at the forefront of their minds.
On a positive note, our defenders are holding up ok — we’re making life pretty difficult for them, but they’re fighting the fight. We’ve also got some forwards that are carrying a fair bit of load, as we have lost four or five people to injury in that area of the ground. We’re getting some good returns from some of our young midfielders, who are bit by bit, coping with the demands of the game, and a good measurement of improvement for them is that they’re able to back up each week.
It was a pleasing introduction for Jake Stringer and Jackson Macrae who are both level headed guys, and as I said last week, we’re not burdening them with extra pressure or expectation, but they clearly belong at the level and had made their presence felt out there.
I’ve said this incessantly, but we’re hell-bent on being competitive for longer and giving the opposition more to deal with after half time, which we see as really important for our development and how our young group end up as a team.
It will be the same preparation as any opposition this week. Most importantly, we will provide our players with a clear understanding of their likely opponents, how they play and how to deal with them, tapping into the great experience of our coaches and our specialist coaches. We are putting our younger players out on the ground every week and it’s a learning experience for them — we’re confident it is equipping them up for long term careers.
See you at the game,
Brendan McCartney
Our feeling on the game is that we applied a lot of effort in the first two and a half quarters of the contest for not a lot of result. We didn’t make the conditions work for us and fiddled around with the ball in the wet, and made it too easy for Adelaide to put a lot of people to where we were trying to go with the ball.
The last quarter and a half, we clearly weren’t smart enough as a team, including where we set up and whenever the game stopped, we didn’t quite get what we wanted — and Adelaide were able to make the conditions work better for them.
We need to be able to make the opposition adjust more to us. We’ve got to find a way, and we are working overtime with the players to get some reward for effort, so that if we have a game that we’re competitive around the ball and very good around stoppages, it has to, in time, transcend to us being able to score more. As I’ve often said, all three areas of the game are so strongly linked, and if you look back on ten or 15 years of data — attack, defence and being able to score from stoppages — they almost always mirror where you finish on the ladder, particularly in the clubs that have sustained success.
We’re spending all of our time, training our players, in particular our younger players, in knowing how to play their positions so they can help an area of the ground work well, and how they can help us move the ball or defend the ground because that ultimately affects how the team shapes and looks. Their responsibility is high, to make the team function by their actions and behaviours, and that’s what we spend a lot of time with our players, coaching them to act and behave with the team at the forefront of their minds.
On a positive note, our defenders are holding up ok — we’re making life pretty difficult for them, but they’re fighting the fight. We’ve also got some forwards that are carrying a fair bit of load, as we have lost four or five people to injury in that area of the ground. We’re getting some good returns from some of our young midfielders, who are bit by bit, coping with the demands of the game, and a good measurement of improvement for them is that they’re able to back up each week.
It was a pleasing introduction for Jake Stringer and Jackson Macrae who are both level headed guys, and as I said last week, we’re not burdening them with extra pressure or expectation, but they clearly belong at the level and had made their presence felt out there.
I’ve said this incessantly, but we’re hell-bent on being competitive for longer and giving the opposition more to deal with after half time, which we see as really important for our development and how our young group end up as a team.
It will be the same preparation as any opposition this week. Most importantly, we will provide our players with a clear understanding of their likely opponents, how they play and how to deal with them, tapping into the great experience of our coaches and our specialist coaches. We are putting our younger players out on the ground every week and it’s a learning experience for them — we’re confident it is equipping them up for long term careers.
See you at the game,
Brendan McCartney