The Retrospective Coach - Round One

[Scraggers]

This season we are starting a new weekly thread; The Retrospective Coach. Each week, I will be interviewing a 'WOOFer' who will be playing the part of our coach, Brendan McCartney.

The idea is to ask questions of the 'WOOFer' (via Private Message) and start the thread with the answers. The last question of every interview will always be a 20/20 hindsight question.

After the thread has been started, your role is to ask questions of our faux-coach!!

This week, playing the role of B-Mac is our very own Super Moderator Twodogs !!! :cool::cool:

I appreciate Twodogs puting his hand up to be the round one Guinea Pig !!

Ask your questions of B-Mac (Twodogs) and he will do his best to answer as The Retrospective Coach

[Scraggers]

Hi Brendan,

Thanks for taking time for this interview. A couple of questions for you …

First, our forward line seemed to lack structure and experience. Did you consider bringing the sub, Daniel Giansiracusa on earlier than the 20 minute mark of the third quarter to give it some structure?

We did give some thought but we decided against it for a few reasons. First of all we went in with a bit of a different structure and we wanted to give that structure some time to bed down and see if it was effective. We went into the game hoping that the timing of Daniel's introduction to the game would give us a boost. In saying that we were hoping to be in a better position when he did come on! You don't want to go too early with your sub anyway. You don't want to find yourself with an injured player, no sub and half the game to go. Especially in the sort of heat we played in tonight.


The ‘play-on at all costs’ approach really hurt us in the second quarter with the Eagles pressure causing us to fumble the ball and lose confidence in our ball handling ability? Wrong approach??

It may have been the wrong approach on the day but we went in with a structure that suited a game plan we hoped would succeed at Subi. Part of that plan was to move the ball quickly but the pressure they put us under was immense! Even if we wanted to change it up we were limited in what we could do.

Mark LeCras towelled up Liam Picken. Did you consider moving Picken?

Given that our other defensive match ups were holding up well we were reluctant to change it around too much and upset the balance. One thing with Liam is he usually doesn't get beaten for an entire game so we always had confidence in him and the next contest.

The Eagles ‘run and spread’ on the counter attack killed us. You moved to a ‘man-on-man’ approach late in the third and it seemed to pay dividends in the last quarter. Too little too late?

Perhaps. We really hoped that eventually our mids would start to get a bit of he ball themselves so we wouldn't have to revert to man on man

In hindsight, is there anything you had wished you had changed with selection / positions / approach to the game?

Not really. Hindsight is always 20/20 so obviously we would have picked a different side or lined up in a different way if we knew how the Eagles were going to play but we picked our side and that's the side we had to play the game out with.


Thanks Brendan … We really appreciate your time.

[Scraggers]

Okay WOOFers ... Go for it!!

Ask your questions of Brendan McCartney (Twodogs)

[soupman]

Did you feel the non-selection of Young and particularly Talia was a mistake, limiting our ability to adjust matchups in defence? It seemed we had no viable plan B for Darling as Morris and Roughead were committed to Kennedy and the resting ruck? Also why was Talia not selected after decent pre-season form and having shown he can play on a variety of opponents?

[Twodogs]

Did you feel the non-selection of Young and particularly Talia was a mistake, limiting our ability to adjust matchups in defence? It seemed we had no viable plan B for Darling as Morris and Roughead were committed to Kennedy and the resting ruck? Also why was Talia not selected after decent pre-season form and having shown he can play on a variety of opponents?


As things turned out we probably could have done with another tall defender. As you say it really limited our ability to adjust match ups. Even as far as releasing Roughead to go forward and provide a target in the forward line. But all things considered the defence stood up under a barrage today-Dale Morris in particular-and you don't want to break it trying to fix problems in other parts of the ground.

Talia will be available for selection this week as far as I know. We'll see how we get through training and have a look at him then.

[Twodogs]

Yeah-nah.

[bulldogtragic]

Were you happy with how we cracked in?

[boydogs]

Why were Crameri and Stringer in defense at times? With Jones out of the side we didn't have a lot of tall options as it was

[1eyedog]

Hi Brendan, who are your anticipated ins for this week against North? Are Griffen and Smith any chance to play? We seriously lacked bite at Subi. Also, how do you see the match ups unfolding down back for us this week?

[w3design]

'B.Mac'. Did we lose this one at the selection table ? I understand that you wished to go with the "best 22 available", but surely that should be the best 22 to match your opposition, and suit the environment of the venue, on the day.
I understand hindsight is a wonderful thing, but did we get our midfield match-ups seriously wrong?

[Hot_Doggies]

Okay WOOFers ... Go for it!!

Ask your questions of Brendan McCartney (Twodogs)

Good idea, but not sure about using 'Brendan McCArtney'.

Wouldn't 'coach' or 'dear esteemed leader' be more appropriate?

[Twodogs]

Were you happy with how we cracked in?

Yep. Good question BT.

Some lines proceeded expectations some were below par. We'll work on getting the balance right through the week.i

[Twodogs]

Why were Crameri and Stringer in defense at times? With Jones out of the side we didn't have a lot of tall options as it was

While we were using Goodes as a defensive forward a few of the forwards had to take a turn in defence. Also with the amount of ball going cleanly into our defence at times we wanted to use a seven man defence to block up a bit more of West Coast's apace.

[Twodogs]

Hi Brendan, who are your anticipated ins for this week against North? Are Griffen and Smith any chance to play? We seriously lacked bite at Subi. Also, how do you see the match ups unfolding down back for us this week?


We'll have to wait and see how Griff comes up, Smith won't be ready for senior football for a few more weeks. We have other midfield options we can look at. I think we'll also look at adding more height to he team with the game at Etihad.

We'll have a good look at their forward options and a closer look at who they go to when they bring the ball inside 50 before we assign the defensive match ups.