Are we rebuilding?

[The bulldog tragician]

I would have thought this an impossible question when we won the flag with an incredibly young list but our team today had an average of 63 games and our age average was 23 years one month. Compare this with teams accepted to be rebuilding:

Brisbane 24 years 1 month and 77 games
North 96 games and 25 years 5 months
St Kilda 24 yrs 10 mths, 82.9 games

Eagles ave was 100 games, 25 yrs 3mthd

Horrible though today was, our age profile is of a team that gets shellacked every week. We are playing Naughton instead of Roberts, Richards instead of Biggs, English ahead of Boyd, Webb instead of Wallis - normally this happens when a coach decides he must build a future rather than cling to a past and “get games into the kids.” Has this all been forced on us by injury or is the guard already changing, with all the pain this will bring?

[Happy Days]

I think it's a convenient truth that our team is so young. Teams re-building don't sign guys like Trengove to 4-year contracts, or seek out guys to fill immediate needs like we did with Crozier.

I do think we're up our own arse at the selection table, and giving a lot of conditional efforts on field.

[Greystache]

We have to be, nothing else makes sense. We've dismantled everything we did 25 games ago and replaced it with nothing. We're also picking a team each week with what seems like the express purpose of getting belted.

There must be a young player in the pick 1-3 range of the draft we're desperate to get.

[jeemak]

When we’re not playing Boyd, Dickson, Adams, Wallis, Smith, Morris, Liberatore, Picken, Redpath and Biggs we probably are. When a critical mass of them are playing, no.

[FrediKanoute]

To be fair - Adams, Morris, Smith, Picken and Libba re injured. I think we underestimate the impact injuries have had on our team. Every team has injuries, but we have been exposed early.

[The bulldog tragician]

To be fair - Adams, Morris, Smith, Picken and Libba re injured. I think we underestimate the impact injuries have had on our team. Every team has injuries, but we have been exposed early.

Definitely injuries have been awful - I’m just curious why, in those circumstances of an injury depleted backline we’d choose to play Naughtin and Richards instead of Fletcher and Biggs - whatever their deficiencies they are premiership players. That doesn’t give you a free pass forever, and neither were great against GWS, but to choose inexperienced 18 yr olds rather than them seems like a deliberate choice to go with youth.

[lemmon]

You'd think so...You'd also think that a rebuilding side that spent a lot on bringing in two blue-chip key forward prospects would play and develop them in the seniors...rather than running them around as ruckmen in the seconds.

[merantau]

We fielded a side that was 10 players different to GF side. We are in s different place now.

[Twodogs]

We must be because that's the only thing that makes any sense. Maybe I'm wrong expecting it to make sense though.

[GVGjr]

We aren't in rebuilding phase because we would have recruited and drafted differently and to be honest, I think it's next to impossible to categorize the style of football we are playing or the manner we are approaching the season and selection with.

We appear to believe we are selecting our inform team and even though we all know it's unbalanced we think that is still the right formula. Clearly it isn't.

We have been picked apart by opposition teams after the 2016 season and it would appear it wasn't a complicated formula to unravel.
We hardly tag or mark an opposition player and we certainly don't get stuck in. The men of mayhem defense is a thing of the past and our famed handball club isn't the force it once was. Back in 2016 we stood for both of these styles but not now, there isn't really one thing we can say is working for us.

Our skill level is poor and shuffling players around isn't working.

Are we a good team out of luck or have we simply been worked out and don't have the answers yet to counter opposition teams?

[anfo27]

We aren't in rebuilding phase because we would have recruited and drafted differently and to be honest, I think it's next to impossible to categorize the style of football we are playing or the manner we are approaching the season and selection with.

We appear to believe we are selecting our inform team and even though we all know it's unbalanced we think that is still the right formula. Clearly it isn't.

We have been picked apart by opposition teams after the 2016 season and it would appear it wasn't a complicated formula to unravel.
We hardly tag or mark an opposition player and we certainly don't get stuck in. The men of mayhem defense is a thing of the past and our famed handball club isn't the force it once was. Back in 2016 we stood for both of these styles but not now, there isn't really one thing we can say is working for us.

Our skill level is poor and shuffling players around isn't working.

Are we a good team out of luck or have we simply been worked out and don't have the answers yet to counter opposition teams?

For me these aren't the questions we should be asking. I hate to ask the question because we all love Bevo but has he lost the players? I see a team that lacks effort, hunger, fight, intensity, a want to work hard for your team mate & a genuine care for each other.

I don't care that PG or the Bont says everything is rosy because we can all see it with our own eyes, something is clearly wrong!

We are the easiest team to score against atm & thats because we refuse to work. There are free men everywhere in transition! We epitomised blue collar 25 games ago but now we have no idea what that means.

[chef]

For me these aren't the questions we should be asking. I hate to ask the question because we all love Bevo but has he lost the players? I see a team that lacks effort, hunger, fight, intensity, a want to work hard for your team mate & a genuine care for each other.

Im starting to feel like he has. Hope im wrong.

[Go_Dogs]

Our skill level is poor and shuffling players around isn't working.

Are we a good team out of luck or have we simply been worked out and don't have the answers yet to counter opposition teams?

We've been worked out it seems, and based on what we've dished up its fairly easy to play against us. You simply wait for an unforced turnover or a kick to the hot spot, back yourselves to win the ball and then run hard in transition and score many, easy goals.

I'm not sure we're rebuilding. We can't afford the luxury to come out and say/do that, however based on the sides we've put on the park it's what I'd call a 'refresh'. We're giving ourselves a chance to have a look at quite a few players who may or may not be there at seasons end similar to what we did in 2015 with Ayce and a couple of others. Players like Williams, HC and Webb are really playing for their careers this year as despite still being young, they need to establish themselves as consistent senior footballers.

Putting aide selection and structure, we have some definicines with our game plan we need to work on. Bombing it to 30m out didn't work very well in the first half yesterday. In the second half we managed to lock the ball in our F50 a bit better and create some opportunities with repeat entries, but again our inability to lower the eyes or have a moving target and space to move the ball into wasn't there.

Finally, our defensive transition is shot. I lost count of the times Lycett was matched on Daniel in transition. We have 3 key defenders playing!!! Why is the smallest man in the competition on Lycett??? We can't cover exit kicks once we turn the ball over and our inability to manage the opposition run and spread is a real concern. We need to run smarter, position ourselves better and turning the ball over in less dangerous areas would help too.

[mjp]

We've been worked out it seems, and based on what we've dished up its fairly easy to play against us.

I know what you are saying in terms of 'game-style' but knowing what a team is going to do and actually being able to do something about it are NOT the same thing.

The best teams have the best habits and are completely predictable to one another...sure, the opposition know what is happening as well but good luck stopping it. Our players seem completely surprised at almost EVERYTHING that happens on gameday - there is no cohesion around/behind the ball and no shape in front of the contest.

Part of the problem with trying things like 'Wood forward' and those sort of things ALL summer is that when the season starts, well, how can things possibly be 'in sync'? How can you possibly have well established habits?

[Go_Dogs]

I know what you are saying in terms of 'game-style' but knowing what a team is going to do and actually being able to do something about it are NOT the same thing.

The best teams have the best habits and are completely predictable to one another...sure, the opposition know what is happening as well but good luck stopping it. Our players seem completely surprised at almost EVERYTHING that happens on gameday - there is no cohesion around/behind the ball and no shape in front of the contest.

Part of the problem with trying things like 'Wood forward' and those sort of things ALL summer is that when the season starts, well, how can things possibly be 'in sync'? How can you possibly have well established habits?

When you say well established habits, are you talking about consistently kicking the ball to the same zone on entries into F50? About how we switch play coming out of defence and what angle the next kick goes to? About where our defenders press up to and position themselves when we have a ‘slow play’ entry into F50 (by slow play I mean not a fast break entry)?

The best passage of play yesterday involved JJ getting the ball on the right back flank, kicking a long ball to Suckling at a 45 who was running into space on the left wing(and good play by whoever was on the bloke that came up from our F50 to stop Suckling, who did just enough to cause a moments indecision) and we looked great. This was only pulled off because a couple of our best penetrating users were involved, but having a runner in that area relative to the kick, the forward being able to do enough to cause a defender to think through their decision, these should be the things we do instinctively.

It’s a worry based on your observations we can’t do this and that our plans during preseason (which lasted all of 3/4’s of a game) have potentially (my view, based on 2 rounds) cost us a season because we haven’t trained our players to know their roles and how to make the right decisions both with and without ball.