AFL Game Day Round 6, 2018 - Western Bulldogs V Carlton at Etihad Stadium

[Sedat]

Away from the F50 he seemed a little panicked / rushed with the ball early, which you expect from a kid with only a couple of games to his name.
With a few more games experience that will disappear - given he gets to the right spots and can actually kick straight he gives us something we need.

After his excellent goal in the 3rd qtr he was in the middle for the next centre bounce. There was a ground ball in dispute and his hands were so clean scooping it up and dishing off with precision - that was my favourite bit of play for the night.

[Twodogs]

I haven't been able to see exactly what the opposition are doing to cause it, or if I think relates to our rotations but here are the scenarios I think contribute. The cause isn't super clear, but the impact is incredibly marked.

1. Forwards pressing deeper into the defensive oress. Perhaps the opposition are matching our numbers right at the coal face across more sections of the ground. The trend is to keep throwing bodies forward to grind out the goals and lock the ball in, but I suspect that teams are expanding the area with which they choose to do that and our forwards aren't organised enough to deal with it so they all get up into the neutral zone.

2. Kicking skills. They are so poor that it has to dent confidence for players who are waning to lead up and present, knowing they'll be made to look silly and double down on their effort when it sails over their head, 20m wide to opponents advantage, or never end up coming because the kick turned into a rushed handpass. There might be times when certain players rotate through and just can't accomodate the knowledge that the ball won't come in on their terms and default to kick chasing.

If I am in the box I would try a few things. Boyd/Gowers out of the square in the 2 man forward line. Put the extra numbers exclusively into the press and start to look at our F50 entries in terms to two types of play borrowed from ice hockey. 1) Dump and chase. Win the ball, get it between halfway and HFF and kick as long and direct to the goal mouth or pocket as possible to the contest. First three forwards near the arc work hard to get to the fall of the ball, everyone else pull up and put the defensive component around to lock it. 2) Tic, TAC, Toe. Similar to a Malthouse game plan to manage our skill deficiencies, hold possession, go wide via the cape and when they push numbers back try swing it around to get a shot from 50-45 from the guys in the squad you can trust to go the journey.

In isolation both are probably low percentage plays and would do little to address our scoreboard inefficiencies, the dump and chase is great in that so long as the pressure is up, it forces the opposition defence to work harder without the ball and be careful about joining their efforts pushing forward if we turn it over. Once they address it with an extra man back, you switch up the entries because we should have an extra man as an outlet... somewhere.

More simply, tonight could have been a bigger victory if we were prepared to run and carry the ball a little bit longer and ensured the long kick inside 50 went to the square and not just inside the arc.

I'm just trying to see your ice hockey examples in my head. Is no 1 pretty much "long bombs to Snake" with a bit more stucture?

[merantau]

Sure I'll wear that. 2017 and so far 2018 has hardly been fun either and I just can't sit back and watch us piss it all away and say "Oh well we won it in 2016". From 1 to what I predict, bottom 5 in 2 seasons that is awful. Why are we rebuilding after being premiers just over a year ago? Why have we got such an unbalanced list? Anyway best to discuss that in another topic. A wins a win I guess.

I can feel your frustration and, believe me, I go spare at times witnessing the mistakes that we make and the gifts we give our opponents.
But I need to give myself a reality check to be fair the the Club the coaches and the players. The fact is that at the end of H/A 2016 we were the 7th best team.
We played a month of finals football that will very likely NEVER BE REPLICATED.
In 2017 a combination of rule changes, serious injuries, loss of form by some key players and increased scrutiny by the opposition saw us at 11/11. In the 2016 finals campaign we had everyone firing. We had quite a few misfiring in '17.

So now we come to this season. We are missing 11 from our flag team. We are the youngest team in the comp by far. Yes, we've put in 3 shockers - I won't shy away from that - but remember we towled up a team that played finals last year and we ran the Swans to the wire and should have won. Let's not forget that. (And I am as guilty as anyone in forgetting that!)

This team is just a bunch of kids. I saw Lipinski and Richards being interviewed by BT after the game - they are kids and there are plenty more like them in the side. They are kids but they are playing for us, doing their best for US. So let's get behind them. Let's be patient. It will take time. If things go well we could be 4/4 in a fortnight's time.
And remember we will get a big influx of experienced, hard bodies in the second half of the season. Go Dogs!

[Eastdog]

Interesting theory there Easty. What are the advantages to us being weary?

I would say we go in not complacent against more 'weaker' opposition but today in the footy there is no such thing as an 'easy' game.

[Twodogs]

I would say we go in not complacent against more 'weaker' opposition but today in the footy there is no such thing as an 'easy' game.

I think that you mean 'wary' as in "I would be wary of PP's line of questioning."

[The bulldog tragician]

I can feel your frustration and, believe me, I go spare at times witnessing the mistakes that we make and the gifts we give our opponents.
But I need to give myself a reality check to be fair the the Club the coaches and the players. The fact is that at the end of H/A 2016 we were the 7th best team.
We played a month of finals football that will very likely NEVER BE REPLICATED.
In 2017 a combination of rule changes, serious injuries, loss of form by some key players and increased scrutiny by the opposition saw us at 11/11. In the 2016 finals campaign we had everyone firing. We had quite a few misfiring in '17.

So now we come to this season. We are missing 11 from our flag team. We are the youngest team in the comp by far. Yes, we've put in 3 shockers - I won't shy away from that - but remember we towled up a team that played finals last year and we ran the Swans to the wire and should have won. Let's not forget that. (And I am as guilty as anyone in forgetting that!)

This team is just a bunch of kids. I saw Lipinski and Richards being interviewed by BT after the game - they are kids and there are plenty more like them in the side. They are kids but they are playing for us, doing their best for US. So let's get behind them. Let's be patient. It will take time. If things go well we could be 4/4 in a fortnight's time.
And remember we will get a big influx of experienced, hard bodies in the second half of the season. Go Dogs!

Agree with your comments re our current situation but I’ve never really accepted the idea that our position of 7th on the ladder in 2016 was more reflective of our abilities. This is starting to be an accepted narrative and it’s far from correct in my view. Our 15 wins would have had us top four in 2017 and many many other seasons; in fact we were in the top 4 for large chunks of the season. The magnitude of our feat in 2016 in making finals in the face of hideous injuries was in itself an amazing achievement, even if we’d crashed out, fatigued as we seemed in the final round.

[Eastdog]

I think that you mean 'wary' as in "I would be wary of PP's line of questioning."

Yep wary is the one. Thanks for correcting me Twodogs.

[Ozza]

It was Lipinski’s third career game. Pretty rapt with him.

[bornadog]

The Bont v Cripps

[Twodogs]

The Bont v Cripps

That's really good.