Why do we seem to think adding players is 'The Answer'?

[mjp]

Yesterday afternoon for me (evening for most) vs Freo kind of went how I expected it would.

Freo have been excellent all season long (except when it rains and there was little chance of that under the roof) and have beaten Geelong @ Geelong and Melbourne (when they were flying) @ the MCG. They have done it with a pretty cohesive plan that involves:

1/. Holding width in all contested situations.

Those at the ball go AT the ball - outside of that they circle the contest and make sure they are in position to release or defend the outside.

2/. Retain possession of the footy by foot (not dissimilar to Geelong 2021).

3/. Defend from IN FRONT and with numbers. Pearce et al are a good defensive group and are very focussed on separating their opponents from the ball.

In 2022, they have been better than us. It isn't really that close to be honest. But there is now all sorts of hand-wringing over the defeat and the continued calls for Lobb, Jones and goodness knows who else continue.

I don't think adding players is the solution. And I certainly don't think that replacing the coach who has led us to 50% of the Grand Finals our club has EVER played in is the solution. But there is no doubt whatsoever that 'we' have not been completely united in our approach this season. We have rarely - if ever - been 'BEATEN'...but we have fallen short over and again. We simply are not united as a group and are certainly are not all pulling in the same direction.

Watching Bevo he was clearly frustrated with the way we defended Freo's short kicking game. Ultimately (to me) the decision to try and defend their game-style with a zone cost us the game. But if Bevo was frustrated, he *MUST* have asked for a different approach...so - why were we in a zone.

Watching the mids, they were clearly frustrated with Naughton etc leading back towards the goal-square...you cannot do that against Pearce and Cox. But he kept doing it, and the kicks kept falling short. SURELY this frustration meant this issue had been discussed and practised during the week.

Watching the mids (again), they were frustrated at Freo's ability to essentially play 'like us' and chain handballs out of contested situations...but Freo repeatedly owned the outside which enabled this...the mids MUST have known this was Freo's plan but they seemed unable to adjust and counter.

Setting ALL of that aside, if Lobb isn't kicking bombs from the 50m arc (and criticise Cordy all you like but what exactly was he supposed to do??) then we win.

We played with effort and didn't give it up. But we didn't play TOGETHER.

I was not thrilled with the result (of course) but despite the sentiment on this board pre-game Freo are genuinely good and I thought our players tried pretty hard all night. But something is not right in our group. Whatever is happening with Hunter is probably part of it, the stories I hear of English only re-signing if he can play in the ruck would be part of it, the continuous Dunkley rumours would be part of it, the selection of a clearly out of form/condition Bruce would be part of it...I could go on (and if I did the next one would involve the words "Jack Macrae") but I'm not going too.

To paraphrase Al Pacino, "You win together but you die as individuals". I'm not sure what is wrong in our group right now but it is 'something'. Something isn't right. And adding another player or too - unless it is a player who is able to unify a group of players - is not going to fix it. And if you're looking for answers as to what is impacting on Bont's form, then this is it - as the skipper he would be TRYING to fix this...but whatever it is can't be fixed by punitive actions...something is WRONG. And unless we work out how to play not just with INDIVIDUAL pride but with Team Pride and love for our mates, then nothing will change.

We might beat the Giants next week (they are equally torn apart by issues like this) but we wont beat the Hawks in Tassie unless something happens 'soon'. It isn't about talent and it isn't about effort - but it is about the willingness to sacrifice for the person next to you, and the knowledge they would do the same for you!

[Grantysghost]

Great post MJP.

I blame myself, I showed ridiculous level of hubris, disrespected my opponent and I've let all woofers down.

I'll try and be better.

[DOG GOD]

Great post.

I too have said all along that something is up with the playing group and I’ve mentioned names like Hunter, Smith and Williams. Williams form has fallen off a cliff and I’m not suggesting anything but something just doesn’t feel right with him.
Hunter goes deep. No doubt about that. Our cohesion of TEAM play is gone. Has been majority of the year, and unless it is changed, then there won’t be change.

Will there be a clean out similar to 2017-18 ? Possibly.

[Grantysghost]

A serious response re Freo.

They played man on man as we were exiting defence.

Is this a normal tactic or something they cooked up for us?

I guess it was to stop our running game and it worked a treat.
Frustrated is the perfect verb in this context.

[azabob]

My concern is this type of problem won’t just disappear over summer.

Could the playing group actually be fractured with what happened during the GF? Blaming each other; defenders blaming the mids and vice versa for example?

[mjp]

They played man on man as we were exiting defence.

Is this a normal tactic or something they cooked up for us?

Freo load up on the exits from the edge of the centre square to the boundary - they 'take away' the easy exit kicks. If you want to try and lace one out in the corridor they sweat on those (usually a mid - most often Brodie or Acres who have size 'SITS' at the true CHB position) and dare you to take them on.

They did it last year as well.

[hujsh]

I think the answer to the question is because as outsiders we only really have a superficial understanding of what happens inside a football club. Its a big reason why your insight is so highly valued mjp (we'd still love you without that though don't get me wrong). Therefore since we don't know the messaging, the directions, the tactics overall, the tweeks we plan to make for specific teams, the headspace of individuals, the niggles players carry, the relationships between coaches, between players, between players and coaches, the roles different members have in our recruiting and drafting strategy and so on, we default to the most obvious examples of ways to improve the team which is adding a player we don't have in an area of need.

Adding Lobb won't change our approach in the middle or fix our zone, no individual player will, but it's harder to say what needs to happen to fix that. We can speculate and say the players are selfish or Bevo is stubborn or whatever we decide is the root cause but since we don't know it's harder to pretend we know the answer.

[Grantysghost]

Freo load up on the exits from the edge of the centre square to the boundary - they 'take away' the easy exit kicks. If you want to try and lace one out in the corridor they sweat on those (usually a mid - most often Brodie or Acres who have size 'SITS' at the true CHB position) and dare you to take them on.

They did it last year as well.

This is probably slightly off thread, but it is referenced in the OP.

I took a few photos at the game, I'm pretty much behind the goals at the moment so I get a good view of setups.

This is a great visual of what MJP is talking about re the differing defensive approaches. Plus I wanted to draw circles on them.

The top image, Walters has the ball on the defensive side of the western wing. You can see how the Dogs defenders are trying to zone to control the corridor and about 50 from the kick taker.

Fremantle all night were way too smart to fall into this trap, and used precise kicking to slice through the zone, I'm not sure why we didn't change things up. But we had a plan ! You can see all the loose Freo players that were generally hit up all night which killed us.

The second image the ball is in dispute in our back half (arrow locates it). Have a look at how the Freo guys setup. Everyone has a man, Darcy sits in the hole, players aren't sucked into contest (there's a couple of guys hunting the ball). It completely killed our running game, they basically squashed us. Those little hunter guys forced dump kicks and because they were so well setup we just couldn't get anything going.

Had a big say in the result I believe. Mission get Boyd has to start now

[Danjul]

Good post, MJP.

You raised a number of points that have been problematic for quite a while.

I will confine my comment to your thread headline.

I didn’t want to go to the game (sometimes I just have to do as I’m instructed).

I didn’t enjoy it and I left the stadium angry at what was served up. Why? Because the game went exactly as expected.

We were beaten by a fairly ordinary team that simply stuck to the basics and worked together, displaying faith in each other to act as a reliable link by doing so standard things properly.

So to focus on a player we seem to be getting, Lobb.

I thought his general game was poor. In a team that was very careful with how they delivered the ball into the forwards he had only 7 possessions. ( less than JUH and Bruce, similar to Naughton). But he made them count with goals from low probability situations. He didn’t do much more than neutralise Naughton’s contribution.

I have read here that we want him as a forward/ruck. So I waited all game to watch his ruck work. Didn’t happen.

Why not? Because Freo knew our most important weakness, and they have seen others exploit it. They used two ruckmen against English, a bigger body and a jumper. They also knew we would have Bruce in the ruck and expected he would only get a couple of hitouts. You don’t waste Lobb in the ruck in those circumstances. You leave him in the forward line to get maximum benefits from the entries.

Freo had two more shots at goal than the Dogs and generally speaking they were from worse positions. It was a game we should have won (again).

We have not shown that we are capable of getting maximum value from the players we have. Any we bring in run the risk of joining the ‘Trengove’ collection.

[Axe Man]

They used two ruckmen against English, a bigger body and a jumper. They also knew we would have Bruce in the ruck and expected he would only get a couple of hitouts. You don’t waste Lobb in the ruck in those circumstances. You leave him in the forward line to get maximum benefits from the entries.

I didn't think the ruck had any real bearing on the outcome of this game. Correct me if I am wrong but in between cursing and shaking my head in frustration at how the game was going I thought most of the time I saw either Darcy v English and Logue (not a ruckman) v Bruce (not a ruckman).

I'm not really sure of the point you are trying to make here and don't see how it relates to MJP's post?

[GVGjr]

Why not? Because Freo knew our most important weakness, and they have seen others exploit it. They used two ruckmen against English, a bigger body and a jumper. They also knew we would have Bruce in the ruck and expected he would only get a couple of hitouts. You don’t waste Lobb in the ruck in those circumstances. You leave him in the forward line to get maximum benefits from the entries.

I agree that they didn't need to use Lobb in the ruck and he was far better value for them as a forward but I seem to recall that often when Darcy went off for Freo so did English for us leaving Logue vs Bruce for the majority of the time Bruce was giving Tim a rest.

Logue is a decent spare parts player for them.

[hujsh]

I didn't think the ruck had any real bearing on the outcome of this game. Correct me if I am wrong but in between cursing and shaking my head in frustration at how the game was going I thought most of the time I saw either Darcy v English and Logue (not a ruckman) v Bruce (not a ruckman).

I'm not really sure of the point you are trying to make here and don't see how it relates to MJP's post?

For most of the game I saw on the scoreboard we had all the hitouts to advantage too. I think Darcy caught up by the end but I have to agree it didn't seem like the ruck had any real impact on the game.

[Happy Days]

I thought English clipped Darcy, who is pretty good but had zero influence on the game. We actually did pretty well in the clearances themselves insofar as getting the first chance to make a play on the ball (was everything after that was so poorly executed) and I think Tim deserves some credit for that.

[Danjul]

I agree that they didn't need to use Lobb in the ruck and he was far better value for them as a forward but I seem to recall that often when Darcy went off for Freo so did English for us leaving Logue vs Bruce for the majority of the time Bruce was giving Tim a rest.

Logue is a decent spare parts player for them.

You are probably right in the proportions but I meant if English is neutralised we don’t get forward momentum for the midfielders. Our clearances were generally not as straight (goal to goal) which effectively takes our midfielders out of the scoring equation. Freo would have outscored us from that source, even though we got many lateral exits.

we tend to rely on the midfielders getting the ball into good position for the forwards when we win games. Our wins have often followed clean and direct exits from ruck contests. I thought Freo held an advantage there. Especially when their forwards were kicking accurately.

(Hope this makes sense)

[Grantysghost]

You are probably right in the proportions but I meant if English is neutralised we don’t get forward momentum for the midfielders. Our clearances were generally not as straight (goal to goal) which effectively takes our midfielders out of the scoring equation. Freo would have outscored us from that source, even though we got many lateral exits.

we tend to rely on the midfielders getting the ball into good position for the forwards when we win games. Our wins have often followed clean and direct exits from ruck contests. I thought Freo held an advantage there. Especially when their forwards were kicking accurately.

(Hope this makes sense)

I really want to go through each centre clearance when I get time and analyse effectiveness. Be an interesting exercise. Damn work getting in the way !