Are there answers? And if there are, where can you find them?

[mjp]

Bevo will never move Naughton back.

He was asked and basically did the school teacher / disappointed parent thing. 'you know better'.

I don't think he will either and I am a "Play Naughton up forward" person of long standing...but at this point we are DESPERATE for a spark. And if we aren't, well, we bloody well should be. If we keep rolling out the same group every week, what do you think is going to happen....whatever 'this' is, it IS NOT WORKING.

And I know you're not directly disagreeing that we don't need change - you're saying Bevo wont move Naughton...and I get that. But if he doesn't move Naughton then he at least needs to do SOMETHING. And it needs to be 'significant'...

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Good post mjp.

My concern is we're now out of ideas. I have no issue with Daniel, Macrae, Dale and Lobb being put on notice but as you mentioned it actually hasn't worked, so where to from here?

This group has done a lot of talking over the offseason. A lotttt. Nothing has changed in terms of performance or spirit when we're challenged. That's end of the road type stuff.

There's really only one big change lever left to pull...

... Or we back Bevo in to do a rebuild.

[Scorlibo]

Because the players have to play.

It's all very well saying coaches coach and players play (and I have said that) but something is awry. To me the fact that the dropping of Macrae and Daniel and demotion of Dale to sub has not brought a reaction of ANY sort points pretty clearly at the fact that the group thinks that those are not the decisions that need to be made...the players 100% need to feel supported by the coaches/feel that they are all in it together. Their game day performances make me think there is a disconnect between what is happening selection wise vs the messaging.

For example - if the decision on Dale was related to (guessing) lack of defensive engagement off the ball and that was an issue that had been hightlighted by the coaches...the players would take the "well, that's fair enough" approach when he was left out. I don't believe for a second that they would be worried about their mates...they would be HARD on their mates if they weren't doing the right thing and eventually would be "yeah, I love that guy but he has to follow the same rules as the rest of us...".

Again, the famous example of Ross Lyon dropping Nick Dal Santo sprrings to mind. Ross insisted the players defend. He got 30+ and didn't defend. Ross dropped him. The rest of the group said 'fair enough' and it took Dal Santo a couple of weeks to get back in...

In his absence - the Saints were UNITED and WON.

We have been the opposite...

It's an interesting line of thought.

I think the difference between Bevo's selection statements right now and Ross Lyon's in that classic example is that Bevo seems to be dropping regular players that do not possess the kind of innate abilities that he values in the now - namely pace. Whereas Lyon dropped Dal Santo and Milne like you say based on effort/decision related defensive output.

If you see a teammate dropped because they're not working hard enough the other way, you're going to focus on working harder the other way. If you see them dropped because they're too slow, you can't just magic yourself into being faster.

[JanLorMill]

Dropping players just because they haven’t got pace is ridiculous. There are plenty of others that lack pace. Eg Khamis is no faster that Daniel. There is more to it.

[1eyedog]

Wrong thread

[westbulldog]

Bevo will never move Naughton back.

He was asked and basically did the school teacher / disappointed parent thing. 'you know better'.

Bevo won't move Naughton back for the same reason he was convinced Dunkley was a first ruck, he was wrong then and he is wrong now.

[westbulldog]

Dropping players just because they haven’t got pace is ridiculous. There are plenty of others that lack pace. Eg Khamis is no faster that Daniel. There is more to it.

Agreed. VDM is a speedster, Greg Williams was rather slow...and a champion.

[lemmon]

I can kind of get why some of those 'player levers' haven't garnered a response.

In terms of Macrae and Dale, they were pretty ordinary last season too. They should've dropped them 12-month ago - I can see why players aren't going to react to that considering it had been a sustained spell of poor form that had largely not been addressed.

I wonder if the Caleb Daniel dropping was the wrong move and did more harm than good. He's well-liked, in the leadership group, a good trainer, a good runner and had a top-5 BnF finish last year. What kind of message does dropping him for round 1 send to the other senior guys? You're probably walking on egg shells and pretty confused about the direction of the side.

[mjp]

I wonder if the Caleb Daniel dropping was the wrong move and did more harm than good.

Ask them. They're the ones who have to do it.

[westdog54]

I was at the game on friday night, and what shocked me most was our players completely dropping the bundle in the 3rd quarter.

Interesting you bring up the third quarter.

I was on the AFL app on Sunday night, trying to get the Telstra Tracker info to see if I could see how many kms Vandermeer covered in the game. I didn't find that, but I did find some concerning numbers concerning our work rate around the ground and over the course of the game.

In the third quarter, our sprint efforts dropped right off. Our repeat sprints were almost non-existent.

Our measured work rate in attack (that being the team's average speed whilst in possession) was lower than in defence (average speed when not in possesssion. Essendon's defensive work rate was higher by the same margin.

Overall across the course of the game, Essendon's players ran for a longer distance than our players.

When measuring individual average speed's in attack, four of the top five players were Bulldogs (VDM, Dale, Caldwell, Weightman and Gallagher). In defence, all of the top five were Bombers (Hind, Duursma, Jones, Menzie and Heppell).

Put quite simply, we worked harder when we had the ball than when we didn't. Essendon worked harder in defence, and yet they won by five goals.

We had more disposals, forced more turnovers, laid more tackles and had more intercepts. We even had one more inside 50 than Essendon. We had more contested marks and matched them for marks inside 50. And yet we've lost by five goals, driven by a lack of work rate going the other way.

We've only had two games out of the five we've played so far, where our average work rate was higher in defence than it was in attack. And wouldn't you know it, it was the Gold Coast and West Coast games.

The answers lie with the players. They're not working hard enough. Am I being simplistic. Maybe. But there's data there that backs me up.

[jeemak]

Great post WD54.

[josie]

Thanks Westdog. Good post.

[macca]

Interesting you bring up the third quarter.

I was on the AFL app on Sunday night, trying to get the Telstra Tracker info to see if I could see how many kms Vandermeer covered in the game. I didn't find that, but I did find some concerning numbers concerning our work rate around the ground and over the course of the game.

In the third quarter, our sprint efforts dropped right off. Our repeat sprints were almost non-existent.

Our measured work rate in attack (that being the team's average speed whilst in possession) was lower than in defence (average speed when not in possesssion. Essendon's defensive work rate was higher by the same margin.

Overall across the course of the game, Essendon's players ran for a longer distance than our players.

When measuring individual average speed's in attack, four of the top five players were Bulldogs (VDM, Dale, Caldwell, Weightman and Gallagher). In defence, all of the top five were Bombers (Hind, Duursma, Jones, Menzie and Heppell).

Put quite simply, we worked harder when we had the ball than when we didn't. Essendon worked harder in defence, and yet they won by five goals.

We had more disposals, forced more turnovers, laid more tackles and had more intercepts. We even had one more inside 50 than Essendon. We had more contested marks and matched them for marks inside 50. And yet we've lost by five goals, driven by a lack of work rate going the other way.

We've only had two games out of the five we've played so far, where our average work rate was higher in defence than it was in attack. And wouldn't you know it, it was the Gold Coast and West Coast games.

The answers lie with the players. They're not working hard enough. Am I being simplistic. Maybe. But there's data there that backs me up.

I like how you are using data to explain the 3rd quarter drop off. I was at the game on Friday night and I was honestly shocked to see in the 3rd quarter the lack of defensive pressure the team had. They just kicked long to a forward line. Some out of bound kicks. Missed handballs, players not running back hard enough. I got really worried that the team lost cohesion.

Your data observation pretty much validated what I saw on Friday.

They players really need to recoup and get their focus realigned. They need to be in the moment and just bust their gut to compete when they don't have possession of the ball.

I was astounded that a VFL Essendon side were just smashing us in the midfield and went on a run of goals.
One other thing I found disturbing is how we lack players at the drop of the ball, at the front of the pack. Essendon had players there waiting. And of course Stringer was waiting at the back for the one that dropped above the pack.

[Scraggers]

Great thread … enjoying the discussion and perspective of all posters. One thing I would add to the discussion is our leadership. Bont is an incredible player, a once in a generation talent; but is he a leader? He leads by example on the field, but is he a voice on the field? I don’t know the answers to these questions (or how much of a role the captain plays during a game) but compared to Darcy Moore or Max Gawn, where does Bont rank?

[MrMahatma]

Great thread … enjoying the discussion and perspective of all posters. One thing I would add to the discussion is our leadership. Bont is an incredible player, a once in a generation talent; but is he a leader? He leads by example on the field, but is he a voice on the field? I don’t know the answers to these questions (or how much of a role the captain plays during a game) but compared to Darcy Moore or Max Gawn, where does Bont rank?

He won AFLPA best captain last season. Think he’s prob ok?