If you were Dean Bailey this week....

[Dry Rot]

What the hell would do on the track this week and on gameday?

[GVGjr]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

What the hell would do on the track this week and on gameday?

He has talked about the training schedule for this week and it will be competitive. No bigger challenge than to play the Cats either. What does he have to lose this week because no one is expecting much from them?

His real test comes at the selection table.

I thought White look good as a forward last week so perhaps a forward set-up of White, Neitz, Roberston and Sylvia plus potentially Bate might settle them down and give the midfield some targets.
Meesan in the ruck is worth considering and I would look to move Dunn to CHB.

They can't win it so they just have to fight it out for 4 quarters.

[LostDoggy]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

First and second quarter:

Flood. Then flood some more. Tackle like mad and forget scoring, just play negatively. Then kick it back and forth in your backline. Then flood. Don't kick to any contests. Then flood. Players have to have the discipline not to follow the ball out of their defensive 50 and shut down every skerrig of space, even if it leaves you vulnerable to the occasional long bombed goal. Have three or four players do nothing but patrol the 50 metre arc and tackle or smother anything that looks like coming in. Slow the game right down. If in any pressure in the backline immediately concede a rushed behind. Leave Neitz one out at full-forward and give him a genuine old fashioned one-one-one chance at kicking a goal. Play only your negative, shut down players and leave your best creative players on the bench as much as possible to rest them up for the last quarter assault.

Choose an arbitrary four/five minute period in the second quarter (somewhere at the 10 minute mark) to cut loose and try to ambush a couple of goals, and shut down immediately after. If it's not working, shut down immediately.

The last thing you want to do is let the game become a shootout because you would be twenty goals down at halftime. If you can keep the Cats below five goals in the first half it would be a moral victory, and anything can happen, as the Cats' players are probably expecting to win in a landslide and a close scoreline at that point will put some doubt into their heads.

Third quarter:

Shut the game down completely down. Numbers at every ball up, hold up the game. CANNOT let the score blow out in the third quarter as the Cats will come out after half-time all guns blazing to put a score on the board. Keep the game scoreless for the entire quarter if possible, except for rushed behinds. Rush everything behind. Just keep possession by kicking backwards and sideways to a free player for as long as possible.

Final quarter:

Move more players to the forward line at an appointed time depending on the score. Put on the rested and fresh creative players to try to exploit a tiring Geelong. Still play predominantly negatively unless momentum really shifts. If Geelong look like breaking out just cut your losses and shut the game down again.

---

A less than 3 goal loss will be considered a 'miracle' by the media and you will get some breathing space the next week to plan forward. The only chance of a Melbourne win is if they can keep the score to below ten or so goals each.

You will be crucified for a terrible spectacle, but compared to being crucified for the third near 100 point loss in three weeks, it's the lesser of two evils.

[LostDoggy]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

ps. To really mess with the Cats' minds, don't even contest some bounces or ball-ups. Concede possession outside the 50 and just get numbers behind the ball. It's amazing how well a team can carry out a negative game plan when it's applied single-mindedly, and amazing what it does to the opposite team that is used to an opponent playing generally on even terms. Essentially Melbourne have to come not to play footy but an entirely different game altogether, because they will be massacred in a footy match.

[LostDoggy]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

pps. I know I'll be crucified here for suggesting the above... I know it does nothing for any team's long-term development, but I don't think Dean Bailey can be thinking too much beyond the next couple of weeks if he wants to keep his job.

[Twodogs]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

pps. I know I'll be crucified here for suggesting the above... I know it does nothing for any team's long-term development, but I don't think Dean Bailey can be thinking too much beyond the next couple of weeks if he wants to keep his job.

I agree with you. It's a shocking gameplan to watch, does nothing for a players development except picking up bad habits and if it doesnt work it's going to get ugly but he has to find out a few things about his team.

Last saturday it looked to me like their 'plan' was to kick it forwards and hope for the best. Bailey has to give them a plan where they have to work hard as a team and not play like a bunch of individuals. If they can just keep possession it will start to frustrate Geelong and when frustration sets into the opposition you're always half a chance.



I reckon the line bet of 10 goals is extroadinary value.

[mjp]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

He has come in with a plan and a game style that he wants to promote. I wouldn't have thought abandoning 6-months of pre-season because of two-weeks results would be super-productive.

Stick to the plan. Identify to his players the areas where the Cats are strong and where they can be taken advantage of. Set them really small goals based around effort not skills - for example, %rebound 50's the cats are able to get that are under pressure > 80%, missed tackle %, perhaps something around scores under pressure.

The players wont be expecting to win, so they need to have something to hold onto and target. So give them some things that they can be successful at. Give them a focus. With the flooding plan, not competing at centre bounces etc I basically hate it as the coach is telling his players that after just two weeks he believes that they are not good enough and dont possess a competitive spirit - he will loose them if he does this.

Stick to the plan. He is a good coach and has been involved in two pretty succesful programs...why would you throw everything you have worked for away this early in the year? Plus, when everyone thinks a 10-goal loss is a win, you have a fair bit of slack to work with.

[Twodogs]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

With the flooding plan, not competing at centre bounces etc I basically hate it as the coach is telling his players that after just two weeks he believes that they are not good enough and dont possess a competitive spirit - he will loose them if he does this.

Or he could be finding out who has a real competitive spirit in the atmosphere of a real match. Who's prepared to sacrifice their game for the good of the team, how well they stick to the plan-that sort of stuff.

[mjp]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

Or he could be finding out who has a real competitive spirit in the atmosphere of a real match. Who's prepared to sacrifice their game for the good of the team, how well they stick to the plan-that sort of stuff.

Players need to believe that you have a plan and you believe in them. Not too many coaches can successfully sell a completely new - and very negative - game plan in a single week.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

Try and sneak your interchange players on the ground without being noticed.

Lantern, you aren't really Garry Hocking are you?

[Mofra]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

He has come in with a plan and a game style that he wants to promote. I wouldn't have thought abandoning 6-months of pre-season because of two-weeks results would be super-productive.

Agree 100%. Regardless of win lose or draw, the younger guys getting an idea of executing the gameplan during actual gametime is something which can be built upon even if the whole year is unsuccessful. He has publically stated that he believes in the Dees forwardline and their abiklity to take grabs - personally I think this is a little optimistic when you consider Neitz has looked every day of his age, and is up against Scarlett, and Dunn & Newton still look rather raw.

[LostDoggy]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

I totally agree with everything you say mjp and Mofra, but the realist in me says that after the media mauling Dean has been getting, another massive loss (and they face the Kangaroos in Round 4, so that's potentially four 50/90+ point beltings in a row before facing Carlton in a must-win game), there would be massive external pressure on the club to do the obvious short-term thing and sack the coach. Regardless of how committed a club is to a coach, there are points where a situation becomes untenable, and Bailey has no track record to speak of at this level to have anyone believe that he can turn it around. I'm suggesting that pragmatism demands that he make his position a bit more secure to get the breathing space he needs to go forward. It's no good having three year plans if you're sacked five games into your first season.

If he manages to pull one out of the fire this week he'll get a huge amount of trust (real trust, not just 'in-front-of-the-media' trust) from the board and playing group. Nothing puts belief back into a club like winning, regardless of how it happens.. and one can talk all they want of 'long-term plans', a club that gets belted by nearly 100 points on a weekly basis is not going anywhere. I did tip them to finish last this year, but a good coach gets the best out of their team on a weekly basis WHILE building the team, not 'two years from now', and you can't tell me that a good coach gets belted by 100+ points weekly from Round 1, regardless of the list they inherited (what the heck did they do in pre-season?). Tactics exist for that reason, surely, and coaches exist for that reason. Otherwise we might as well just have CEOs and recruiting managers to build a list over three/four years, which is a flawed philosophy to begin with anyway (thus the Saints and Carlton not managing to win anything despite all the draft concessions in the world, and West Coast, Sydney and the Cats being premiership challengers without ever having bottomed out).

I'm not suggesting being negative weekly is the way to go, mind you.

[LostDoggy]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

He has come in with a plan and a game style that he wants to promote. I wouldn't have thought abandoning 6-months of pre-season because of two-weeks results would be super-productive.

Stick to the plan. Identify to his players the areas where the Cats are strong and where they can be taken advantage of. Set them really small goals based around effort not skills - for example, %rebound 50's the cats are able to get that are under pressure > 80%, missed tackle %, perhaps something around scores under pressure.

The players wont be expecting to win, so they need to have something to hold onto and target. So give them some things that they can be successful at. Give them a focus. With the flooding plan, not competing at centre bounces etc I basically hate it as the coach is telling his players that after just two weeks he believes that they are not good enough and dont possess a competitive spirit - he will loose them if he does this.

Stick to the plan. He is a good coach and has been involved in two pretty succesful programs...why would you throw everything you have worked for away this early in the year? Plus, when everyone thinks a 10-goal loss is a win, you have a fair bit of slack to work with.

Definitely agree with the small goals area -- focus on process not big-picture results essentially. I don't necessarily think that telling players not to contest bounces is telling players you don't believe in them, but actually trying to use your players to their best effect. If you can even sell it as conspiratorial ie. completely shocking and 'innovative', so to speak, you are actually 'teaching' the player HOW to beat their opponent by thinking/tactically, instead of just going out there to bash and crash and 'beat' their opponent physically. It's not as if you're teaching them how to 'lose' a game. Like you said, mjp, most of the guys don't believe they can beat Geelong anyway with a conventional game plan, so something innovative and out of the box may just give the guys a glimmer of hope and therefore something to play for.

You are up against it though with your conventional footy player, I suppose, to convince them that there ARE other ways of playing footy.

I mean, I can't believe that every coaching innovation (rolling interchanges etc.) has to be rubbed out by rule changes (where is the role of natural tactical evolution? Players and traditional coaches whinge because they just don't want to have to change and adapt), but that's a debate for another time.

[mjp]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

All fine Lantern. But what if he plays negative footy and still loses by 20 goals. Then what?

If he abandons his plan, he had better be successful - and by that I mean 'WIN' - otherwise I cannot see how the club could put any faith in him at all. He sold them on a plan and a gameplan to get the job. Going away from it now is, to me, just a bad, bad idea.

As for 'copping it' in the media, has the criticism been directed at the coach or the lack of direction being shown by the club, from the prez down?

[LostDoggy]

Re: If you were Dean Bailey this week....

Good points. If he plays super-negative footy and STILL loses by 20 goals he's gone, and should be. It would have to be pretty ordinary for that to happen and would definitely prove he can't coach at this level, in a way.

I guess it's a bit of a roll of a dice when you put it like that. If he gets even close, though, he'll be hailed as a bit of a tactical 'genius'. Realise, I'm only advocating it because they are playing Geelong this week and in a sense have nothing to lose. If they played negatively against Carlton or Richmond then he should be criticised, but I can't see him being pilloried for being pragmatic against the Cats the way they are going at the moment.

And the club has copped it all round, hasn't it. Probably makes the prez more trigger-happy than not, to take the heat off himself. It would be counter-productive to sack Bailey, of course, but logic tends to go out the window when clubs are under the pump.