How Do We Hang Onto This Season?

[azabob]

I'd like to see how Davidson goes playing as a half forward and play the link role between HB and HF. I am thinking Alex Neal Bullen when he was at Melbourne or even as far back when Murphy played forward for us.

Bring Williams back as our wingman, opposite Harmes with Freijah going back.

Two other problems we need to fix are our key defender set up and our second ruck.

[Bornadog]

Two other problems we need to fix are our key defender set up and our second ruck.

Any suggestions?

[azabob]

Any suggestions?

In isolation of each potential solution could we look at

If we are unwilling to change our all-ground defense, I would be looking to bring in Jones to be an anchor to help defend the quick transition.

On the ruck situation could we ask English to play more game time and to compensate do less transition running and potentially plonk himself in our defensive half? I would like to have Darcy forward for longer. Especially when Naughton is our only other marking target in forward 50.

[Aidan7557]

Now I get we have issues especially with the back 6 and team defence but if we beat Brisbane on Friday we all realise we will sit 4th and be right back in it? Not being a smart arse but we actually are allowed to beat the Lions.

[DOG GOD]

Good Thread.

Before anything too radical, we should at least try the obvious first, or keep it simple, stupid.

JOD is not a D1. Lobb is a failed forward, mostly due to being out-bodied by big bodies......... And now finds himself on Larkey and Thilthrop. Playing as a little bit loose-intercepting defender was working, now we have NO ONE intercepting, and Lobb getting 5 kicked on him.
Pick Jones or Buss, let them sink or swim, and free up JOD and Lobb.
When Jones was dropped, he was still squaring his 1v1s at twice the ratio as every other key position defender we have tried this year.
What am I missing here?

Hynes and Dolan have done nothing to suggest they were ready for this type of pressure and game. Stop picking them.

I agree with experimentation with our small forwards. Find a mix that contributes to F50 retention, and do it quickly.
VDM needs McNeil in the team, so he is not exposed as the worst small forward on the ground.
JJ could be interesting.

Darcy is resting more on the bench to get ready for his Ruck time.
Pick Khamis, play him 2nd ruck and leave Darcy forward.

Start by picking out best 23.

Pretty much agree with this post. Nails the telling points.
joD and Lobb are not full backs. Select Jones/Buss and let then play their roles.

if we are genuinely a finals contender then Hynes and Dolan cannot be selected again. Even with 3 quarters of game time, they still are lucky to get 5 kicks. We cannot afford to carry that against the top teams. They are witches hats.

I like the idea of McNeil, Scott, West, Naughton, Darcy with possibly a changing Williams/Freijah/Dale, with the latter 3 all good long kicks allowing them to kick from 50 if they find themselves running into 50 with no targets.

Having Buku in the team allows flexibility. He can go fwd if Darcy goes into ruck, or if they want to leave Darcy fwd and throw Lobb into the ruck, he can go back. I don’t like the idea of buku as 2nd ruck.

[azabob]

Now I get we have issues especially with the back 6 and team defence but if we beat Brisbane on Friday we all realise we will sit 4th and be right back in it? Not being a smart arse but we actually are allowed to beat the Lions.

So in answer to the OP you are doing nothing?

[Bulldog Joe]

I don't think the issue is as much player related as system related.

Under Bevo we have always valued repeat forward 50 entries and it repeatedly hurts us.

All the congestion is in our forward half, which allows so much space for the opposition when a turnover occurs.

We simply need to find a solution to defending turnover, because we certainly aren't going to stop them happening.

We run the risk and we pay the price against the better sides.

[Sedat]

I don't think the issue is as much player related as system related.

Under Bevo we have always valued repeat forward 50 entries and it repeatedly hurts us.

All the congestion is in our forward half, which allows so much space for the opposition when a turnover occurs.

We simply need to find a solution to defending turnover, because we certainly aren't going to stop them happening.

We run the risk and we pay the price against the better sides.

We were elite at defending turnover in the 2nd half of last year. From memory, our Champion Data numbers for scores conceded defending turnover were unseen before in that part of the game. And that was against some top 4 scalps along the way (Sydney, Geelong).

It's pretty obvious that we are not defending the ground anywhere near as well this season - I'm not sure whether it is personnel, structure tweaks, or simply other teams having gone to school on us in the off-season (or a combination of all 3).

[Bornadog]

We were elite at defending turnover in the 2nd half of last year. From memory, our Champion Data numbers for scores conceded defending turnover were unseen before in that part of the game. And that was against some top 4 scalps along the way (Sydney, Geelong).

It's pretty obvious that we are not defending the ground anywhere near as well this season - I'm not sure whether it is personnel, structure tweaks, or simply other teams having gone to school on us in the off-season (or a combination of all 3).

We improved in the second half on Saturday, restricting their inside 50s - down from 30 to 22 in the halves and also their scoring, but the horse bolted in the 2nd quarter. Very similar to a few games like Freo. We need 4 quarter efforts.

[Sedat]

We improved in the second half on Saturday, restricting their inside 50s - down from 30 to 22 in the halves and also their scoring, but the horse bolted in the 2nd quarter. Very similar to a few games like Freo. We need 4 quarter efforts.

The smart analysts like Bartel and Montagna have shown footage of our structure last year compared to this year. We always had an anchor supporting Lobb last year - be it Jones or Khamis - which allowed Lobb to intercept at will. As a result, we defended turnover and restricted the opposition from scoring. For whatever reason, we have changed our structure down back and become super aggressive with our positioning. I understand that our tackle pressure was poor on Saturday, which made it almost impossible for our key defenders, but the lack of a defensive anchor has also clearly hurt us this year against the better teams.

The deadshit analysts have no idea about any of the above - we're stacked, don't you get it.

[Bornadog]

The smart analysts like Bartel and Montagna have shown footage of our structure last year compared to this year. We always had an anchor supporting Lobb last year - be it Jones or Khamis - which allowed Lobb to intercept at will. As a result, we defended turnover and restricted the opposition from scoring. For whatever reason, we have changed our structure down back and become super aggressive with our positioning. I understand that our tackle pressure was poor on Saturday, which made it almost impossible for our key defenders, but the lack of a defensive anchor has also clearly hurt us this year against the better teams.

The deadshit analysts have no idea about any of the above - we're stacked, don't you get it.

I wonder why the change in Tactic?

[Willow18]

Maybe I’m overly pessimistic right now, but I’m more interested in talking about what we can change for 2026 haha

[doggies ftw]

Another week where we were killed by an oppo mid in Dawson. We just need to pay the oppositions best players more attention, we’ve tried and tried bevos way in going head to head and backing ourselves to come out on top but as good as our midfield is, it WILL be beaten for periods of games, especially when we don’t have a renowned tap ruck.

We don’t need a hard tag, we don’t need to throw our whole playbook out the window but we need to have a guy we can go to sit on an opposition star when they’re single handedly turning the game against us out of the middle. I’d back Garcia for this going forward, doesn’t have to be from the first bounce but let’s just stop letting opposition do what they want maybe? We’re so easy to play against.

This goes for defence too, I hate the way we just trust everyone to match up on everyone. Ie Dawson walks to the goal square on the weekend and Bramble goes to him. Cmon man our 180cm HBF just isn’t the answer here, rotate the match ups until we get what we want. This was at a centre bounce too so we had plenty of time to get it right. The free kick Dawson ended up getting was soft but everyone could see that coming from a mile away from level 2 so why couldn’t the coaches or, more importantly on ground, the players?

Can you imagine Bont strolling to full forward & Laird going to him? Just wouldn’t happen.

opposition players are constantly getting our worst defenders one out deep forward because we don’t really seem to care about match ups and have this upmost belief that all our players are hero’s and capable of anything.

Our defensive structures are just criminal right now, such a shame because the rest of our game is humming and even as bad as we are defensively (and it’s bad bad, not even just relative to the good teams) we’re still on avg only a kick or two off the best teams which shows how good this team can be if we just got this part of the game right.

Feel like we’re just too stubborn to make the necessary changes though and will double down this week again. Selection will tell us all we need to know to be honest, if we go in with the same defence we have been then the year is a write off and I’m done with it.