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Just after a few opinions on the way the new coach is tracking? Personally I am stoked with our new coach. I have enjoyed the way we have gone about things and the way Macca conducts himself. The players like him and he seems to have a really good relationship with the players. I have seen plenty of things to like in his 2 games in charge so far.
He has them playing a definitive style and it was obvious from the first pre season game that the playing group had adapted to it and embraced it. Regardless of whether it is the right style to play for our group (I think it is) it is really impressive that he has already got them playing such a specific brand of football. It shows buy in from the players and shows that he certainly knows how to convey a message. Yes it is a professional environment and they have a long time to work on these things but lots of other clubs have had trouble getting teams to change a style of play especially changing it so dramatically.
I love that I see progression in lots of players individually. I see them make a mistake one week and the next week they play it differently. We are doing the basics at a far higher level. Our positioning around packs and ability to extricate the ball from congestion cleanly is much better. This is not a criticism of Eade. Eade was a fantastic coach and I hope McCartney can be as successful as he was but like players different coaches have different strengths.
Under Eade I was often frustrated by the positioning of some players at contests and even basic things like getting up front and square to a marking contest. Can you remember our side ever having as many front and square gathers in a game? On Saturday night we murdered Adelaide in patches just by creating a contest and having players getting to the right spot at the front of the pack. In the past our players had a tendency to run down the side of the pack or forward of the play.
These little things will not win us a premiership or even guarantee us a finals birth but they are incredibly important and something I always felt we were missing. We have some huge holes that need filling but getting these things right as a foundation is absolutely the right way to go IMO.
Something that stands out to me that we are bringing into our game is the ability to stand up in traffic and turn dead balls into wins for us. We are getting really good at winning balls that are about to called for a ball up or going out of bounds. Just with the way we are protecting the space around the ball and standing up to release players with little handballs. I watch replays of Geelong games regularly and it is a Geelong trait. They just win more of the little contests within contests than other sides.
We have played 2 good football sides and are still in a transition phase but in both games we completely dominated patches. We had Adelaide completely pinned in its own half for almost 75% of the 3rd quarter on Saturday night. Against West Coast we recovered from a horrific start to really take control for patches of the match. If we had of got a bit more reward I am sure we would not have dropped away. Not many sides will compete that strongly with West Coast for 3 quarters this year I assure you.
We have some glaring deficiencies that need fixing. None of these were of McCartneys making. He obviously needs to do some work on how we can make better use of our forward entries. I like the way we are able to create congestion and then burst away from that with guys like Dahlhouse and Griff. It is the next kick we are having trouble with. I liked the way we addressed it in the 3rd quarter on Saturday. We seemed to hold onto the footy a bit more when we had nothing on. It will take time and obviously we need to improve the personnel at our disposal.
We need some players that have a bit more skill with ball in hand and some pace to break the lines but the best way to counter that at this stage is keeping the ball either in our hands or in congestion for as long as possible. We are going a long way towards doing that already.
I am enjoying the combative and organised way we are playing. It is obvious we are playing to a specific game plan based around having numbers around the ball, contested footy and short passing. I like it, I like the way it plays to our strengths and I like the way the players are embracing it.
We are 0-2 so we obviously have some work to do. I am certainly not saying we will win the premiership and I would be surprised if we make the finals but I think we are on the right path. Watching us play at the moment is like watching a light bulb switch on in the players heads. To me I can just see them starting to see the merits in the way we are playing. They need only refine it and apply it for longer to get some results. I might be wrong but I am certainly a fan of the way McCartney is going about things so far.
He has them playing a definitive style and it was obvious from the first pre season game that the playing group had adapted to it and embraced it. Regardless of whether it is the right style to play for our group (I think it is) it is really impressive that he has already got them playing such a specific brand of football. It shows buy in from the players and shows that he certainly knows how to convey a message. Yes it is a professional environment and they have a long time to work on these things but lots of other clubs have had trouble getting teams to change a style of play especially changing it so dramatically.
I love that I see progression in lots of players individually. I see them make a mistake one week and the next week they play it differently. We are doing the basics at a far higher level. Our positioning around packs and ability to extricate the ball from congestion cleanly is much better. This is not a criticism of Eade. Eade was a fantastic coach and I hope McCartney can be as successful as he was but like players different coaches have different strengths.
Under Eade I was often frustrated by the positioning of some players at contests and even basic things like getting up front and square to a marking contest. Can you remember our side ever having as many front and square gathers in a game? On Saturday night we murdered Adelaide in patches just by creating a contest and having players getting to the right spot at the front of the pack. In the past our players had a tendency to run down the side of the pack or forward of the play.
These little things will not win us a premiership or even guarantee us a finals birth but they are incredibly important and something I always felt we were missing. We have some huge holes that need filling but getting these things right as a foundation is absolutely the right way to go IMO.
Something that stands out to me that we are bringing into our game is the ability to stand up in traffic and turn dead balls into wins for us. We are getting really good at winning balls that are about to called for a ball up or going out of bounds. Just with the way we are protecting the space around the ball and standing up to release players with little handballs. I watch replays of Geelong games regularly and it is a Geelong trait. They just win more of the little contests within contests than other sides.
We have played 2 good football sides and are still in a transition phase but in both games we completely dominated patches. We had Adelaide completely pinned in its own half for almost 75% of the 3rd quarter on Saturday night. Against West Coast we recovered from a horrific start to really take control for patches of the match. If we had of got a bit more reward I am sure we would not have dropped away. Not many sides will compete that strongly with West Coast for 3 quarters this year I assure you.
We have some glaring deficiencies that need fixing. None of these were of McCartneys making. He obviously needs to do some work on how we can make better use of our forward entries. I like the way we are able to create congestion and then burst away from that with guys like Dahlhouse and Griff. It is the next kick we are having trouble with. I liked the way we addressed it in the 3rd quarter on Saturday. We seemed to hold onto the footy a bit more when we had nothing on. It will take time and obviously we need to improve the personnel at our disposal.
We need some players that have a bit more skill with ball in hand and some pace to break the lines but the best way to counter that at this stage is keeping the ball either in our hands or in congestion for as long as possible. We are going a long way towards doing that already.
I am enjoying the combative and organised way we are playing. It is obvious we are playing to a specific game plan based around having numbers around the ball, contested footy and short passing. I like it, I like the way it plays to our strengths and I like the way the players are embracing it.
We are 0-2 so we obviously have some work to do. I am certainly not saying we will win the premiership and I would be surprised if we make the finals but I think we are on the right path. Watching us play at the moment is like watching a light bulb switch on in the players heads. To me I can just see them starting to see the merits in the way we are playing. They need only refine it and apply it for longer to get some results. I might be wrong but I am certainly a fan of the way McCartney is going about things so far.
What a glowing endorsement of a guy who's been in the job for about five minutes. 
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