Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

[chef]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Personally I'm glad our new coach is basing our new foundation around winning contested possession, as opposed to relying exclusively on everything going perfectly skills wise on a given day.

Me too.

[Maddog37]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Let's revisit this thread in two years time when Cordy, Jones, Ruff, Walls, Libba, Dal etc etc have 50-80 games under their belt and have developed more cohesion as a team. I know our skills are not great at times but I personally feel that we haven't clicked yet and when we do, watch out!

The players have the skills and the right attitude. They lack experience and several preseasons.

We play a finals style football which is better than the exciting fluff that teased us with prelims but was unsustainable when the chips were down.

As a side note, how good would Scott West be in today's game?.........

[Sedat]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Let's revisit this thread in two years time when Cordy, Jones, Ruff, Walls, Libba, Dal etc etc have 50-80 games under their belt and have developed more cohesion as a team. I know our skills are not great at times but I personally feel that we haven't clicked yet and when we do, watch out!

The players have the skills and the right attitude. They lack experience and several preseasons.

We play a finals style football which is better than the exciting fluff that teased us with prelims but was unsustainable when the chips were down.

As a side note, how good would Scott West be in today's game?.........

After watching the last few weeks since the Saints abomination, I am especially very bullish about Libba, Wallis and Dahlhaus becoming the cornerstone of our midfield for the next 10+ years. They are all vastly ahead of Boyd and Cross at the same age, not forgetting that these two were the backbone of our midfield during our 3-time top 4 run. Pendlebury and Thomas were ridiculed as not up to it at the same stage of their careers. I think we have a potentially very special group of midfielders on our hands.

I'm not as bullish about our young KPP's, but I'm not as fussed about this either. Mooney and Nablett/Pods/Hawkins was never exactly the greatest bunch of key forwards the game has ever seen but it served Geelong fine for 5 consecutive years. I just want to see continued incremental improvement from Jones, Roughead and Cordy and I will be very comfortable with our key forward stocks. Despite the poor kicking for goal and the haphazard delivery into our forward 50, Roughy and Jones both gave Geelong's best defenders plenty of uncomfortable moments on Friday night. Imagine them in a couple of years when we get cleaner supply out of the middle and they have another couple of years' experience in where to run, and another couple of years to build up their core strength and aerobic capacity. All of Jones, Roughy and Cordy have serious tools to work with.

[Bulldog Joe]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

After watching the last few weeks since the Saints abomination, I am especially very bullish about Libba, Wallis and Dahlhaus becoming the cornerstone of our midfield for the next 10+ years. They are all vastly ahead of Boyd and Cross at the same age, not forgetting that these two were the backbone of our midfield during our 3-time top 4 run. Pendlebury and Thomas were ridiculed as not up to it at the same stage of their careers. I think we have a potentially very special group of midfielders on our hands.

I'm not as bullish about our young KPP's, but I'm not as fussed about this either. Mooney and Nablett/Pods/Hawkins was never exactly the greatest bunch of key forwards the game has ever seen but it served Geelong fine for 5 consecutive years. I just want to see continued incremental improvement from Jones, Roughead and Cordy and I will be very comfortable with our key forward stocks. Despite the poor kicking for goal and the haphazard delivery into our forward 50, Roughy and Jones both gave Geelong's best defenders plenty of uncomfortable moments on Friday night. Imagine them in a couple of years when we get cleaner supply out of the middle and they have another couple of years' experience in where to run, and another couple of years to build up their core strength and aerobic capacity. All of Jones, Roughy and Cordy have serious tools to work with.

They are not only well ahead of Boyd and Cross but actually ahead of Bartel and Abblett at the same age.

I'm also with you on the Key forwards. Jones, Roughy and Cordy are all coming along and we have Campbell highly rated to come off the rookie list.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

All of this is predicated on Lake playing like Lake.

If we didn't have Brian playing the way he can, our losses would have been far worse. Austin plays well on the second or third forward, but would struggle on Cloke and/or Hawkins. I think Brian is also making Austin look a lot better as a defender (definitely better than he looked at Carlton) as he cuts out so much of the loose forward entry.

Contested possessions are well and good, but when we don't win the contested possession, we still need to be able to shut the game down. I liked our forward pressure which is much better than in Rocket's time, but the better teams are still getting cheap goals on the rebound. I know the gameplan is a work in progress, so I look forward to better and better efficiency.

I think Lake made Rocket look better than his gameplan warranted, and is now making Macca look better than his gameplan warrants as well, but we can't rely on Brian being Brian forever.

[Sedat]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Hear what you are saying Lantern, but you could just as easily say the same about Geelong and Scarlett.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

After watching the last few weeks since the Saints abomination, I am especially very bullish about Libba, Wallis and Dahlhaus becoming the cornerstone of our midfield for the next 10+ years. They are all vastly ahead of Boyd and Cross at the same age,

At 19 Boyd was playing for Frankston seconds and not even thinking about getting drafted and Cross was trying to get a senior game at Werribee and worrying about staying on the list.

[Bornadog]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

No we didn't, we moved the ball on at all costs all the time. Our player's leg speed wasn't quick, but constant movement of the ball made us look quick. The problem was the game pan relied upon executing our skills efficiently all of the time or get burned on the rebound because all of our players were out of position by being offensive.

It worked well against mediocre teams, slaughtered teams full of kids, and constantly fell down against top teams, especially teams with good defence (Hawthorn 08, St Kilda 09, Collingwood 10), plus Geelong played a similar way but had a team with better skills. Having Brian Lake leading the AFL every year in intercept marks covered over a lot of the weaknesses in our game plan, but at the end of the day we lost something in the vicinity of 25 out of 30 games to other top 4 teams during that time, and 6 out out 6 finals. .

We can all go over the same old thing but at the end of the day its not just the game plan, you have to have the players to back it up. There was nothing wrong with the game plan in 2009, we just didn't have a couple of more A grade players like a KPP to execute it. Having said that, we know the 2009 prelim was a close contest, we matched the Saints in every way, but with a bit of luck and stupid umpiring decisions, we could have been in the GF. We had more scoring shots and they had more frees in front of goal.

If Gilbee's or Gia's shots at goal went through and we won, or Reiwold didn't get that free in front of goal, or Akers 50 metre kicked didn't bounce out of bounce and there was no deliberate, I wonder what you would be saying about the game plan?

I think Lake made Rocket look better than his gameplan warranted, and is now making Macca look better than his gameplan warrants as well, but we can't rely on Brian being Brian forever.

Yes Lake made Rocket look good, but hey Rocket was not the one on the ground getting the ball. You need good players otherwise it just won't work.

2009 is gone and the game has changed dramatically. Other coaches saw what we were doing, ie playing on and moving the ball quickly, so they came up with new plans to counteract it, so we move on.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

All of this is predicated on Lake playing like Lake.

If we didn't have Brian playing the way he can, our losses would have been far worse. Austin plays well on the second or third forward, but would struggle on Cloke and/or Hawkins. I think Brian is also making Austin look a lot better as a defender (definitely better than he looked at Carlton) as he cuts out so much of the loose forward entry.

Contested possessions are well and good, but when we don't win the contested possession, we still need to be able to shut the game down. I liked our forward pressure which is much better than in Rocket's time, but the better teams are still getting cheap goals on the rebound. I know the gameplan is a work in progress, so I look forward to better and better efficiency.

I think Lake made Rocket look better than his gameplan warranted, and is now making Macca look better than his gameplan warrants as well, but we can't rely on Brian being Brian forever.

Your getting some of it right but not all of it , our undermanned defense has done well but not just because of Lake , they work as a unit regardless of the lineup

Its our oversized midfield that have the responsibility to defend the zones at the top of the defensive 50 , so far they have done well pushing opposition midfielders wide to restrict supply to key forwards

Our focus on numbers at the contest was viewed by Geelong not as an obstacle but an opportunity , we would switch to the wing and the Cats would try to make a contest to get the ball down but refuse to contest with numbers , we would outnumber them and they would peel off to the corridor , on the turnover Motlop and Stringer had the pace to open us up through the corridor but our defense meant they either had to kick the goal from 50m or kick it over the contest

In reality at the moment we are a better Team than Geelong but they have some better individual players

What hurt us against Geelong was having the right player in the wrong place at the right time and Geelong managed to get the right player in the right place at the right time

Lantern the game plan is not completely based on contested possession it just at the moment thats what General Mac wants the Team to focus on as part of a wider program , the fact that we are the number one contested possession Team in the AFL should not be seen as a negative , if we can achieve that by Round 8 what are going to achieve by Round 20 ?

.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

I thought Skinner did some good things last night and was exciting at times. In that first pre season match against GWS at the start he looked lively. As you said Maddog37 he needs to get his fitness 100% and hopefully we will see more of him.

I agree. But he also has to learn to be more stable on his feet. He seems to miss most marks that come his way ie he gets hands to them but drops them or misses them altogether. In so doing he often finishes up out of the contest. His extra efforts have sometimes got him back into the contest, but I would like his balance to be better so that he doesn't fall over so much. He allows the opposition a free man when he misses marks or falls to the ground. I'd sometimes prefer in contested situations that he hit the ball away, keep his feet or keep running so as to apply more immediate defensive pressure. He has to be more agile and more mobile at the contest.

Having said that, where is the best place for him to be learning his craft? If you believe this is a development year, then maybe the best thing to do is to get some games into him, at the expense of necessarily winning the game.

[LongWait]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

@ Lantern: you imply that McCartney has chosen inside players in the most recent draft instead of more rounded midfielders who can play inside and outside. I think that is unfair - in my view we had the choice between predominantly good inside players, or predominantly good outside players, with all of the "guns" who are elite inside and out having been taken before us, or taken with pre-selections in the previous year by expansion clubs.

I fully support the contested possession-based game plan we are trying to introduce and see being hard at the contest as the cornerstone and the non-negotiable within our future game style. We can, and will, add the silk when the opportunity arises later in the year at the draft and perhaps trade tables.

I'm very sick of us not being able to beat the best teams in the competition, especially in finals, and yet we've been flat-track bullies. I'd rather that we are bullies all of the time.

Bullies by name and bullies by nature!

[LostDoggy]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

@ Lantern: you imply that McCartney has chosen inside players in the most recent draft instead of more rounded midfielders who can play inside and outside. I think that is unfair - in my view we had the choice between predominantly good inside players, or predominantly good outside players, with all of the "guns" who are elite inside and out having been taken before us, or taken with pre-selections in the previous year by expansion clubs.

I fully support the contested possession-based game plan we are trying to introduce and see being hard at the contest as the cornerstone and the non-negotiable within our future game style. We can, and will, add the silk when the opportunity arises later in the year at the draft and perhaps trade tables.

I'm very sick of us not being able to beat the best teams in the competition, especially in finals, and yet we've been flat-track bullies. I'd rather that we are bullies all of the time.

Bullies by name and bullies by nature!

Hi Longwait. Good post!

I think you (and others) have slightly misunderstood my point, which is probably my fault for not expressing it properly. We are in complete agreement about Macca's decision to implement a contested possession based game (see my lividness last year when we lost the contested possession count to GC17).

My point is that the 'adding silk' part will not be as easy as we seem to assume. I think with the list we have, getting us back to being a good contested side was not the difficult part (we were no.1 just two and a half years ago after all), and we've always had good inside players. It was easy enough to get us back to no.1 in that respect -- Macca did it almost literally overnight -- and when we were getting pantsed last year I suggested that we just fall back on becoming a 2006 Sydney to grind out a couple of results.

So I'm not discounting our contested possession focus, just saying that it wasn't really a stretch to get us doing well there. The endemic problem has been adding 'skill' to it without losing that edge -- guys like Eagleton, Hill and now Sherman are/were all important cogs but adding players like that definitely took away from our contested ability. We could have played Addison instead of Eagleton in various finals, but that would probably have tipped us TOO far into contested ball and not enough into disposal quality.

Your point about having the choice between inside/outside players, and getting complete types higher up in the draft is a good one, but I don't think it's really that simple.. in the entire AFL there are probably around 10 midfielders who are elite inside AND outside. It doesn't matter how high up the draft you are, these types are very few and far between and quite unique, so it depends a bit on luck to get a high pick in a year that one of these types come along. Most teams have to make do with a mixture of players that are stronger in one or the other aspect. What teams like Geelong have done well is to improve their players' weaker area so that a guy like Selwood can still have some impact with disposal and a guy like Gablett became a contested ball-winning animal even though he didn't really start out that way. Hopefully Macca can bring that to our side so that guys like Wallis, Libba, Dahl, Smith et al become well-rounded players in their own right.

What I'm saying is that we can't just assume that we can add silk without our contested possession strength being impacted in some way (not saying we can't, but it won't be as easy as most seem to be assuming). It's a balance that teams struggle with even at the top end of the table, and getting the mix even slightly wrong can very quickly tip you from being a good team to just a middling one and vice versa.

[Ghost Dog]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Hi Longwait. Good post!



Your point about having the choice between inside/outside players, and getting complete types higher up in the draft is a good one, but I don't think it's really that simple.. in the entire AFL there are probably around 10 midfielders who are elite inside AND outside. It doesn't matter how high up the draft you are, these types are very few and far between and quite unique, so it depends a bit on luck to get a high pick in a year that one of these types come along. Most teams have to make do with a mixture of players that .

Do you think any of our young kids have the ability to reach the heights of Griffen and other inside / outside dashers?

[Mofra]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Do you think any of our young kids have the ability to reach the heights of Griffen and other inside / outside dashers?

Libba's left foot can be very damaging so he could play outside if need be but he's not a linebreaker.

[Eastdog]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Libba's left foot can be very damaging so he could play outside if need be but he's not a linebreaker.

Could Dahlhaus reach those heights? Would you class him as an attacking midfielder?