Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

[LongWait]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

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.

I'm not sure whether you are contradicting yourself with the above bolded statements, or I'm still not getting you. Maybe we are saying the same thing in different ways?

Winning contested ball and defending well all over the ground is the cornerstone and the non-negotiable; next comes improvement in the team structure once everyone knows how to execute the non-negotiables (and we get rid of those who can't/won't). The team structure involves finding enough players who can hold their ends up in the non-negotiables but are also above average in their effectiveness by hand and foot and can also play specific roles (midfield, tall forward, key defender, rebound defender etc.)

I agree that some of our players in the past were contested ball beasts and they made the team look better statistically, whereas teams like Geelong and Hawthorn were so much more effective at contested ball even though statistcially we might have looked better than them.

Where we failed miserably though was in being very good defensively across the ground. Good teams which won enough ball could open us up almost at will. This is the part of the Macca gameplan and style that we've never mastered in the last decade.

And finally, as you acknowledged, some players can be taught to improve their disposal efficiency and/or their defensive effectiveness. We will find out which of our current players in the coming months and years.

Good discussion.

[stefoid]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Crozier might get a game for Freo pretty soon - will be interesting to see how he goes since he was going to be Dalrymples choice.

Also Brad McKenzie who went imedaitely after our pick - a guy I was hoping we would get.

[Eastdog]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

Crozier might get a game for Freo pretty soon - will be interesting to see how he goes since he was going to be Dalrymples choice.

Also Brad McKenzie who went imedaitely after our pick - a guy I was hoping we would get.

Andrew Moore from the Eastern Ranges also was another guy that could have gone to us but Port Adelaide picked him up in the end.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

I'm not sure whether you are contradicting yourself with the above bolded statements, or I'm still not getting you. Maybe we are saying the same thing in different ways?
.

No no, we agree. I'm just saying it's not going to be easy. Selwood and Gablett are exceptional players and great students of the game. I guess we're as well placed as anyone with Macca knowing what it took with those guys as well as Libba, Wallis and Dahlhaus having quite a lot to work with.

Many other teams have tried and failed -- even this season alone, look at a team like Carlton, which has spent a LOT of time on building that midfield group, but is finding it hard to be both good at winning the ball AND good at using it. Hawthorn are in the same position -- they relied a lot on Bateman to give them good ball use out of the middle, and recruited Burgoyne to do the same, but with Chance struggling and Burgoyne getting on a bit, Mitchell and Sewell getting first hands on it out of the middle just isn't enough anymore because the game is becoming as much about the third disposal and the counter as it is about the first (which is what footy has traditionally focused on). It's really tricky getting the mix right.

---

ps. This is not a purely theoretical exercise, it's a direct gameplan design issue. If we are contested ball winners but bad ball users, we should design a gameplan that ensures that we don't give simply focus on getting forward clearances if they keep resulting in rebound goals (Geelong scored at least 5 of their goals on the weekend this way). This has a direct impact on our player instruction -- for example, 'forcing the ball forward' is a footy truism, but if we tend to give up goals by doing that, we should stop, and maybe our style has to become more possession focused ie. more sideways. Anyway, just thinking.

[Sedat]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

No no, we agree. I'm just saying it's not going to be easy. Selwood and Gablett are exceptional players and great students of the game. I guess we're as well placed as anyone with Macca knowing what it took with those guys as well as Libba, Wallis and Dahlhaus having quite a lot to work with.

I think Dogs supporters to an extent, and definitely the wider football public, are grossly under-estimating the progress that these 3 are making and the influence they are consistently having at the highest level. Dahlhaus has made such drastic leaps and bounds in 12 months that we supporters are almost ho-hum about his last few weeks of football, but what I'm seeing is a young mid impacting in the midfield coalface as well as continuing to generate multiple score involvements - we're seeing less of the running and weaving forward of centre but I'm no less excited by what he's doing at the moment in at the clearances. And Libba and Wallis are both borderline elite with their hands in traffic already. Let's take a second to see how old they are and compare the best mids today at the same stage of their careers...apart from Joel Selwood and Chris Judd (who are both freaks), no other champion midfielder in today's game were at the same level at the age of 19/20 in the 2nd year of their contract. Maybe Dustin Martin (he's more of a one-way mover in any event) but that's about it.

The key will be to keep improving and to keep working hard, but it is impossible not to be excited by what these guys are producing right here and now and to cast our minds forward another 2-3 seasons to what they might become.

[dog town]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

The key will be to keep improving and to keep working hard, but it is impossible not to be excited by what these guys are producing right here and now and to cast our minds forward another 2-3 seasons to what they might become.

They are developing nicely. The younger players seem to be responding really well to Macca in terms of development. All of a sudden we seem to be creating a culture where our young players come on quickly. These 2 were both bloooded by Eade and now Macca is finishing them off nicely.

It is not just Wallis and Libba either. Just glimpes from some players week to week give me confidence. The free kick Roughhead got in the free kick is a good example. The body positioning he used would not have been used 3 weeks ago.

[Ghost Dog]

Re: Game Day 2012 - R9 Western Bulldogs vs Geelong

I think Dogs supporters to an extent, and definitely the wider football public, are grossly under-estimating the progress that these 3 are making and the influence they are consistently having at the highest level. Dahlhaus has made such drastic leaps and bounds in 12 months that we supporters are almost ho-hum about his last few weeks of football, but what I'm seeing is a young mid impacting in the midfield coalface as well as continuing to generate multiple score involvements - we're seeing less of the running and weaving forward of centre but I'm no less excited by what he's doing at the moment in at the clearances. And Libba and Wallis are both borderline elite with their hands in traffic already. Let's take a second to see how old they are and compare the best mids today at the same stage of their careers...apart from Joel Selwood and Chris Judd (who are both freaks), no other champion midfielder in today's game were at the same level at the age of 19/20 in the 2nd year of their contract. Maybe Dustin Martin (he's more of a one-way mover in any event) but that's about it.

The key will be to keep improving and to keep working hard, but it is impossible not to be excited by what these guys are producing right here and now and to cast our minds forward another 2-3 seasons to what they might become.

Great post. This is one reason why I think we may start to see them out of the team now and then, as Bmac rotates kids, trying to see what he can get out of them.
As for these three, you know you get 100% effort, and mainly concerned they are not put under duress, too much too soon, which may cause injury.