Our centre bounce setup

[westdog54]

Today was the first match I've attended all year, and level 3 at Docklands is particularly good for an all of ground view.

What I saw at the centre bounces had me, for want of a better term, bewildered.

We were lining up with four on the ball, six defenders, four wingmen and four forwards.

The HFFs were lining up just forward of centre on the edge of the square, while their opponents lined up at CHB.

When the ball was bounced, the defenders were getting to the rear of the storage and creating congestion, while our extra wingers seemed to be doing nothing at all.

Have we done this at all throughout the year? Did anyone else notice?

[GVGjr]

I've not seen it before although occasionally we've had one additional wing man.
Melbourne were blitzing forward from the half back line and it worked for them. I'm not sure what advantage our additional wingers gave us today but we stuck with it until the last quarter I think.

[westdog54]

I left halfway through the last and we were persisting with it

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Didn't see much of the game yesterday but our game plan all year has suffered. We have the hardest time in generating scoring chances, let alone quality scoring chances. We have only scored more than 100pts THREE times this season. And two of those were the first 2 rounds. The other being round 5 against Brisbane. That is diabolical. Here are our 12 scores to date this season:

Rd 1: 15.10
Rd 2: 16.14
Rd 3: 10.13
Rd 4: 12.17
Rd 5: 17.20
Rd 6: 9.19
Rd 7: 11.14
Rd 8: 8.13
Rd 9: 12.9
Rd 10: 13.12
Rd 12: 6.6
Rd 13: 8.8

Thats not a pretty picture at all. In a third of our games we haven't managed to score more than 10 goals. In our 2 last games we've scored a total of 98 points! There is something seriously wrong with our gameplan. In all honesty we've had problems scoring for a few years, which somehow disappeared in the finals of last year. Everything worked for us. But this year we have sunk to a new low. What do we need to do to fix the problems?

To add to this, our points for is 4th lowest in the comp. Only Fremantle, Hawthorn and Carlton are worse.

[bulldogtragic]

I mentioned in another thread, the wooden spooners of Brisbane have scored more than us this year. No forward line can succeed with entries like they're given.

[soupman]

Apparently we are leading the goalless quarters stat with 5. For comparism the vast majority have 2 or less and Brisbane only have 1. Not impressive.

[bulldogsthru&thru]

I mentioned in another thread, the wooden spooners of Brisbane have scored more than us this year. No forward line can succeed with entries like they're given.

The entries have been horrid. Is it skills, decision making, gameplan? All 3?

Just watching the game generally, it feels like we take numbers out of our forward line and midfield/stoppages and plonk them in defence. Essentially giving up possession to defend our goal. This may be a way too simplistic observation but we do not play attacking football. Do we not have the cattle to play attacking football?

[bulldogsthru&thru]

One aspect we haven't been successful in is recruitment of opposition players. We have done a wonderful job developing our own but we don't have too much to show in trade/FA period. Prior to Beveridge our notable gets were Crameri and Boyd (who may have come to us due to the Griffen saga). But other than that we haven't achieved much. Missing out on Hurley last year hurt. I would love for us to recruit some established players the next two years to really make the most of our young talent. Josh Kelly would be enormous. May would have been great too. But we just haven't seemed to attract established talent from other clubs. Are we too conservative? Do others not see us as a destination club (surely this would have changed after the flag)?

[Ozza]

The entries have been horrid. Is it skills, decision making, gameplan? All 3?

Just watching the game generally, it feels like we take numbers out of our forward line and midfield/stoppages and plonk them in defence. Essentially giving up possession to defend our goal. This may be a way too simplistic observation but we do not play attacking football. Do we not have the cattle to play attacking football?

That isn't at all what happened yesterday.
Yesterday the issue with our entries was the sheer congestion.

People have talked about the forwards not leading, and the inside 50 kicks being poor - and whilst they are both technically true - how do we find leading targets when there is no space, and how do you find a target with the kick when there are 30 players inside F50?

[bornadog]

That isn't at all what happened yesterday.
Yesterday the issue with our entries was the sheer congestion.

People have talked about the forwards not leading, and the inside 50 kicks being poor - and whilst they are both technically true - how do we find leading targets when there is no space, and how do you find a target with the kick when there are 30 players inside F50?

Absolutely right. We are allowing the forward 50 to be congested because we are not getting the ball in quick enough, plus at centre bounces, Melbourne clogged up the forward line with 8 players, so if we got a centre clearance, it was all ready clogged.

A few times we had the chance to get a Joe the goose with some quick movement, but the execution of our skills was woeful with the ball being kicked either too short or way off the player running towards an open goal

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Absolutely right. We are allowing the forward 50 to be congested because we are not getting the ball in quick enough, plus at centre bounces, Melbourne clogged up the forward line with 8 players, so if we got a centre clearance, it was all ready clogged.

A few times we had the chance to get a Joe the goose with some quick movement, but the execution of our skills was woeful with the ball being kicked either too short or way off the player running towards an open goal

Melbourne have been doing this since round 1. I was at that game against the saints and it worked a treat. But this has obviously been countered by other teams as it hasn't always worked. Perhaps it is the teams with poor skills that it works against.

[Eastdog]

That isn't at all what happened yesterday.
Yesterday the issue with our entries was the sheer congestion.

People have talked about the forwards not leading, and the inside 50 kicks being poor - and whilst they are both technically true - how do we find leading targets when there is no space, and how do you find a target with the kick when there are 30 players inside F50?

Yep pretty much spot on Ozza. It was so congested inside our 50 yesterday it wasn't funny.

[meenies]

I was watching the tactic of extra wingers and their 8 in our forward line over and over with disbelief. We got the clearances but not once did we try and send the ball wide to the wingers. Nor did the wingers even try to run towards the charging back line players who you could spot a mile away that they would get the ball.
As well as the players well beaten, so did the coaching panel lose the tactic battle.