2018 season - How do we get back to the top?

[Eastdog]

Discuss?

[I'm Not Bitter Anymore!]

Sweep the Shed

[merantau]

1. Honest review of our season, particular the losses. Identify what went wrong/what worked
2. The outcome of 1. determines THE 2018 GET BACK TO 2016 PROGRAM.

I think these are some of the issues that will be identified.
1. Physical fitness. We faded badly in the 2nd half of some games. Compare Richmond and the 2016 Bulldogs in the GFs. Both teams were manic in their attack on the ball carrier and ran the game out.
2. Game plan. We didn't have the personel to carry it out due to injuries and loss of form/lack of fitness and we had no Plan B because we couldn't afford to play Tom Boyd forward enough and Cloke/Adams/Redpath/Roughie got injured.
3. Our injury toll.
4. Our goal kicking - putrid
5. Our ordinary tackling
6. Our delivery inside 50. We need some midfielders who can hit targets.
7. Team selection/Game day coaching. The MC got it wrong with the selection of English against Sydney. I can't recall many moves being made during games to mix things up a bit.
8. Players state of mind. All have to look in the mirror and be brutally honest with each other. Answer this question: Were you satisfied with one flag?

[merantau]

1. Honest review of our season, particular the losses. Identify what went wrong/what worked
2. The outcome of 1. determines THE 2018 GET BACK TO 2016 PROGRAM.

I think these are some of the issues that will be identified.
1. Physical fitness. We faded badly in the 2nd half of some games. Compare Richmond and the 2016 Bulldogs in the GFs. Both teams were manic in their attack on the ball carrier and ran the game out.
2. Game plan. We didn't have the personel to carry it out due to injuries and loss of form/lack of fitness and we had no Plan B because we couldn't afford to play Tom Boyd forward enough and Cloke/Adams/Redpath/Roughie got injured.
3. Our injury toll.
4. Our goal kicking - putrid
5. Our ordinary tackling
6. Our delivery inside 50. We need some midfielders who can hit targets.
7. Team selection/Game day coaching. The MC got it wrong with the selection of English against Sydney. I can't recall many moves being made during games to mix things up a bit.
8. Players state of mind. All have to look in the mirror and be brutally honest with each other. Answer this question: Were you satisfied with one flag?

[ledge]

Get them back to enjoying football and the feeling of 2016

[Eastdog]

merantau sums it up very well.

We need to get our hunger back and really work harder than we did this season. A good number of games we did work hard but a lot of other games we were very very poor even some of our wins weren't that great.

Our forward line delivery and use of it in there needs a dramatic shift from what it is currently. We struggle to get big scores even last year this still was an issue but last year our defence did extremely well. Yes we definitely had injuries down back but our defence was exposed on a number of occasions in 2017. Lewis Young cannot knock the kid but he certainly found that out thought his debut was excellent at the G.

[chef]

As Libba said they have to trust each other again.

[Eastdog]

As Libba said they have to trust each other again.

Trust the keyword is vital to any successful club or organisation.

[Rocket Science]

After the (presumably) galvanising force of winning a flag together, how does that trust so suddenly come undone?

[S Coast Simon]

Football clubs are still galvanised by family. If one is playing silly buggers then it effects the whole family. They need to trust one another again.

[WBFC4FFC]

Sweep the Shed

http://pics.hawkeyesports.com/Legacy%20-%20James%20Kerr.pdf

Coincidentally I printed this off on Friday after hearing a number of people claim it is a good book. Had a quick flick and it seems to quote other leadership books too, so it looks like it is all-encompassing and not just focusing on the Kiwi's.

Heard Sam Mitchell talk about it the other day and he claims the biggest thing he got from it is that when you are on-top of your game, to have the courage to change it! Did the Bullies do this in 2017?

[Nuggety Back Pocket]

1. Honest review of our season, particular the losses. Identify what went wrong/what worked
2. The outcome of 1. determines THE 2018 GET BACK TO 2016 PROGRAM.

I think these are some of the issues that will be identified.
1. Physical fitness. We faded badly in the 2nd half of some games. Compare Richmond and the 2016 Bulldogs in the GFs. Both teams were manic in their attack on the ball carrier and ran the game out.
2. Game plan. We didn't have the personel to carry it out due to injuries and loss of form/lack of fitness and we had no Plan B because we couldn't afford to play Tom Boyd forward enough and Cloke/Adams/Redpath/Roughie got injured.
3. Our injury toll.
4. Our goal kicking - putrid
5. Our ordinary tackling
6. Our delivery inside 50. We need some midfielders who can hit targets.
7. Team selection/Game day coaching. The MC got it wrong with the selection of English against Sydney. I can't recall many moves being made during games to mix things up a bit.
8. Players state of mind. All have to look in the mirror and be brutally honest with each other. Answer this question: Were you satisfied with one flag?

A great summary. There is also an urgent need to review our off field administration and coaching set up. Richmond has stolen the march on other Clubs in these strategic areas.

[dog town]

The biggest thing we need to do is nail our recruiting and address the needs that suit the way we actually want to play. I didn't think we had a definitive style this year and we may have tinkered with it too much after 2016. You can't just stand still and we needed to continue to develop our style of play but I didn't think we got the right balance. Some of the changes we made and recruiting decisions didn't line up with the strengths of our list and what we had done well.

Bevo has a great feel for game styles and picking where we can get an advantage so I am hoping last year was just a once off. We certainly weren't helped by a few things that were not game style/list management related.

Rule Changes- Third man up rule really hurt us or even having to prepare for that change made us change a few things. Even suggestions from other coaches and officials around our handballing may have spooked us into putting time into other areas.

Player Behaviour- I don't think they were ever saints but our guys definitely over indulged in the off season and even during the season. It is a cut throat competition and those things start having an impact after a while. Once we started losing all those little things that were papered over starting having an impact.

Coaching- I find it hard to question anything Bevo did given his record but did we really need to change/rotate every coaching role last year? It felt a bit over confident to me.

I think 2018 is going to be a fascinating year for the direction the game takes strategically. That is two seasons straight that the premiers have been the team with the most forward pressure. A heavy forward press is nothing new but teams are getting better at playing the territory game and keeping the ball inside their forward 50. I can't wait to see what the coaches do next year. Richmond went even harder in that direction than we did in 2016. The way they cover exits and close space on the ball carrier is frightening. Will the AFL allow this to continue? Personally I enjoy this style of game but I highly doubt the league wants to see the ball pinned at one end with high tackle counts every week.

Will it evolve again? It has every other time a new style has emerged and looked unstoppable. The trick is whether you follow suit with the successful style of the time and do it better (as Richmond did to us) or try to get on the next wave with something different. With the level of pressure Richmond applied ball movement is very difficult so I think most teams will try to follow suit. Teams have a few choices though with moving the ball and we definitely need to work out what our best bet is.

1- Try and blitz through the pressure. This would be stack your back half with elite ball carrying runners and try to smash through the pressure with handball chains. This is high risk and you would have to really commit to it. Some teams do it already in a way I guess but I am suggesting the pressure has gone up another level meaning the speed and precision of ball use needs to go up again to beat it. You are engaging the pressure which can fall into the oppositions trap in a way but if you get through it you have a high chnace of scoring.

2- Keep the ball and don't allow them a chance to close you down. You cant tackle someone who has taken a mark so I believe some teams will try to keep the ball with slow and deliberate use of kicking. Much like Hawthorn of a few years ago but at another level again.

Personally I would prefer to see us stick to what we know and improve it even further than 2016 levels. Win more stoppages, win more contested ball and then pin them in their own half. I feel this is a sustainable style we can get back to relatively easily but whether it can take us deep into September again would defend on how well we execute it. We would need to get better at converting our inside 50s and defending them when we don't convert. Even in the games where we did win the territory battle at a similar level to 2016 we just couldn't convert. Our quality players need to spend more time forward to change that IMO. We will definitely score more on turnover purely by getting our pressure back to its previous levels though.

We put too much pressure on our defenders this year and let the ball out too easily. In the games where we didn't win the territory battle teams cut us open and got the ball to their end too easily. We also struggled to clear it from that situation because teams started sitting on JJ which is why I am shocked we haven't been linked to Saad. In my view our biggest recruiting need of the last 3 years has clearly been ball carriers and we haven't recruited one either by trade or draft. We need to help JJ out in this area.

[Axe Man]

Great write up dog town.

I just came across this stat in regards to forward pressure. Not sure how they measure it but we had 2 of the top 10 forward pressure players in the league that only played 15 games between them due to form and injury. It seems a lot of clubs don't rate forward pressure that highly as quite a few of the top 10 didn't play many games. That may change next season as a response to Richmond's success.

Top 10 forward half pressure players

(Five games or more in 2017)

1. Jake Neade (Port Adelaide) — 7 games

2. Paul Puopolo (Hawthorn) — 15 games

3. Jack Lonie (St Kilda) — 12 games

4. Daniel Rioli (Richmond) — 25 games

5. Clay Smith (Western Bulldogs) — 8 games

6. Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti (Essendon) — 23 games

7. Jeff Garlett (Melbourne) — 21 games

8. Darren Minchington (St Kilda) — 5 games

9. Jed Anderson (North Melbourne) — 5 games

10. Josh Dunkley (Western Bulldogs) — 7 games