On the day - the change of game-plan at half time.

[mjp]

Disappointing day/night/whatever you want to call it.

Watching at the ground we very noticeably changed our plan at the start of the 3rd q.

Throughout the first half, we played a 'skinny side' game. Players were 'on' for the switch but NOPE - down the line, down the line, make it a s&!@ fight, make it a contest...it was seriously WEIRD. We had players 'out' in the corridor/on the fat side...we just wouldn't switch it. We persisted with kicking it down the line regardless of whether Gawn was there or whatever...it was frustrating but it was compressing the game.

Almost immediately after the break we started swinging the footy around the field. It cost us one goal early when one Cordy switch 'found' it's target...but it was a poor kick and cost us 10-15m in field position and we were pinned DTL anyway (I think this led to a poor skill error by Bailey Smith but, let's face it, all the errors are blurring into one right now). Anyway, it was a significant change in intent and in mindset. We got a couple of entries out of it but no real scores - and then Melbourne sent Jackson into CBD, we got caught inside every contest and, well, 10-goals in a row later...

I'm prob not going to watch the replay. Was this 'Down the Line' ==> 'Switch the footy' change in approach obvious on the broadcast or was it a real 'you had to be there' type thing?

[bulldogsthru&thru]

Couldn’t tell anything with the broadcast being zoomed in on the player with the ball at all times. I hate it. So much more frustrating.

[The bulldog tragician]

It was hard to tell on tv, extremely frustrating. Some questions mjp you might answer:
If we changed tack, do you think it was because we thought it was now time to flick a switch and go all out assault given we were dominant?
How did we use Bailey Smith? I thought we had Roarke as a defensive mid on Langdon. Hunter did not have a lot of impact. Was Bailey stranded & out of the play? Stats say he got 26, didn’t feel like it.
What did we do about Christian Salem? Was JJ supposedly doing a shutdown?
And.. you made interesting points re our midfield setup. Would this be on the players to address on the spot? Why did we get this so horribly wrong?

[boydogs]

Didnt notice what you're pointing out, just looked like we got tired, our intensity dropped and we stopped running. Your recollection doesn't seem accurate as we kicked the first 2 of the 3rd

[mjp]

Didnt notice what you're pointing out, just looked like we got tired, our intensity dropped and we stopped running. Your recollection doesn't seem accurate as we kicked the first 2 of the 3rd


Generally switching the play is a good thing...us kicking goals is a good thing and I’m referring to a deliberate and intentional switch to a more attacking mindset not an inability to score goals,

[jeemak]

Generally switching the play is a good thing...us kicking goals is a good thing and I’m referring to a deliberate and intentional switch to a more attacking mindset not an inability to score goals,

Hey MJP, what really stood out from the coverage during general play was there seemed to be Melbourne players just that little bit on the inside almost one step ahead/ forward of the line of the ball sweating on their mids to create a turnover and dish to them with forward rather than backward hands. This worked for them really well in the first twenty minutes of the game, and then again after about ten to fifteen in the third.

When it didn't seem to happen, again from the coverage, was when we used the ball a bit better and didn't hand it over as easily. But I guess from what you saw at the game this may not have been a matter of whether we were trying to go skinny or fat, so was that effectiveness when it was effective a result of those players just trusting their congestion players to force a skill error from us?

At the ground, did it seem that between the lines we were a bit slow to respond to a change in possession and were exposed because of it? If so, why?

[Mofra]

TBH I thought the lack of switch was more pronounced from the first quarter to the second.

In the first H&A game Brayshaw sat off and cut off the switch, forcing us to go down the line and it killed us. It's exactly what they did in the first quarter, which also forced out F50 entries shallow and were easy to defend. I thought we switched it a few times in the second quarter which allowed us to run the ball, which meant out F50 entries were deeper and more effective.

It was an arm-wrestle for the first 10 minutes of the 3rd quarter and felt ok after Bont kicked a goal to break that arm-wrestle. Melbourne put Jackson in the ruck and found a way to exploit the 'space' behind the CB contest for Petracca & Oliver to run into, and the game was taken away from us.

The strangest point for me was that our centre square rotation worked better without Liberatore. Treloar going into the middle helped a lot. It's the first time this year that our best midfield rotation didn't include Libba.