The starting 4.

[Twodogs]

Did anyone else notice how often we chopped and changed our starting four in the centre? I reckon we didnt have the same four at any bounce-last year you could bet for 99% of them that West and Cross would have been in them but yesterday I reckon that Cross started on the wing for almost every bounce and West spent very little time in there.


Great versatilty by the players and coaching staff.

[Dry Rot]

Did anyone else notice how often we chopped and changed our starting four in the centre? I reckon we didnt have the same four at any bounce-last year you could bet for 99% of them that West and Cross would have been in them but yesterday I reckon that Cross started on the wing for almost every bounce and West spent very little time in there.


Great versatilty by the players and coaching staff.

I think you have a deep but unconscious love of Wayne Campbell....... ;)

[bornadog]

I think you have a deep but unconscious love of Wayne Campbell....... ;)

I noticed Wayne didn't dare show up to the family day.

[mjp]

Did anyone else notice how often we chopped and changed our starting four in the centre? I reckon we didnt have the same four at any bounce-last year you could bet for 99% of them that West and Cross would have been in them but yesterday I reckon that Cross started on the wing for almost every bounce and West spent very little time in there.


Great versatilty by the players and coaching staff.


Yeah. Agree. Noticed in particular that Boyd and Cross often rotated after the bounce...interesting, as I would have thought that would have been one of Crossy's strengths. Obviously not.

[southerncross]

I know it is only one game but is anyone prepared to say that we have improved in the stoppages area? I thought we were great at the stoppages and contested situations. The game against the Crows will be a big test though because this is one of their strengths as well.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Am I right in thinking that Scott West started of half-back a bit and then ran into the square after the bounce?

[Go_Dogs]

Good tactic I think, if we have the depth and skill to pull it off. Probably releases West from such a hard tag, and allows us to have a greater number of players contesting the ball around the stoppages and congested situations. It was interesting to see how often we switched it up - it was possibly just doing some testing at the start of the season and seeing which combinations look good in the heat of the battle. Sure is a lot of possible combinations Eade could use this year.

[Cyberdoggie]

I know it is only one game but is anyone prepared to say that we have improved in the stoppages area? I thought we were great at the stoppages and contested situations. The game against the Crows will be a big test though because this is one of their strengths as well.


Yeah good call,

i thought we were a hell of a lot better but it was mostly down to one man, "big willy minson"
His workrate was sensational, even if the hitout wasn't clean he was often at the bottom of a pack fighting for the ball. A lot of that stuff goes unseen, especially with all the other flashy players we have. In my opinion i thought it was probably will best game ever.
He never looked tired and rucked for probably 2/3's of the game, also spent time in the defensive corridor and looked remarkably fitter than he ever has been. Gone are the days when he'd be hunched over with his hands on his kness before every ruck contest.
Sure he doesn't have darcy's sublime skill and positioning but he makes up for it in endeavour. If darcy is akin to a rapier, then minson is your meat cleaver!

Granted he wasn't up against much in the geelong rucks.

Your right we'll need a similar effort against the crows this week.

[LostDoggy]

I noticed Wayne didn't dare show up to the family day.

Don't worry.
I'm sure my old man has bitten his ear off at training by now.

[Bulldog Revolution]

I know it is only one game but is anyone prepared to say that we have improved in the stoppages area? I thought we were great at the stoppages and contested situations. The game against the Crows will be a big test though because this is one of their strengths as well.

We really needed to improve. I think in a lot of games we won last year we only just broke even, it was more our ability to use the ball that hurt teams, not our ability to win that much of it for ourselves at stoppages. There were some games IMO where we lost the stoppages but still won the game.

Obviously before that (the Rohde era) it was very well documented that if West didn't get it out of the stoppage nobody did.

I think our work at the stoppages was another positive sign about our developing hardness

[alwaysadog]

I need to think a lot more about the various issues raised in this thread but it is already apparent that Wayno is trying to make it difficult to predict where our two best ball winners will line up.

In a way he is just extending the Eade theme of never be predictable in different ways.

I had my issues with Wayno, but a mad Tiger supporting colleague says he is really smart about his football. He talked to the TopDogs before the game on Sunday and made very good sense and showed no ego.

Some may recall that I gave his arrival what might generously be described as a thumbs down. I may have been just a bit hasty.

Yes DR humble pie for me too in the near future I suspect.

[alwaysadog]

I think you have a deep but unconscious love of Wayne Campbell....... ;)

A very cryptic post; would you like top divulge which red might have fuelled such enigmatic thinking?

[Go_Dogs]

Which players does everyone feel have been our most effective so far this season? Obviously the clearances are causing us a few difficulties still.

[LostDoggy]

Which players does everyone feel have been our most effective so far this season? Obviously the clearances are causing us a few difficulties still.

I'm assuming you mean in the midfield? If so no surprise really but Cross, West, Cooney and Boyd.There are a number of others that play a good role rotating through there.

[Bulldog Revolution]

The big problem against Adelaide was the inability to generate any drive out of the starting centre 4 - clearly we are rotating a lot and I dont really have an issue with that, but we were hopeless out of the middle against the Crows. Boyd, Higgins, West, Cross, Cooney, Johnson, McMahon, Griffen, Giansiracusa, Darcy and Minson all spent times in the centre square. Our ruckman had little influence and we got very few quick breaks either from the centre or from half back, which meant that we rarely got the ball into our forwards to their advantage.

The centre square just seems so critical to our game, given our inability to bomb it in to giant key position players.

[bornadog]

Our ruckman had little influence and we got very few quick breaks either from the centre or from half back, which meant that we rarely got the ball into our forwards to their advantage.
.

Statistics can also be misleading, the ruck duals were even on the night as were the centre clearnances. We had more inside 50's than the Crows, but obviousley didn't deliver the ball to some one in a position to have a shot as often as the Crows.

[Go_Dogs]

Centre clearances were even? I think perhaps the quantity may have been (I still don't really believe that, but it could be the case), however the quality scales were tilted very far in teh Crows favor. Our centre clearance involves someone like Cross just throwing it on the boot and the ball going nowhere fast. We need to be effective and efficient with the ball movement out of the centre square if we are going to have much hope.

[Bulldog Revolution]

Statistics can also be misleading, the ruck duals were even on the night as were the centre clearnances. We had more inside 50's than the Crows, but obviousley didn't deliver the ball to some one in a position to have a shot as often as the Crows.

It doesn't surprise me that we were even, I dont think either team got particularly good centre breaks, but it didn't seem to matter as much to adelaide, they were able to manufacture forward movements from half back etc in a way that hurt us.

I felt that the Crows neutralised and nullified our game out of the middle so that when we did clear it wasn't an attacking dynamic clearance where we had a chain of handballs setting up for a shot on goal or a pass to a forward target.

Too often when we did get it out they completely slowed us up and stopped us in our tracks and then we didn't seem to have a plan B.

[alwaysadog]

Really good thread and plenty of insightful analysis.

Stats as we know don't tell all, especially when it comes to comparing wasteful and efficient use of the ball. Don't need to tell you which team fitted which of these categoies last week.

Adelaide played our game and stopped us from doing so. Not sure if this week's changes help to overcome the problem but they add a bit more desperation.

[bornadog]

Really good thread and plenty of insightful analysis.

Stats as we know don't tell all, especially when it comes to comparing wasteful and efficient use of the ball. Don't need to tell you which team fitted which of these categoies last week.

Adelaide played our game and stopped us from doing so. Not sure if this week's changes help to overcome the problem but they add a bit more desperation.

Another interesting Stat, was the tackles. We had 62 to Adelaides 37, but very little reward as the free kicks were even. In my opinion the umpires let too much go, and its a fact the holding the ball rule was relaxed this week.