My suggestion to the Coaching staff

[LostDoggy]

Eade persists with the Midget forward line plus a ruckman. Now given Minson spends a 15% of the time up forward its basically a midget system that frankly does not work. It falls over time and again in big games. We have talls but as so many Bulldogs supporters will tell there not ready or there not good enough. They all tow the Eade line on this thinking which is bull. They should be looking at the Malthouse thinking and have a look at his team setup and structure. Look at there forwards. Leigh Brown, Cloke, and Anthony. Now surely we could have put in our team Skipper, Grant, and say Everrit to provide some structure up forward and game plan B. Brown is a total spud. Cloke is a ruck who hardly does anything and Anthony is a genuine forward still learning the game so he is up and down. Surely we could get some similar output from our guys allowing our smalls to do some damage even if they are only decoys for the tall backs allowing Higgins, Murphy and Johnson to do there job.

Thats the suggestion. Any structure is better than no structure.

[bulldogtragic]

Whose the number one scoring tem in the AFL?
Whose the baddest decent team in the AFL for defence?
Whose the cat who wont cope out, when there's danger all about?

Shaft! Right on.

Sorry, Doggies! Right on. Our forward line isn't the biggest issue at the moment, it's our defencive pressure and seeming inability to pressure the opposition when we don't have the pill. If we reduce or goal scoring power for the sake of having talls, then we create a new headache. This is like recruiting talls for the sake of it. Bartlett, Jackovich, Street, Skipper, Wight, Rawlings, Cook, Bandy. This is ludicrous, everyone wants eagle out becuae his skills aren't sufficient, yet this theory is predicated on playing players without sufficient skill.

It's safe to say i really do not agree.

[LostDoggy]

Whose the number one scoring tem in the AFL?
Whose the baddest decent team in the AFL for defence?
Whose the cat who wont cope out, when there's danger all about?

Shaft! Right on.

Sorry, Doggies! Right on. Our forward line isn't the biggest issue at the moment, it's our defencive pressure and seeming inability to pressure the opposition when we don't have the pill. If we reduce or goal scoring power for the sake of having talls, then we create a new headache. This is like recruiting talls for the sake of it. Bartlett, Jackovich, Street, Skipper, Wight, Rawlings, Cook, Bandy. This is ludicrous, everyone wants eagle out becuae his skills aren't sufficient, yet this theory is predicated on playing players without sufficient skill.

It's safe to say i really do not agree.

How many inside Fifties was it last week. How many inside fifties was it against the Saints, Geelong, Collingwood etc. The stats prove that against good opposition where our delivery is not the best Our forward line is disfunctional at best. Sure we smash muppet sides but when the one outstanding stat for me is the opposition taking more contested marks in side your forward fifty than yourself its time to change. You can argue the high scoring point all you want but facts are it does not stand up under pressure in real games against real teams. You can't argue with that fact.

[Ozza]

I have to say - as much as we hear about the Dogs being such a high scoring team, we simply don't get much out of our Inside 50s against the best sides. We turn the ball over by heading into a forward line that loses its structure under increased pressure.

Its often said that 'the way to beat the bulldogs is to expose them with your key forwards' - but I think that is rubbish. We have a very good record against Brisbane with their 'twin towers' and we will beat them this week because they lack a bit of quality in defence.

[bulldogtragic]

How many inside Fifties was it last week. How many inside fifties was it against the Saints, Geelong, Collingwood etc. The stats prove that against good opposition where our delivery is not the best Our forward line is disfunctional at best. Sure we smash muppet sides but when the one outstanding stat for me is the opposition taking more contested marks in side your forward fifty than yourself its time to change. You can argue the high scoring point all you want but facts are it does not stand up under pressure in real games against real teams. You can't argue with that fact.
Where do i begin. You ask how many 50's last week and then say the stats prove against good opposition delivery is dysfunctional. Firstly, WCE weren't 'good' when compared to Geelong or the Saints. And we had 14 shots on goal before we actually kicked a goal last week, hardly dysfunctional, inaccurate yes, but 14 shots ain't dysfunctional. So we created 14 chances for goal when playing very poorly! That doesn't help your argument... Also had Johno kicked the goal after the siren or had we not kicked 4 posters, would be suggesting that we are crap against Geelong, probably not. As a team we played poorly against the Saints both times, but at 3/4 quarter time, we could still have won it if good enough. Collingwood, take out the first quarter, and their many arsey goals, and we give them a good clip. There is a trend and it's not the height of forwards.

The recurring theme is the inability to start the game off well and put 4 quarters together. That is the reason we have lost all the games you mention. Not forward strcuture. I agree things need to change and that's why i adovacate getting Barry Hall next year. But you fail to mention we shashed last years premiers by nearly 100 points and the a top 8 team in Darwin by nearly 100 points - when we played 4 quarters. It might well do to focus on starting games better and playing 4 quarters rather than playing lowly skilled talls because they are tall.

I agree we need some structure, but we ain't got the cattle. It would be season suicide to dump our forwards for underperforming tall players on the list. Suicide i tells ya.

[ledge]

Clog up our forward line and we stop and then hesitate, clubs beat us by clogging us up from just outside 50 and we are stuffed because we dont have a Brown crashing strong marking type, Minson crashes then drops the ball, closest i see to our marking forward in packs is Brian Lake.

[Ozza]

BTW - very amusing Shaft reference BT....I laughed.

[bulldogtragic]

BTW - very amusing Shaft reference BT....I laughed.
It just came out when i was typing it,m and now i've been singing it for 30 minutes, much to the annoyance of those around me. Not enough cultural references to the Shaft these days :)

[LostDoggy]

Clog up our forward line and we stop and then hesitate, clubs beat us by clogging us up from just outside 50 and we are stuffed because we dont have a Brown crashing strong marking type, Minson crashes then drops the ball, closest i see to our marking forward in packs is Brian Lake.

Exactly my point the game plan against us now is to simply clog upour space down back which cuts of the leads. Zone your tall backs across the back line who take mark after mark cutting of our forward thrust time and again. I know these talls are average at best but so is a Brown for Collingwood. What he does do though is make the talls accountable and he at-least contests the ball in the air. I am sure if we setup this way that it wouldn't be hard to ensure a few more players were at the feet of these big guys creating some opportunities for our smaller boys. Surely having Aker, Higgins and Johno at the bottom of these backs in case of spillage would only increase our chances of scoring in games where these tactics are used. We have all seen Welsh used as a decoy in games but if there was two more tall forwards surely this wall cover most teams marking back man and cut of a form of offence now used againt us.

[GVGjr]

Eade persists with the Midget forward line plus a ruckman. Now given Minson spends a 15% of the time up forward its basically a midget system that frankly does not work. It falls over time and again in big games. We have talls but as so many Bulldogs supporters will tell there not ready or there not good enough. They all tow the Eade line on this thinking which is bull. They should be looking at the Malthouse thinking and have a look at his team setup and structure. Look at there forwards. Leigh Brown, Cloke, and Anthony. Now surely we could have put in our team Skipper, Grant, and say Everrit to provide some structure up forward and game plan B. Brown is a total spud. Cloke is a ruck who hardly does anything and Anthony is a genuine forward still learning the game so he is up and down. Surely we could get some similar output from our guys allowing our smalls to do some damage even if they are only decoys for the tall backs allowing Higgins, Murphy and Johnson to do there job.

Thats the suggestion. Any structure is better than no structure.

So if I am reading this right you are suggesting that:

Skipper, who hasn't been used as a forward for Williamstown all year except for the occasional 10 minute spell.
Grant, who doesn't have the fitness to play more than about 15 mins per quarter
Everitt, who also hasn't spent any real time up forward

Will turn things around?

By all means, we could add Everitt or perhaps Grant but not all 3.

[LostDoggy]

So if I am reading this right you are suggesting that:

Skipper, who hasn't been used as a forward for Williamstown all year except for the occasional 10 minute spell.
Grant, who doesn't have the fitness to play more than about 15 mins per quarter
Everitt, who also hasn't spent any real time up forward

Will turn things around?

By all means, we could add Everitt or perhaps Grant but not all 3.

Ok how about Tiller, Wight, and Lake. Does not matter the personal its the structure and stopping the key backs dominating I am concerned about. Our game plan is wanting at the moment. Even the Eagle's exploit our small forwards these days. I know another poster says we kicked a lot of points agaist the Eagle's and we could have easily won but watch the replay on where those point were kicked from. We were pushed to the boundary. Forced to kick quickly under pressure and forced to kick long shots due to no options. In isolation it was only one game but the same thing happened against the Saints and Collingwood who employ similar tactics to those of Westcoast.

Taking the personal of who plays out of it for a moment because thats another thread onto itself. I say three talls are needed to stop the exploytation of the smaller forwards because we can't leave a floating tall just picking of the long kicks. They need to all be accountable. If its only one tall then they put there third tall on him and the second tall on say Welsh and the best back similar to Lake just floats around having a good old time taking mark after mark.

[bulldogtragic]

I'm giving up on this thread, but my parting words are this is possibly the most stupidist illogical thread i've ever come across, including 'Doogs Droogs' and the 'Tommy Gun' thread (BF).

[Dry Rot]

I have to say - as much as we hear about the Dogs being such a high scoring team, we simply don't get much out of our Inside 50s against the best sides.

Agreed - whatever works against lesser sides, doesn't against the best ones.

[boydogs]

+1 for keeping structure down there

Our forwards get drawn up the field too easily, and the stay at homes we do play are not contested marking players. Brad Johnson, Scott Welsh, Mitch Hahn and possibly Minson are better options than Skipper, Grant and Everitt or Hill, Addison and Stack from the weekend

[SonofScray]

Tiller showed a bit when he was forward at one stage. He has been better down back I think but we should look at him as a swing player. If he ever gets another go.

[Go_Dogs]

Tiller showed a bit when he was forward at one stage. He has been better down back I think but we should look at him as a swing player. If he ever gets another go.

Hopefully he is now over his groin issues and can start getting a few games at Willi under his belt. I think he would have played a lot more football - especially over the past few weeks - if he hadn't been injured.