Did Rodney Eade outcoach himself today?

[Topdog]

I can't for the life of me understand some of the matchups and positioning of players for the 1st quarter today. Was it a case of Rocket trying to do too much?

The Scott West in the forward line experiment failed badly and it seemed like no one in the centre had a man at all in the 1st quarter.

[southerncross]

I can't for the life of me understand some of the matchups and positioning of players for the 1st quarter today. Was it a case of Rocket trying to do too much?

The Scott West in the forward line experiment failed badly and it seemed like no one in the centre had a man at all in the 1st quarter.

It was a strange set-up and one that cost us the game imo. The extra weeks preparation should have been a bonus for us.

[Mofra]

Yes, and yes.

West is one of the best contested ballwinners going around.
He is short, struggles to mark, and is not a noted goalkicker - his career has been made on putting his head where most players wouldn't dare put their hands.
We have Aker, Higgins Harbrow & Lynch - all excellent crumbers.

So why was West in the forward pocket?

Why wasn't Harris tried forward when he was dragged at the start of the second? We couldn't find an avenue to goal.

Laidley outcoached Eade today. The F50 entries say it all.

[GVGjr]

Just a slight distraction to the thread but Laidley has out coached a few this year. He stitched up Paul Roos several weeks ago with a very good game plan.

[BulldogBelle]

Yes, the match-ups were very perplexing - West up in the forward line, Ray in the centre. I just shook my head in amazement.

Perhaps Eade was trying something different as he knew West would be tagged something chronic.

[Mantis]

Why wasn't Harris tried forward when he was dragged at the start of the second? We couldn't find an avenue to goal.



Harris went up the race at qtr time with the doctor and only returned at the 5min mark of the 2nd qtr. Not sure what the problem was, maybe he had a lobotomy as his brain was clearly not working in the first qtr.

[bornadog]

Just a slight distraction to the thread but Laidley has out coached a few this year. He stitched up Paul Roos several weeks ago with a very good game plan.

When they lined up in the first quarter, Archer was a looseman in defence which threw out our team and the players didn't know who to pick up. Their body language certaintly indicated that. I thought moving Harris after one goal from Petrie was panick stations, unless he was injured as he went up the race holding his hand. Also at quarter time Shaggy had his leg worked on in the huddle, so I think we had a few injury issues in the first quarter.

We also stuffed up the centre square with Cooney and Johnno not knowing who goes in and in fact we gave away a free kick because they changed over when the umpire had already blown the whistle. That resulted in a goal as they took the ball deep into their forward line from the free kick.

Throughout the game during centre bounces, players were every where and the kangaroos seem to have unmanned players on the wings and the players weren't sure who they were picking up.

Chris seemed to be in both the forward line and the backline during the game, so I am not sure if that was planned or he was trying to drag his player up the field.

[dog town]

I dont think Eade really got out coached. He was a little hamstrung by what he had available. He didn't exactly coach a perfect game but alot of our problems didn't come from anything that he did during the game.

He would have started West forward to try and shake the Rawlings tag that was always coming. We actually started with a forward line set up for long and quick entries with plenty of crumbers bunched around 2 tall targets in Grant and Darcy. It looked fairly dangerous to start with but our first 2 crumbs resulted in points and then we lacked the supply. I think West should play forward more often especially on inexperienced taggers but maybe yesterday it was a little bit of a mistake given the quality of Rawlings. It was only a 5 minute period so I dont think it had a huge bearing on the game especially as we won the first centre clearance and West was in not long after that.

Ray started in the centre because he was tagging Brent Harvey. Actually did a pretty good job early.

We always play a loose man. If your going to criticise us for leaving them with one loose when we lose then you need to do it when we win as well.

As I said he didn't coach a perfect game but I dont think his match day tactics had a huge impact.

One thing that I thought was maybe a little stubborn was leaving Aker on the pine for the first 10 of the last. No doubt it was part of the rotation but Aker was on fire and with the match in the balance and all the play at our end he may have been the steady hand needed to make the most of our dominance.

FWIW my opinion as to the reasons we lost are a little different to most. Contrary to the hysteria on bigfooty we were not smashed for the contested ball or in the clearances. We could certainly improve that area but we broke even on all those sort of stats.

1- We were again beaten for run and spreading the opposition. They had 40 or so more uncontested marks and we made many errors coming out of defence because we had no options to kick to. We had no players running into space (Cross is brilliant at this) and as a result we were hesitant with our passing and chose poor options. Our backline had absolutely no rebound in the frst half. In the second half Hargrave started to run and Gilbee spent more time behind the ball and suddenly guys like Mcmahon had players breaking wide into space to kick to which then opened up the rest of the ground. Harris also started to take marks and run the footy.

2- My main concern with Eade is that I dont see alot of evidence that he is teaching the players about positioning around a contest etc. Our side has never struck me as being terribly organised or well drilled. We won just as much contested ball as them but they were so much cleaner and well organised around the packs. We never have anyone at the back of the pack especially when we are under the pump and we dont do the little things like work for each other, protect the ball carrier etc that are such minor things but when they are all stacked together make u a major part of the game.

A good example yesterday was our shepherding. Mcmahon takes off and tries to make something happen with a few bounces. There is not much movement ahead so he keeps going, Addson puts on a block and runs at the chasing opponent bumps him and then lets him keep running. The chaser almost gets Mcmahon and the implied pressure forces a hurried kick and turnover. If you are going to block are basically better stopping on the guy when you make contact with him and making him go around you rather than rushing in and letting you glance off you. Our guys handpass the ball and then thnk he job is done. Very few of them handpass and then protect the guy they have given it to. The players say Eade is a good teacher I just hope he is teaching them the right things. The game hasn't progressed that much that the players dont need to know the basics.

3- Our backline was terrible early. Harris was asleep and had no touch on his opponent, Williams is young and inexperienced and Mcmahon had one of his worst games for a long time. The roos forward line had good supply early but to cough up 7 goals in 15 minutes you have to do alot wrong.

4- We were not composed enough with the ball forward of centre. Cooney was very good yesterday but he blazed away 3 or 4 times as did a number of other players. We wasted way to many forward thrusts with poor decision making and low percentage options. We went with a taller structure for most of the game that was more suited to crumbing but it also gave us a different type of situation up forward and we didn't handle it very well.

Many other reasons and most of them are related to each other but they are the main reasons IMO. We could easily have won that game. We basically dominated the game after the first 15 minutes.

[Mofra]

Harris was injured it has been revealed, so we'll go easy there.

In some ways it shows how improtant Eagleton is to our structure - he may lack soem defensive pressure at time, but no player in teh side is better at making space to received out of the HB line. He plays thw ingman/CHF role by providing an option, so many times we looked up to find a spcae where he'd be.

Gia is also good at making space & did so a number of times, but without Eagle or Murph to give us a link, we were stuffed. Power tried hard but is predictable - leads in a straight line only.

[Barking Dog]

The biggest issue I had with the initial set up of West up forward is that it creates a negative mindset in that we are almost acknowledging that we have to go outside our normal gameplan and try and reinvent the wheel if we are to free Scotty up to have an impact.

Use it as plan B certainly if things are not working but not as Plan A because we were already a couple of class midfielders down so why take our best option out of the action unless he is getting beaten.

Reminded me a lot of Terry Wallace in that he was more reactive to the opposition than making them accountable to our players so IMO he did outcoach himself.

[GVGjr]

Reminded me a lot of Terry Wallace in that he was more reactive to the opposition than making them accountable to our players so IMO he did outcoach himself.

Whilst Wallace was a fantastically innovative coach, he did get led along at times by other coaches and was reluctant to move to plan B quickly.