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Thread: Coaching and Plan B

  1. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by AnnieH View Post
    Kinnear was a special guest last night at the Redback cocktail party. They asked the floor if anyone had any questions, I had a statement... if he ever leaves us, I'll hunt him down and make him regret it!!
    I had a chat with him when he came off the stage. I told him that if a club really wants to be as successful as we are, they need to recruit Kinnear. He almost had tears in his eyes and he said that he really appreciated hearing that, it meant a lot to him.
    He told me the best news... he's signed on for another three years!!!
    L.E.G.E.N.D.
    Well said Annie. I love Kinnear. I say that without any reservation. He is a legend!

  2. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by stevoswan View Post
    Looks like Macca may miss all the pre season games and the first official round...... Veteran Swan closes in on unwanted four-peat - AFL.com.au An end of season masterstroke (McVeigh's extension) now looking a bit shaky......but I'm sure he'll be ok.
    Annoying that we get this news via AFL site, but no updates on Swans' site. Last injury report on Swans' site is from August last year.

  3. #75
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    Quote Originally Posted by wolftone57 View Post
    Plan A, Plan B, Plan C. Plan C who invented that? OOps. Just being being factious. Coaches have a game plan or two separate game plans sometimes. But the strategies used in those plans depend on the opposition. The basic plan stays the same but they tweak moves due to opposition moves. for instance a match up that isn't working can be changed quickly. But if the structure is wrong and you don't have the right personnel then there are deep problems that are not easily fixed or are impossible to fix. In last year's final against the Cats we simply didn't have the right personnel to combat their game plan. They also changed their game plan and personnel for that game. Our coaching staff should have been prepared for any eventuality but they weren't. They basically lost us the game at the selection table. I just wonder what sort of difference the selection of Aliir an possibly one other could have made. Even one player can make a difference when it comes to balance. we went in with a highly unbalanced line up.

    What I noticed during the dreadful X and the first practice match were the trying of different tactics. some worked and some were abject failures. Our second quarter demise was as much to do with stoppage tactics as it was to do with the huge wind that was in play. Those stoppage tactics were just not working and we were being opened up. Many of the tactics used in the practice match will need tweaking, that is why you play practice matches. But unfortunately we still manage to play a lot of the game in our defensive half which is very draining on the players. We need to attack more. When we attack we need to stop just popping the ball on the head of our talls. Many leads were ignored and instead we bombed long. In the first quarter we played some good footy but still insisted on bottling the ball up for long periods. This is not the way to beat sides. We need to create a game that runs the ball quickly.

    I am also worried about some of the player's disposal. I am sure this will improve as time goes on but several players are bothering me on this front. Harry for instance did not deliver well in X and he continued on in the practice match in much the same fashion. One of his major weapons for us was his ability to burst out of play and kick really long direct perfect passes to forwards. He needs to regain this ability very soon or he will be superfluous. Other will pass him by. This is only a small sample I know and we don't take the pre-season as a serious game. I don't give a rat's arse who wins this crap as it is only for trying stuff but our players need to be in good or better disposal effectiveness. This is the reason we have recruited Hewett, Florent, Lloyd, Cunningham, Hayward, Newman, Dawson, Heeney, Mills, Papley, Ling, Cameron, Maibaum, Stoddart, Bell, Fox, Melican, Amarty & Ronke. All these players have the ability to hit up targets short, medium or long distance. Even Sinclair is a pretty good field kick.

    The old days of kick and miss or kick in hope must be just that, the old days and should be left in the past. We need to develop a very different, more attacking game. Our game has been built on scrimmage, extract, run, maybe deliver. It has to be about stoppage, extract, run, deliver. Our forward set up needs to be more flexible. We need to look at more options coming in than Franklin, Reid and Sinclair. when we use the free players these talls create we kick really big scores. When we don't we stagnate. With so many players who deliver the ball well coming into the squad, I think we need a far better forward structure accept the delivery. Players need to be able to lead up at the ball or turn back and lead back. They need to create space. that happens through spreading the talls. By this I mean the talls don't all go to one side of the ground or clog up the centre. I mean spread, everyone spread, some back nearer goad , some closer to the centre between CHF & centre. This allows at least one leading player to be able to complete the lead and get on the end of a pass. I saw a few examples of this in the practice match and the X but of course X doesn't really count.

    Who will get the nod for the pre-season comp? I feel that Towers is in our side for first game so why not leave him, Parks, Joey, maybe Buddy and a few others out of the first game. Then play them in the second to get them match ready for the first match.
    I think that any team with Buddy in the forward line will default to him more times than not. I think that the only option that Clarkson had was to remove Buddy from the forward line and bring him up the ground - in that way the mids dont look for him every time. It worked well for the Hawks in Buddy's last season, so would it be a good move for us?

  4. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by Dosser View Post
    I think that any team with Buddy in the forward line will default to him more times than not. I think that the only option that Clarkson had was to remove Buddy from the forward line and bring him up the ground - in that way the mids dont look for him every time. It worked well for the Hawks in Buddy's last season, so would it be a good move for us?
    I agree. At his best up the ground on the wings, pulling a KPD out of the circle. Rohan as key forward with Sinclair when resting, Reid at CHF. Papley and Hayward sniffing around, Jack and Hewitt floating forward, with McCartin sweating on a place.

  5. #77
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dosser View Post
    I think that any team with Buddy in the forward line will default to him more times than not. I think that the only option that Clarkson had was to remove Buddy from the forward line and bring him up the ground - in that way the mids dont look for him every time. It worked well for the Hawks in Buddy's last season, so would it be a good move for us?
    Clarkson had a pretty good idea that Buddy was leaving so maybe he was just trying to make the team transition into being less reliant on him. Longmire knows he's stuck with Buddy for (at least) the next five seasons.

    More seriously, he's by far our greatest asset in the forward line. Sure, the way the team sometimes looks for him when there are players in better positions can be frustrating, but it's something they seem to do in phases, rather than consistently. There have been plenty of games where other players have kicked the majority of the goals but Buddy has still been one of the most effective players on the ground. I don't see the point in trying to under utilise the team's best asset just for the sake of it. I think the team just needs to avoid that sometimes habit of focussing on him too much. As we get better, more consistent options in our forward line, we should expect this to improve. Reid is certainly a mature player but was absent for all of 2016. Tippett has been on and off for most of his time in Sydney (and is now permanently off). Sinclair showed some real signs of improvement last year, albeit there was a big gap between his best and worst, and I wonder whether he'll ever be effective against the teams with really good defences. And it remains to be seen whether the coaches will go with a tall set-up including Sinclair and Reid in addition to Buddy.

  6. #78
    It just happened
    Can u believe what u saw today

    We played uncontested short kicks

    Nice plan B in attack when needed

  7. #79
    Article about our tweaked game plan: Slicker ball movement the key in 2018: Hannebery - sydneyswans.com.au. Doesn't give much away.

    It makes sense for us to play faster - with the concomitant risk of losing possession - because we pride ourselves on contested footy (still) and, if we do lose control of the pill momentarily, we have to back ourselves to get it back. Also we have so many weapons up forward these days (Buddy, Rohan, Hayward, Reid, Papley) that that justifies playing greater risk for greater reward, as well as trusting ourselves defensively.

  8. #80
    In the past couple of weeks there have been various comments made about our coaches and coaching, not all of them positive. I'd like to collect a few thoughts I've had:

    * complaints are often made that we just 'bomb it in long'. This used to be something that frustrated me. These days, not so much. And for a variety of reasons. First, do we really do this much more than other teams? I don't know. Second, particularly over the past year there has been a lot of emphasis on moving the ball quickly. When we kick inside 50, 'on top of someone's head', we are not expecting them to mark it. We just want to bring the ball to ground and then follow up with lots of pressure and, hopefully, repeat entries leading to a score. Therefore, just because we aren't kicking to a leading forward's advantage when we go inside 50 doesn't mean it is a dud outcome or bad coaching. Maintaining control of the footy is difficult and it is better if we are fighting for it in our forward 50 rather than in our back half. These thoughts were reinforced when, today, I found this article about Richmond's style: The numbers behind the simplicity of Richmond�s revolution . Richmond apparently have the least disposals of any team AND they have one of the lowest kick to handball ratios. Despite this they are #1 for inside 50s and also #1 on the ladder, as well as being the reigning premiers. This simple, direct, 'bomb it long' approach seems to be working for them. So I no longer dismiss the value of just bombing the ball long.

    * Our loss against Adelaide was disappointing. In particular it was the midfield that let us down. I can't tell if that was due to the players or coaches or what. However, rather than leaping to conclude Horse is past his use-by date, it rather made me think that it's possibly taking all our new assistant coaches a bit of time to jell and we are missing Stuey Dew. (Despite this, I am glad that Dew has progressed to a senior coaching position and we have introduced new blood. I felt this was more what we needed than replacing Longmire.) Not sure if others have thoughts about this? My other thought is just that one that gets trotted out quite often: it's hard to play at maximum intensity every week. Probably we were a tiny bit complacent against an undermanned Crows team that came to play.

    * Watching the Cats game on the weekend, I was listening to Channel 7 commentary. Their take on the game appeared to be as follows: after the first quarter the Cats structured up differently and, because they were getting beaten up around the ball, they took someone from their front half and played them on the ball. We failed to respond for two quarters, and we stopped scoring. The commentators kept saying that we should react by manning the Cats up across the ground. Finally, when the tide of the game changed, the commentators claimed this is exactly what we did. From there we blitzed the Cats scoring something like 7 of the last 8 goals. I couldn't tell if the commentators were right in this analysis and, sadly, none of them asked either of the coaches about it despite Channel 7 having reporters at the press conferences. Assuming the commentators were right, this was a rare bit of insightful commentary! Why don't they do this more often? More to the point, if it was that simple, why didn't we react sooner? Something else I read suggested that the Cats had just spent their petrol tickets and were out on their feet in the last quarter and it had nothing to do with structures. What gives?

    * To the extent our playing style is changing (we remain, at core, a contested footy team) it seems to me this is at least as much due to our changing list and all the new quick and skilful talent we have brought into the club as to changes in coaching style.

    What do others have to say about the coaches? Are they going ok? Or do we have a bunch of lemons in the box?

  9. #81
    * Incidentally, I do think we were too Buddy-centric against the Crows (why did we continue to kick to him when he was double and triple teamed?@!) but in general I'm not so sure.

  10. #82
    As I posted on another thread, I noticed how excited the 3 assistants were at the end of the Geelong game, and how they mobbed the players on the ground. It pointed (IMHO) to their collective belief that their coaching input had had a major effect to the turn-around for the 4th quarter.

    I may be quite wrong, and Longmire was equally ecstatic as the players came back to the rooms.

  11. #83
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    Quote Originally Posted by bloodspirit View Post

    * Watching the Cats game on the weekend, I was listening to Channel 7 commentary. Their take on the game appeared to be as follows: after the first quarter the Cats structured up differently and, because they were getting beaten up around the ball, they took someone from their front half and played them on the ball. We failed to respond for two quarters, and we stopped scoring. The commentators kept saying that we should react by manning the Cats up across the ground. Finally, when the tide of the game changed, the commentators claimed this is exactly what we did. From there we blitzed the Cats scoring something like 7 of the last 8 goals. I couldn't tell if the commentators were right in this analysis and, sadly, none of them asked either of the coaches about it despite Channel 7 having reporters at the press conferences. Assuming the commentators were right, this was a rare bit of insightful commentary! Why don't they do this more often? More to the point, if it was that simple, why didn't we react sooner? Something else I read suggested that the Cats had just spent their petrol tickets and were out on their feet in the last quarter and it had nothing to do with structures. What gives?



    What do others have to say about the coaches? Are they going ok? Or do we have a bunch of lemons in the box?
    In his press conference after the game Longmire was asked about this and in his usual way suggested that you can try things from the coaches box but for a number of reasons it doesn't always happen on the ground. He doesn't blame the players. He also mentioned that some of the kicks weren't coming off as sweetly in the 3rd quarter and that turned around in the last. Might I also suggest that we had a number of inexperienced players on the ground which can make it tricky to get messages translated as quickly. I also don't think that the major change in the last quarter was what the commentators asked for, it was more that our captain & Hewitt took hold of the clearances.

  12. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by baskin View Post
    I also don't think that the major change in the last quarter was what the commentators asked for, it was more that our captain & Hewitt took hold of the clearances.
    Precisely. And if you listen to the commentary in the final quarter, you can hear them commenting on it (though not necessarily drawing the necessary conclusions). They start the quarter by commenting that the Swans have evened up numbers in their forward line to counter the "extra" defender that the Cats had back in the middle quarters. But it's not very long into the quarter when you hear them observe that the Cats have sent another defender back, implying that they again have an extra back there. Yet the pattern continues of the Swans winning clearances and scoring goals.

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