Tactical failure

[sem]

My opinion I gave at the footy last weekend re the most impressive team this year was the Bulldogs .

Their game is based on progression of the Hawks game plan.

In packs there are at least 4 players on the outer covering a circle so their player with the ball can effectively handball out to one of them .
This is done with lightning efficiency
With the four players in a circle it makes it difficult for opposition to get the ball out .

In play they are doing the Hawthorn trick of spreading out and using all of the ground to make space for a pass and this is done at speed .

In tight play their players are always running to get open for a pass .

The football is hot so they must get rid of it in an instance so the opposition have less chance to get possession .

There are other aspects of their game plan that are outstanding as well .

At the beginning of the year I mentioned that Collingwood ’s game plan is static .

This is one of many problems with their game plan .

I find that their plan is out dated AND MUST BE UPDATED

SKILL IN MOVING THE BALL TO TARGETS MOVING TO OPEN SPACES IS EASIER

THAN

THE KICKER WAITING AND WAITING THEN KICKING TO STATIC TARGETS THAT ARE MANNED UP BY OPPOSITION PLAYERS WHO HAVE HAD TIME TO GO ONE ON ONE

I have always been a fan of Buckley however now I feel he and his coaches are NOT playing today’s football .

Up until the Bulldogs game we had won many and had 4 “ honourable “ loses .

The Bulldogs and the Demons were then going to be the start of more wins .

Melbourne won by playing the Hawthorn game plan .

So if is good enough for them and the Bulldogs why not adopt it as well with some slight changes that progress that plan

In Soccer at major clubs in Europe they employ people who are experts in tactical play and the tops in their field get paid as much as the coaches some getting +$10mill AUD per year . So their are many successful game plans . At anyone time in Aussie rules there seems to be one “ new “ tactic that all clubs then try to follow as per HAWTHORN. .

CFC players are now tired . In some positions there is no back up in VFL . CFC has more mids than they need . They lack back up Forwards and Backmen . Each week SWAN/ the side Bottom / PENDLES .

Now is the time to start thinking of next year and work out who in the VFL can play AFL Marsch / Karnesis / Abbott and others whose names come up in the best each week .

BUT the game plan must also be updated .

If not then the unthinkable get new coaches , something I thought I would never say .

PROGRESSIVE TACTICS IS THE KEY

[Darkstranger]

Yes at Etihad - Wait till finals time and the MCG and NO tall forwards...you'll get your answer soon.

[RudeBoy]

Up until 3 weeks ago there was nothing wrong with our game plan. The bottom line is we've become more static as we have lost confidence and we appear to have become mentally fatigued.

[GoWoodsmen]

sem, no question there were tactical blunders on Saturday but as Grant Thomas put it, we contributed as much to our loss as Melbourne did to their win. In other words were totally and utterly pathetic with the ball - which has zilch to do with game plan (case in point Fas's kick on the AFL Members wing when he had a man to kick to and dropped it short for an easy intercept mark - that's not tactics... it's crap skills).

Melbourne played well in patches but let's be honest... 14 more inside 50s. If you're getting that much more of the ball inside your forward 50 you have to be doing something right. The fact that we could only get a scoring shot 35% of the time says a lot about where our issues are.

We lost contested possessions. That's not a skill thing per se, it's an attitude thing.

I'm slightly scared that Bucks has now come out and said our list won't mature for another 3 years. We'll be down to 50,000 members if we play too many more games like Saturdays!!

[sem]

GoWoodsmen

You say we lost contested possession and that not a skill thing its an attitude thing .

Well i partly agree /if you play at that level you MUST have the Attitude to to be at 100% BUT tactical NOUSE will put players also in correct positions to better be able to get the ball .

Yes Demons played well they had a better tactical approach than CFC so see what i wrote above re this .

in the end we both want the best for CFC

[Pies4shaw]

As I said last week, the Welfare is, statistically, 50 points better at Docklands than away (the differential is still about the same after they kicked another 127 against the Bumblers there, yesterday). If we'd played them at the MCG (with a forward line) we would have beaten them. At Docklands, it's hopeless.

[3.14159]

[Pies2016]

[sem]

i agree with 3.14159 that hawthorn get the ball out the way they do and they do a lot more and so do most teams ahead CFC on the ladder now.

That further means that the hardest thing to teach is tactical advantage .

So great teams with great coaches can better their performance by developing tactics that match their abilities . CFC does not .

A tactician is there to develop a game plan for the cattle you have .

One step i would take is not play players who are young and not ready and there have been a few , let them serve time in VFL and get good in VFL for the rest of the year .

Another is use WILLIAMS as a mid as well as VARCOE .
Imagine the two of them getting into a pack trying to get a ball out .
They have no fear and tackle and run hard .

i will never have any doubts about SWAN and last week he was one of the best again BUT he has an ability to kick a goal and i would put him in the forward line .
He has worked his Butt off for CFC now let the others do his work and he will kick 2 or 3 every week . We need him forever .

[Hiss]

Our game plan is deliberately developmental. For goodness sake when will you people listen to Bucks and the professional experts at our Club that are paid to do a job. They do not need armchair experts telling them that we are tactically inferior to Footscray. Totally different concepts. You can't compare Donkey's to Thoroughbreds. Then bitch about why the Donkey doesn't win a Melbourne Cup.

Now I am not saying we are Donkey's, far from it. What I am saying is we need to have faith in Bucks and the team. They will deliver.

If you are unhappy then stop buying your membership. We need loyal fans, not ones who constantly undermine the great Coach we are very lucky to have.

[Bob Sugar]

[Hiss]

[sixpoints]

The OP cites the Bulldogs as the most impressive team of 2015. I tend to agree.
But to start 2015 the Bulldogs had;
- sacked their coach Brendan McCartney
- appointed a coach who was untried at senior coaching in Luke Beveridge
- had their captain Ryan Griffin walk out to GWS
- traded away a Brownlow Medallist in Adam Cooney
- traded out a pretty decent player in Shaun Higgins
- lost their 2014 Best & Fairest Tom Liberatore for the whole of 2015
Despite what many believed to be a potential train wreck, they have shown you how quickly things can develop when you get total buy in and the development of quality youth kicks in.

[thompsoc]

[Visdom]

The basic elements of football are:

1. Contested ball
2. Retarding opposition possession and movement
3. Effect transition with the ball from the back thru mid and forward

In 2012 Collingwood was still using the Malthouse transition. In recent years the transition plan is not discernible. In 2014 we started kick-in with two back pockets on the boundary line 20 metres from the kicker. This had us two men down in the rest of the ground. Thank god we got ride of this tactic as it demonstrated a lack of understanding of the current game. This year we want to handball through congestion. It worked early. This is not a strategy, it is a simple tactic that is easy to shut down.

Players are too defensively minded. Our boys appear reluctant to run hard off their opponent when we have the ball in case it turns over. Thus, there are limited targets going forward. When there is a target we lack the confidence to hit it. Instead we over possess the ball usually resulting in a turnover much closer to the opposition goals.

The modern game is like chess. Its all about moves and counter moves to open space in a particular part of the ground. This improves a teams ability to successfully transition the ball, improves the quality of inside 50's, improves disposal efficiency, improve scoring opportunities, and allows a team to start the defensive process further away from the opposition's goal.

I admire the players and coaches ability to get the players to commit to contested ball and high tackle numbers. We rely too much on turnovers and stoppages inside forward 50 to score.

Kicking long to marking contest on the wing will not work because Cloke is the only player who can consistently take a contested mark. White, Grundy, and Witts do not take enough contested marks to all play in the same team. Their collection inclusion exposes the team's ground ball and running ability.

We need to create space and run harder in offence to promote more efficient ball movement and scoring opportunities. IF we need to use a small forward line from time to time we need to hit up short kicks) or even deliver ground balls (radical tactic - like NRL last tackle) to upset opposition defensive setups. We have recruited all these short asses. We need to use them to our advantage when they are in the same team.

Buckley says aim for perfection and settle for excellence. Ignoring offensive transition makes a joke of this motto. When your visiting your mother in law in Rowville Bucks, drop into Waverley Park and watch Hawthorn train. Their ability to open space with simple rules has made it easier for their players to make decisions under pressure and move the ball with less risk. This is a difficult games style to defeat. Under this game plan, if you win the contested ball you win the game.

Our football operations department have a lot of work to do. This takes a season or more to perfect so we need to get going.

Perfection, you have got to be joking. Don't blame the players, they are working bloody hard. I think we need new assistant coaches to bring new ideas to the club.