SuperCoach Buckley

[The Boy Who Cried Wolf]

^^^ rubbish

[Johnno75]

Can’t keep using injuries as excuses year on year. Richmond had significant injuries and they are going fine now. Injuries expose your depth or more importantly how good players 20-40 are on your list. Ours has been exposed. Reason we made GF in 2018 is because we had above average performance from players outside top 10. Cox, Thomas, WHE, Langdon, Phillips etc.

Let’s ask who has improved since then that was on our list. Daicos, Moore, Maynard, IQ, Madgen.......compared to how many who have gone backwards.

We had a golden opportunity in 2018 as unlikely as it was and blew it. We had a GF birth gift wrapped last year in PF and blew it and that was due to senior players going missing (mainly mids) when it mattered.

[BEAMER09]

[BEAMER09]

[K]

[think positive]

[K]

[Sicks Bux]

[Johnno75]

Bucks won’t change his ways unless he is forced. Maybe the AFL can change a rule and stop marks being paid for backwards kicks, that would force a major rejig.

[swoop42]

Our bottom six has become really weak in 2020 and as it struck me during our game against Port if you were to list that bottom 6 it would likely be occupied by 3 or 4 of our forward group for most if not every round of this year.

This is simply not a recipe for Premiership success anytime soon and our 8th placed finish after the home and away season likely reflects our place in the competition right at this moment.

While this doesn't all land on the shoulders of Buckley with injury and the personal form of the players playing a not insignificant part Buckley shouldn't be beyond all scrutiny either as the players are playing within his system.

And what of this system?

We clearly played our best football under Buckley in 2018 which was the intended hope of the Murphy review which had lead to a strengthening of our football program, a number of new voices within it, a senior coach seemingly more relaxed and willing to hand over greater responsibilities to his assistants, numerous players having career best seasons and all on the back of a game plan that seemingly allowed our team to play the game with a greater expression of individual talent than ever before.

At the end of 2018 I don't think anyone would have felt it was our system that saw us fall just short, our balance between defence and attack was sound and it was simply the lack of key defensive options that ultimately cost us the Premiership.

Yet despite all this positivity Buckley still felt the need to tinker with our system in reportedly seeking to minimise the scores against us due to turnovers.

While I accept he would have only done this in the belief it would help make us better I can't help but feel he might have also felt newly embolden by our performance in 2018 and perhaps stubbornly returned to all of his beliefs on how the game should be played.

Regardless of who or what you want to apportion blame to I think we can all agree we haven’t been as consistently good ever since and despite falling just one game short of another Grand Final appearance in 2019 we looked defeat square in the face in a number of games that season only for one quarter of brilliance to get us out of real trouble and my confidence in our ability to produce such brilliance when required has waned as this season has progressed.

Whether it by design or necessity you can’t accuse the coach of not experimenting with our side this year with some 40 players used but with our forward group clearly being our biggest weakness I still have to query some of the selection decisions during the year and players likely to be selected against West Coast.

Is the cupboard so bare we have to keep relying on some of this crockery up forward?

Fail.

1.Travis Varcoe.

Has kicked 1 goal for the season and it was during his first game back in round 5. Let that sink in for a minute. Has 10 goals from his last 25 games. Has laid 1 tackle in total during the past 2 games. He might have spent some time in defence but that isn’t a selling point for his selection when you’re looking for avenues to goal. Should have retired last season IMHO. Omit.

2. Josh Thomas.

Takeaway his 2.3 goal performance against Carlton and he only has another 2.1 goals from 11 games in 2020. Has failed to score even a single behind in 8 games this year and has scored zero goals the last 3 weeks. Omit.

3. Callum Brown.

Has a knack for looking busy but also getting caught with the ball this season. Development has now fallen well behind Daicos. Hardly a ringing endorsement and only 6 goals for the year himself but I’d still prefer him over Varcoe and Thomas purely on a greater ability to get his hands on the ball down low, in congestion and find space. Just needs to understand his limitations and look to dispose of the ball more quickly.

4. Jaidyn Stephenson

We know his best isn’t bottom 6 but we won’t be seeing that player in 2020 sadly. Even at his worst has still managed greater scoreboard impact than the 3 players above combined. Let that sink in for an hour.

5. Mason Cox.

You know the expectations for a key forward are pretty low when his best adjudged performances for the year deliver a grand result of two and zero goals. The best thing you can say about Cox is that his poor games still offer more than the poor games of any other tall forward option we possess. Oh for the luxury of a Hawkins, Kennedy, Darling, Lynch or Riewoldt up forward.

6. Tom Phillips.

Has gone from a 25 disposal per game wingman in 2018 to a quasi half forward who has kicked 1 solidarity goal from his last 11 appearances. Disposal average has fallen to 16 this season. With the emergence of Daicos Buckley has looked to shoehorn him into a new role but it hasn’t worked.

7. Will Hoskin-Elliott.

Can have moments of sublime skill but possesses the same weaknesses in 2020 that he did in 2018. Unfortunately now though he just isn’t scoring and his shortcomings are harder to ignore. 42 goals @ 1.63 in 2018, 19 goals @ 1 in 2019, 10 goals @ 0.63 in 2020.

Excused.

1. Atu Bosenavulagi.

If his selection was a surprise to most of us then his fantastic performance on debut was an even greater one. Unfortunately couldn’t back that up in his following 2 games though he gets a pass for game 3 given the extremely late call up. Just turned 20 so potential for development still exists.

2. Trey Ruscoe.

The surprise selection of the season for both me and his mum it would seem. Certainly embraced the situation and provided some energy up forward. Didn’t win a lot of ball but had a knack for kicking a goal which has alluded plenty of our more seasoned players this year. First year player, late round draft selection so just debuting should be considered a win for him and club.

Pass.

1. Brody Mihocek.

Our leading goal kicker with 20 so that gives him a pass mark but in desperate need of another quality tall forward target standing beside him. Averaged 1.81 goals in 2018. In 2020 that average has fallen to 1.25.

2. Jordan de Goey.

Our most talented forward and top 5 talent on our list. He gets a pass thanks to his two match winning performances in round 7 and 17 but if we’re honest was wayward with his goal kicking and well below his best in rounds 1 to 5.

3. Jamie Elliott.

He gets a pass mark but only just. That may seem harsh to some and yes he has spent far more time playing through the midfield this season but if you look at his career stats he was a better player back in 2014, 15 and 17. He averaged even more disposals in those seasons despite the perception of him still being just a small forward but importantly averaged between 1.75 to 2 goals a game. This season that figure is 0.50. Right now we have a gifted player who is neither a high possession mid, a goal kicking mid or a dangerous small forward. Is that the result we were hoping for?

When looking back on our season in compiling this list it suddenly becomes crystal clear we have a very big problem, it’s no surprise we’ve struggled to score with every forward present on Grand Final day 2018 well down on that output and it’s now just a question of how much responsibility falls on the shoulders of the players and how much on the game plan Buckley has devised them to play.

Of course identifying problems is often easier than finding any solutions but try we shall.

So where to from here?

1. Buckley needs to be brutally honest with himself at the end of the season and ponder whether changes he has made to our system since the end of 2018 have made us a better football side. From all reports we will generally sacrifice a forward in favour of having an extra player around the stoppages. While every positional change comes with their own potential positives and negatives attached it seems counter intuitive to me that a side struggling to score would make it easier for an opposition side to outnumber it inside their own forward 50. If you’re going to implement this strategy you better hope the forwards are provided with quick and clean ball movement and can be found often on the lead. If not you better hope you have some quality crumbing forwards. I think we've to often failed in both these areas in 2020 hence our problem in scoring.

2. Our defence has been our best performed line across the previous 3 seasons but importantly were still highly effective in 2018 despite constant personnel changes due to injuries. We also had no trouble scoring either that year finishing with a percentage of 120.4. That fell to 117.7 last season and now sits at 109.5. While our defence has held up well have we sacrificed to much in terms of forward transition in looking to minimize turnovers with more conservative ball movement from deep within our defence? To me it would appear our balance has become to heavily skewed towards our ability to defend and we’ve started to see some of the same disconnect between our front and back halves like we witnessed during 2014 to 2017 seasons.

3. At the start of the season and long before the impacts of a post COVID world became a reality for football club spending I raised the worry that we were heading into the season with less assistant coaches. While Hocking was effectively demoted to the role of VFL coach after just 2 seasons we also lost our best assistant and potentially best coach period in Longmuir. Now I’m not certain if we looked to replace him with someone of equal calibre and were rebuked but I can’t recall any media talk of such a thing taking place. On the surface at least this smelled to me like a club falling back into some of the bad habits identified by the Murphy review and we to easily took a she’ll be right attitude to the loss of Longmuir.

Personally I’m of the opinion that it’s time for one or both of Harvey and Sanderson to depart and we seek out a suitable candidate from a club currently setting the standard like a Richmond or we go after the person considered to be next in line for a senior coaching position.

Buckley needs to be challenged and while Harvey might have a wealth of knowledge, be a good bloke and a former champion of the game I’m not convinced he’s seen as senior coach material by the wider football world while you have to wonder if the close personal friendship Buckley has with Sanderson is a positive or a negative when it comes Sanderson being able to provide brutally honest feedback.

4. Bringing in more forward talent seems a priority now and you can understand our supposed interest in the likes of Gunston while a key forward and crumber should also be high up on our shopping list. Given our supposed tight salary cap and lack of trade currency among those we can afford to lose how we achieve this looks to be tricky.

[Raw Hammer]

100 times yep

[The Boy Who Cried Wolf]

Wrong Way, Go Back...

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/collingwood-cuts-former-cat-great-hocking-from-coaching-panel-20200929-p560gn.html

[piedys]

[Presti35]

[The Boy Who Cried Wolf]