Gerard Healey very perceptive on Saints set-up todays Sun

[starsign]

I think this article is very perceptive of our current set-up and game plans in fact the best I've read so far this season.
Comments?

[saintsRrising]

Perhaps if you say why it is very perecptive.

I like parts and not others.

For example I would not play Roo as a mid.

I have been posting for weeks that I prefer 2 tall forwards and not three given a choice of Kosi, Roo and GTrain.

I would not play Kosi asa No 1 ruck..his tap and bodywork is not good enough.



The article for those that have not seen it is at: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/ ... 42,00.html

[Dan Warna]

Healy has been a long term advocate of st kilda and tipped against us, v the doggies, one of VERY few who did that.

he's as close to st kilda as any journo out there.

sure he says and does some idiotic things, but by and large he's quite inciteful.

I'd pay more stock to him and his comments re: st kilda than most other journo.s

when everyone else was on the st kilda bandwaggon, he, as a st kilda fan, pointed out issues that had been glossed over, and so far he's been pretty close to the mark...

when idiots like fatpryck get stuck into st kilda or sheehan, I probably gloss over it a bit.

caro hasn't got her talons in st kilda this season so far.

[starsign]

thanks saintsrising
sorry i had the link on my clipboard ready to paste but I'm a very raw newbie here and appreciate your post...thanks for that M8
I thought Roo into the midfield for part or some of the game is a good idea , maybe at the start Its been done for short bursts to some effectat times before I know but I feel we are really just too predicable at present
It appears G is a week by week selection now depending on who we are playing ,and if he isnt selected I would be inclined to play Roo ff where he would be a better leading option than Kozzi at present . Kozzi or Charlie to chf even try Goose there for a quarter
But i really thing Ross has to get a bit more flexability into his setups and give the opposition something to ponder on the day instead of being so predictable...cos it just aint working at present

[matrix]

im a fan of a two man forward line with crumbers coming in.....
the only thing im worried about is that, with that set up our two forwards wont kick enough goals.
midfield needs to stand up tonight and kick half a dozen between them at least.
we need more spread.

really...we should romp home over the bombers.
i mean c'mon, if we dont beat essendon tonight then we dont deserve to get silverware in september.

ive always liked Healys comments myself.

[markinUSA]

Ok, I don't know why, but this didn't sound right to me.

First, I'm not entirely sure about dropping G-Train. I feel like we haven't used him well, but I don't feel that he can't contribute a lot. I have been disappointed with our forward set-up (who hasn't?) but... dropping Fraser didn't seem the right way to go, to me.

I would have liked an experiment with either/both of Nick R or Kosi in different roles before I would have dropped Fraser. Nick has still been kicking a lot of goals, but has been taking a lot of marks. He could do that in many other positions on the ground. And Kosi could play in the backline (gee, what a backline that would be!) - or in the ruck - as Healy suggested.

I hear what Gerard Healy is saying about forward pressure, but ... I can't explain it well... I like having both G Train and Milney in the forward line. I also agree with having Charlie Gardiner in the forward line. I thought he was really good in the NAB Cup, and I'm glad he is back in the team.

My gut feeling is that we as a team can kick lots of goals, if we organize our forward line right and get the delivery right... and I wonder if it's our game plan that's not letting us kick more. I would really like us to be a lot more attacking, and I think G Train and Milney could play a big role in that.

[The Saintsational Man]

First, I'm not entirely sure about dropping G-Train.

The big fellas my favorite player.....love to see him bag goals for us.....but we had to try something and what we were doing wasn't working.

Shall we not win tonight, then it's back to the drawing board.....but i think alot of people will agree the 3 tall forwards deal wasn't working.....

Lets hope this works, then we can re-structure the big fella back into the line-up.

[Dan Warna]

IMO he's just not suited to the Lyon Plan, more suited to the Lions plan.

IMO we should having him just patroling within 20 of the goal square.

alistaire Lynch comparisons are invalidated because the lions used lynch in a completely different way to FG.

FG in the saints line up is trying to play like reiwoldt, and frankly he's not up to it.

Lynch in the Lethal plan, just patrolled the goal square and 1. cleraed a path for the on ballers, and 2. used his strenght and burst lead to kick his 50s and 60s. and 3. tap down to the streaming half forwards when he couldn't mark.

IMO thats how we should use FG, not running around the HBF like a Abrams in quicksand.

[Richter]

IMO the forward structure of three Talls with crumbers can work..... if we play an out and out attacking style of game such as that employed by us in 2004-5.

My view though is that style was found out by oppositions who flooded against us. We did not win a flag playing like that and we won't. Lyon wants a more "accountable" style with more defensive pressure applied when we don't have the ball.

It was pretty inevitable that something had to give as with Milne, Kosi, G and Roo up front there is not enough defensive pressure applied. One of the Talls had to go - Roo and Kosi are the future of the club, and when G's form dropped, as it has in the last couple of weeks, it is obvious that he would be the one to go.

Btw I don't agree with Kosi in the backline or the ruck (except for pinchhitting as 2nd ruck with Blake). Equally I think Roo must play the majority of his game at CHF where he can use his strengths of height, pace and aerobic capacity the best - it is where he has won 4x B&Fs for the club after all.

Looking to the future, our spine for the next couple of years is shaping up as...

Fisher
Goose
Hayes Ball Dal
Roo
Kosi

I'm happy with that.

[The Saintsational Man]

Not running around the HBF like a Abrams in quicksand.

Then.....we turnover the ball and the big fella is stuck in the backline, not presenting an option like he did a few years back.

Your right our game plan doesn't suit his strengths, kinda think they'd re-structure to accomodate the last FF to boot 100 in a year wouldn't you think???

[bigcarl]

i would have found a spot for a guy who has kicked 500 goals and has been the most reliable avenue to goal for this club for the past five years.

i would have found a way to get him, riewoldt and kosi into the same team, even if it meant moving riewoldt to wing for a while, as healy suggested.

having said that, the structure needed a change and i expect us to win well tonight.

i'm not sure that being without fraser is the answer for the remainder of the season though.

[Saintgaz]

I wonder if it's confidence thing with Fraser. Maybe he needs to go back to the VFL and kick some goals and believe in himself again.
One of the main problems I've seen is that his direct opponent runs of him as soon as possible and like Scarlet last week, carves us up. Then when we get the turnover there is no one to kick to in our forward line.
Maybe Fras needs to be told to stay inside the F50, when his opponent goes out a loose man in defence picks him up and we can get a mismatch in our forward line.
It's a bit risky, but when he's getting smashed anyway and wandering around in the middle doing very little it's probably worth trying. Plus if he's scoring goals his opponent is less likely to run off him.

[Dan Warna]

well we either play FG the way he can play to his strengths or keep him out.

we've chosen to keep him out.

as I said in another thread, essendon under knights don't like close checking football and would be a side more vulnerable to the lyons/roos game plan.

I suspect we might try and grind them like we did Sydney a few weeks ago, but who knows?

[goodie]

From what I read, I was wondering if he saw the game last week.

The problem wasn't so much with our tall forwards as our delivery to them. Too many times we either bombed it long and found a Geelong player, or kicked to a two or three on one.

[Banger2Plugger]

I am no football coach - however no matter where you start Roo - he is always going to have to compete in a 2 on 1 contest when the ball is being kicked above his head!!!!!
Our mids are winning the hard ball, and enough clearances - it seems there is not enough gut running by the remaining mids to get down to the forward line to be at the foot of a pack when there is a contest, OR the disposal of the mid is such that they are not kicking the pill to the advantage of our leading forward!

HIT THE CHEST - no matter how many damn defenders there are - they wont be able to get anywhere near the pill if ya hit ya target on the chest!

[rodgerfox]

Our mids are winning the hard ball, and enough clearances - it seems there is not enough gut running by the remaining mids to get down to the forward line to be at the foot of a pack when there is a contest, OR the disposal of the mid is such that they are not kicking the pill to the advantage of our leading forward!

Is it really feasible though, to expect a human being to actually be physically fit enough to sprint non-stop from one end of the ground to other for an entire game?

Seriously, the concept of charging back like in basketball to a zone defence when your opponent has posession, then fast breaking forward when we get it is great - but is it realistic on a footy ground?

Can a human being actually be that fit?

The Bulldogs did this type of thing a couple of years back and looked to be the 'next big thing' with their quick transition and fast ball movement. They literally sprinted from one end to the other and smashed teams early on.

The problem was, they were spent by July. They had nothing left in the tank.


It appears that we really are attempting to play a basketball style of play.

[Red]

Banger2plugger your post is not quite correct we win clearances but we

are getting smashed in the hard ball gets. At the clearances the players

without the ball aren't working hard enough to give the player with the ball

the space to deliver it to the forwards. It's almost everybody for themselves.

If you Geelong last week you would have seen them knock the ball to

players in a better position and then apply a shepherd. Something our guys

don't to want to do.

[meher baba]

Boy Ross Lyon must be having a difficult week. While there has been little explicit criticism of him (I guess because the AFL world basically agrees that he is a nice guy), there has been an enormous amount of implicit criticism: with both Voss and Healy being utterly scathing IMO.

Healy is basically saying that the plan of retreating into your back half when the opponents bring the ball out of defence and placing enormous pressure on forward targets in the hope of forcing a turnover has entirely had its day. But this is the cornerstone of Lyon's game plan.

He then points out that Lyon promised when appointed that he would do anything but have the team play like this - that he would put enormous pressure on inside our forward 50 - but that we are now 16th for this in the AFL.

My recollection is that we tackled extremely well inside the forward 50 in our first couple of games under Lyon, and then gave it away. You can blame the players for this if you like, but surely a more convincing explanation is that it took us a while to shake off the GT style and start using the Ross Lyon one.

Surely the key is what someone said in another thread: our players are under strict instructions never to leave their man when we don't have the ball. Hence, we have little opportunity to interrupt their forward movement until they make a mistake or kick to a part of the ground where they are outnumbered.

I reckon the media pressure is starting to mount on Lyon big time. How he responds - starting tonight - will determine his future. If we lose, I expect we'll see the back of him sooner rather than later.

[plugger66]

I'm not sure we tackle badly in our forward 50 even though we are last in the stats. The problem is that the ball is turned over we immediately leave the forward 50 so it is impossible to tackle inside the 50 if you are not there. We must not just give free position to the oppossition as soon as the ball is turned over.

[vacuous space]

My recollection is that we tackled extremely well inside the forward 50 in our first couple of games under Lyon, and then gave it away. You can blame the players for this if you like, but surely a more convincing explanation is that it took us a while to shake off the GT style and start using the Ross Lyon one.

Except that our forward 50 problems date back to 2006, if not earlier. Since the end of 2005 we've struggled to win disputed ball inside forward fifty and we haven't done a good job of pressuring opposition defenders as they bring it back out. If we don't mark the ball, it's coming back out.

[Washedup]

I'm not sure we tackle badly in our forward 50 even though we are last in the stats. The problem is that the ball is turned over we immediately leave the forward 50 so it is impossible to tackle inside the 50 if you are not there. We must not just give free position to the oppossition as soon as the ball is turned over.

Correct. Its not so much that we lack players to put pressure on it's more as you pointed out, once the ball gets turned over we retreat back to a defensive zone and leave the opposition ball carrier ample time to weigh up his options. The players need to be told to pressure the ball carrier at all times. There is nothing more frustrating than watching how easily we let the opposition take it out of the backline because of their obvious instructions to get back and zone off

[Dan Warna]

I'm not sure we tackle badly in our forward 50 even though we are last in the stats. The problem is that the ball is turned over we immediately leave the forward 50 so it is impossible to tackle inside the 50 if you are not there. We must not just give free position to the oppossition as soon as the ball is turned over.

Correct. Its not so much that we lack players to put pressure on it's more as you pointed out, once the ball gets turned over we retreat back to a defensive zone and leave the opposition ball carrier ample time to weigh up his options. The players need to be told to pressure the ball carrier at all times. There is nothing more frustrating than watching how easily we let the opposition take it out of the backline because of their obvious instructions to get back and zone off

hawthorn kept 2 men behind the ball and chain reloaded everytime we won the ball, and when we had the ball, they didn't allow us a free possession in the back quarter, while we allowed their 2 men free time.

Geelong pretty much did the same thing.

they just reloaded again and again, while harrassing our defenders.

IMO our lose man or 2 loose men in defence strategy backfires when the opposition refuse to man up.

[bigcarl]

Except that our forward 50 problems date back to 2006, if not earlier. Since the end of 2005 we've struggled to win disputed ball inside forward fifty and we haven't done a good job of pressuring opposition defenders as they bring it back out. If we don't mark the ball, it's coming back out.

the kick-it-to-roo thing has been a thorn in our side since round 11 2004. problem is he is such a great player and presents so often that they always go to him, even when he has a couple of guys on him.

the ball spills to ground and is cleared away from our half back line for a goal to the opposition.

one solution is to play him closer to goal, which hopefully we'll see tonight. the other is to put him on the wing or chb.

but while he's playing chf without a decent foil (as hamill was in early 2004) we're going to be vulnerable to the opposition playing two guys on him.

our greatest strength is also a glaring weakness, often exploited by opponents

[Red]

If the stats say we aren't tackling in our forward 50 there has to be some

truth in it. Although it could be that we are marking the ball everytime it

goes in there which would account for us not having to tackle or it just isn't

going in there. I'm not sure maybe we could ask Matthew Scarlett how he

managed to get it 25+ times without any pressure on him.

[rodgerfox]

My recollection is that we tackled extremely well inside the forward 50 in our first couple of games under Lyon, and then gave it away. You can blame the players for this if you like, but surely a more convincing explanation is that it took us a while to shake off the GT style and start using the Ross Lyon one.

Except that our forward 50 problems date back to 2006, if not earlier. Since the end of 2005 we've struggled to win disputed ball inside forward fifty and we haven't done a good job of pressuring opposition defenders as they bring it back out. If we don't mark the ball, it's coming back out.

Since Hamill went down really.