Another GT "Gem"... I agree 100%!

[reincarnated]

Reincarnated believes you must be one of those fat men/women that goes to football matches/flys on airplanes and complains about the size of seating due to such a popcorn and coca-cola addiction

[matrix]

i dont drink coke.....
but i do weigh 125 kilo as you saw at the Corner last week

[reincarnated]

i dont drink coke.....
but i do weigh 125 kilo as you saw at the Corner last week

What corner? Reincarnated gets driven around so he/she/gt does not have to usually mix with the masses

[sainterjo]

What corner? Reincarnated gets driven around so he/she/gt does not have to usually mix with the masses

Your poor mother.

[reincarnated]

What corner? Reincarnated gets driven around so he/she/gt does not have to usually mix with the masses

Your poor mother.

Reincarnated does not find that clever, another terrible attempt at a joke, to get a laugh from the masses, the easily amused masses

[rodgerfox]

Fair call.

It was obvious that Lyon didn't get it right at the start. But surely there are various factors?

Fitness regime; game style; current list just to name a few.

So can anyone objectively assess how much of 2007 was due to RL, and how much to the fundamental shift that took place?

Whilst I cannot speak ofr others, I never thought he had it right from day one. My only desire was that people gave him sufficient time to settle in, and make the personell changes he wanted.

I think most of it was due to RL. As I said, he had it wrong when he came along. His plan was wrong - regardless of personnel.

He needed to change it, and I believe was directed to do so by the Board.

Then and only then can we make a fair and objective assesment of his performance.

You can assess his performance daily, based on results.

If you write someone off though, then you can leave yourself open to be proven wrong.

[cowboy18]

What corner? Reincarnated gets driven around so he/she/gt does not have to usually mix with the masses

Your poor mother.

Reincarnated does not find that clever, another terrible attempt at a joke, to get a laugh from the masses, the easily amused masses

cowboy18 found it clever and funny.

[SENsei]

Fair call.

It was obvious that Lyon didn't get it right at the start. But surely there are various factors?

Fitness regime; game style; current list just to name a few.

So can anyone objectively assess how much of 2007 was due to RL, and how much to the fundamental shift that took place?

Whilst I cannot speak ofr others, I never thought he had it right from day one. My only desire was that people gave him sufficient time to settle in, and make the personell changes he wanted.

I think most of it was due to RL. As I said, he had it wrong when he came along. His plan was wrong - regardless of personnel.

He needed to change it, and I believe was directed to do so by the Board.

Then and only then can we make a fair and objective assesment of his performance.

You can assess his performance daily, based on results.

If you write someone off though, then you can leave yourself open to be proven wrong.

How's today's scoreboard looking Rodge?

[meher baba]

and threw away the gameplan that said that players should play chipalotto .

Is your head in the sand???

They were being taught to set up play by switching the ball...and if under the pump to go backwards to reset before advancing again. Such tactics have been used in Soccer and Hockey for Donkeys years (and I certainly used to do it as boy playing hockey)....and when Ric Charleswoth started advising Freo it at last entered AFL football. Though Freo coached by Neeham did not have the cattle to enact it. But Roos and the Swans did. Now every team uses it.


You see this EVERY WEEK..so I do not know what games you are watching.

While you were calling for his head last year Lyon explain that the players were meant to be attacking more...but were not. You and your cohorts did not believe him...or the players who all backed him up in the media.

All that has happened is that now that the players are more practiced and committed to execute it better.

This relies on players running and spreading...to provide options.

With no run and spread ...no forward options are available...and hence the ball was overly chipped around.


Why do think Lyon has recently taken Ball to task for his lack of run and spread???

Because unless EVERY players does his part....the game plan falls apart.

I note that you cut off your quote at the bit where I talked about not going for contested ball.

Even you can't deny that this was part of our game plan until the middle of last season. It was a feature of the Swans game in 2004-06: let your opponent make a play for the contested ball and then tackle them and force a stoppage. Lyon brought it to our club where it didn't work at all because

(a) more than the Swans, we have players who are at their most dangerous in attack from broken play (as we have seen time and again this season); and
(b) it isn't as good a strategy at Docklands as it is at either the SCG or MCG, where there is more room to switch the point of attack from set pieces. At Docklands, while your players are getting time to spread forward, the opposition also has time to set up a tight defence across the ground.

Point (b) is also an important feature of the chipalotto issue. This problem first emerged in 2006, when GT started to try to play more of a flood. I don't blame Lyon for it. Our players definitely weren't good at running and spreading and switching the play in attack to counter the opposition's flood. This is something that Lyon has done an excellent job in instilling in our players: I agree with you completely on this.

However, what we were doing too much of in 2007-08 was applying an uber flood ourselves. We were probably the biggest flooding team in the AFL in that period. Flooding back like mad always makes it harder to switch to attack: especially at the relatively narrow Docklands as opposed to the SCG or MCG.

If you look again at some of our games from last season, you can see that there was a sudden change in strategy in the middle of the season: we stopped flooding back so much, and we started going for the contested ball again. The trend has continued this season, when I would now say we are one of the teams that floods the least. And our attack on the ball and the ball carrier is now even better than it was in 2004-05 (when, if you can look objectively at how we played, it was really good).

You will note one implicit point in my above discussion: it took Lyon a while to learn how to coach a team playing at Docklands. GT had more or less grown up at Docklands as a coach. During the time Lyon was at the Swans, I think they played only 3 or 4 games at Docklands.

Also, Lyon brought his Swans mental model with him: which is not a criticism of him, it's what you would expect from anyone who goes from being an assistant at one club to head coach at another. I recall early on how he seemed to be trying to have Riewoldt and Gehrig run forward in attack from outside the 50: a favourite Swans tactic with O'Keeffe, O'Loughlin and even sometimes Hall. This was not a great tactic with either Fraser - who wasn't fit enough to run outside the 50 - or Riewoldt, who is best running in all directions to try to wear out his tagger.

It's all about learning, and being prepared to open up your mind, drop your preconceptions and assess what is in front of your eyes. Lyon eventually showed that he could do this.

It is my view that he probably got a bit of a kick up the derriere from Westaway and the Board on the way through (I can't imagine what Nathan and AT thought about the idea that our players should stop going for the contested ball, but I suspect some rather offensive words were used). But I have no inside knowledge and there is no point in speculating about this.

[SENsei]

What corner? Reincarnated gets driven around so he/she/gt does not have to usually mix with the masses

Your poor mother.

Reincarnated does not find that clever, another terrible attempt at a joke, to get a laugh from the masses, the easily amused masses

cowboy18 found it clever and funny.

Does someone who is reincarnated actually have a mother?

[matrix]

well if you are reincarnated you still need to be born....so you must come down someones water chute!

[SENsei]

well if you are reincarnated you still need to be born....so you must come down someones water chute!

Born or constructed?

In this case specifically, I'd mount a case for mechanical intervention.

[Milton66]

Fair call.

It was obvious that Lyon didn't get it right at the start. But surely there are various factors?

Fitness regime; game style; current list just to name a few.

So can anyone objectively assess how much of 2007 was due to RL, and how much to the fundamental shift that took place?

Whilst I cannot speak ofr others, I never thought he had it right from day one. My only desire was that people gave him sufficient time to settle in, and make the personell changes he wanted.

I think most of it was due to RL. As I said, he had it wrong when he came along. His plan was wrong - regardless of personnel.

He needed to change it, and I believe was directed to do so by the Board.

Then and only then can we make a fair and objective assesment of his performance.

You can assess his performance daily, based on results.

If you write someone off though, then you can leave yourself open to be proven wrong.

Given your views toady, and with the benefit of hindsight, do you still think it was the wrong call to sack GT in 07.. one year too soon? And do you honestly believe that given the injuries in 07 that GT would have done any better?

[SENsei]

Who is Toady?

[Milton66]

Who is Toady?

Miss Spelt?

Today

[matrix]

well if you are reincarnated you still need to be born....so you must come down someones water chute!

Born or constructed?

In this case specifically, I'd mount a case for mechanical intervention.

lets not go all new agey and throw the thread off topic

[saintsRrising]

Even you can't deny that this was part of our game plan until the middle of last season. .

Why would I deny it??

Can you name one coach in the entire history of AFL/VFL that has not changed and evolved their gameplan as they have gone along???

Indeed one of my criticisms of GT was that he was too slow to change as the game changed around him.

Why is Lyon expected to have had everything locked in on his first day on the job?

I find it amusing that the Lyon knockers expect Lyon to not change things....and who for some strange reason see Lyon changing things as a weakness rather than as a strength.

For example had Clarkson perfected his rolling zone then? = no.

Have teams now worked out how to combat the rolling zone? = yes

2007 saw the Cats re-invent themselves with a new game style. Was Lyon meant to have had a crystal ball to have predicted this?


Lyon clearly had vision on how he wanted the team to play.
He said early on that he wanted :

* ruckman
* more run thru the middle
* more forward pressure.
* the team to be competent at all three phases of the game: ie when you have the ball, when the opposition have the ball (previously the Saints were poor in this regard) & when the ball is in dispute


He has clearly delivered on all of these.

That he has evolved this vision is to be expected. ie corralling being tried...but with the game having moved on it was found wanting, or even perhaps that it was always flawed.

But that is what a good coach does..has a vision, tries things, and then adapts, rejects and improves...and not just the gameplan but players too

That the GT bashers pain Lyon as incompetent in 2007 is farcical...

There were many flaws that needed to be rectified....in player personnel, player commitment, gameplan...player conditioning.

Lyon has patience too....you can look at the list and see players being developed for every niche....short-term and long-term.

You may remember that Misson stated when he started that he would take years to undo the damage that had been done. The Lyon bashers trotted this out as an excuse of Lyon's...but time has instead demonstrated the incompetence of player conditioning under GT and that the high incidence of soft tissue injuries under GT's "management" were not due to "bad luck" but rather was due to incompetence.

[SENsei]

Who is Toady?

Miss Spelt?

Today

Yes I gathered.

Although it threw me to begin with.

I am pretty simple though.

[SENsei]

I find it amusing

Yes indeed.

[saintsRrising]

He needed to change it, and I believe was directed to do so by the Board.

I do not believe that Westaway is stupid enough to get involved with trying to make coaching decisions.

That RF and MB are trying to paint Westaway as the puppet master of Lyon pulling the coaching strings is a ridiculous concept.


What Westaway & the FF Board quite rightly has done is provide a very good environment for the coach to coach in..and to support him as the coach.


The Full Field Press will have come from the Football Department...and not from the Boardroom,

[saintsRrising]

PS: I must have missed Mini, Ray and all the other players who have improved as footballers (which is most of the team) when talking about WHY and HOW their games have improved giving effusive praise to Westaway as being the man.....

[matrix]

20???

dohhh!

[asiu]

easily

may as well get it sorted now


all the talk will be about setting up our next two years soon

[Milton66]

20???

dohhh!

what do you mean?

[Milton66]

easily

may as well get it sorted now


all the talk will be about setting up our next two years soon

funny you should mention that...