Skill.......or rather the lack of it...

[saintsRrising]

For mine....for the saints to win more it gets back in the main that the players need to deliver more.

I am not happy at all aspects of the coaching....but by and large I see player execution asa much bigger problem.

Why are so many of our players not stepping up????? Now there is the $64 question...

Is it lack of motivation, or inpsiration..?

Is it that they have just been overated..?

Is it that some our played out of position..?

Are they down on confidence...?

Is it that players and coaches are not gelling?

Is it that the players just don't want to catch that bus that Nick spoke of....are they lacking the hunger to be truly good?


For too many players on our list...their best football is played not often enough and their best football is way above what they on average deliver.

[brown-coat]

Great questions there.

By the looks of it

1. The players aren't inspired
2. The list is over-rated
3. They are down in confidence
4. They are not gelling, they seem confused, messed up, not cohesive as a team

Could be a natural reaction to the relative success of 04/05/06. Ups and downs. A natural flow to the bottom of the ladder.

[saintsRrising]

From our existing list i would like to see a bias go to guys that havea knack of kicking goals.


I would like to see Armo given a run now....as he has shown that he can kick goals. Lets see if he can do it in the big stuff too now that he is fit.

.

Interesting read spotted by Saintbrat.

http://insidefootballonline.com/news.html....but very related to the points I was making in this string..

However the article failed to pick up that lot of the Saints point were kicked from the central corridor....plus that we must have had about 5 shots touched on the goal line due to lack of penetration. many of these should have been goals.

NEVER has there been a better example of just how much poor kicking for goal can cost you than two weeks ago at Telstra Dome.
Playing reigning premier Geelong, the Saints went to quarter time having dominated the clearances 13-2 (including the first 11), won the contested ball 31-23, taken 15 inside-50s to 12, yet having kicked 4.7 and leading by only seven points.
Against Geelong, there’s the ball game, right there. With such profound dominance all over the ground, expending that sort of energy, to reap anything less than six to seven goals is unacceptable.
You simply can’t keep a team such as Geelong out of the contest; it’s hard enough to beat them with a level playing field let alone keeping them in the game with poor conversion when you have momentum.
An hour later the Saints trailed by eight goals and that was that.
The end result statistically was two less scoring shots, the same number of inside 50s, and a 42-point loss.
This wasn’t the first time the Saints have kicked themselves out of games, either.
No less than 26 times over the past two seasons, the Saints have kicked as many behinds as goals.
It’s one of football deadly sins as on four of those occasions they had more scoring shots than their opponents yet lost the game.
Two extra wins in either of those years would have seen them finish top two in 2006 (instead of fifth) and fifth instead of ninth in 2007. What a difference!
Poor kicking for goal is a by-product of poor ball movement. If you don’t move the ball quickly enough in this day and age, you will get burnt.
Slow, indecisive ball movement gives opposition midfielders time to flood back and clog up the centre corridor inside 50, thus forcing you to attack wide, which reduces your chances of an accurate finish.
There aren’t many Gary Ablett (senior) types who can stand on heads or kick goals from the third row of the grandstand.
Interestingly, 11 of Geelong’s 21 goals in the St Kilda game were kicked from the corridor compared with St Kilda’s four (of 13.)
The Cats’ quick ball movement doesn’t give opposition midfielders the chance to push back and fill the space in front of Cameron Mooney and Tom Hawkins, leaving them to contest fairly with their opponents in the corridor in front of goal.
Back in 2004, when they were the talk of the town, the Saints were ranked first in set shot accuracy (71.5 per cent) and overall accuracy (66.9 per cent).
This was due to the fact that they made it a prime objective to use the centre corridor when kicking inside 50, thus most of their shots at goal were from directly in front.
They were playing fast, free flowing football, in contrast to how they often play today.
By moving the ball quickly, their big forwards in Nick Riewoldt, Fraser Gehrig, Aaron Hamill and Justin Koschitzke were given the chance to beat their opponent one on one, and when the ball hit the ground, Stephen Milne was at the foot of the contest to pick up the crumbs.
As football has evolved, so has the way the top teams combat the Saints.
No longer are they given as much freedom through the middle of the ground to spot up forward targets, and opposition teams are making it a priority to push back and support their defenders in the air and on the ground, making it extremely difficult for the Saints’ tall trio to get a clear run at a ball in the corridor.
Skipper Nick Riewoldt has worn the brunt of most of the criticism. He has been maligned for his poor conversion rate, but he hasn’t been helped by the fact that a lot of his set shots on goal are coming from wide positions.
At just under 67 per cent in 2008, his conversion rate isn’t much different to that of some of the best forwards in the competition last year in Jonathan Brown (68), Scott Lucas (68) and Matthew Pavlich (64). It’s just a matter of Riewoldt getting more opportunities in dangerous areas.
Stephen Milne, on the other hand, is a different story.
Who could forget the night back in Round 22, 2005, when Milne kicked 11.0 against Brisbane at Telstra Dome. But the dead-eye Milne of 2004–05 is a far cry from the inaccurate and seemingly rushed one of 2008.
He was methodical in his goalkicking routine back then, but now he often seems rushed with his set shots.
Small forwards such as Milne get few opportunities over the 120 minutes of a game, and when they do present, they need to be taken.
If the Saints can start moving the ball quicker and playing on at all costs they will give their big forwards more opportunities to mark the ball in the centre corridor, which will in turn make converting a bit easier. At least we hope anyway!

[rodgerfox]

Great questions there.

By the looks of it

1. The players aren't inspired
2. The list is over-rated
3. They are down in confidence
4. They are not gelling, they seem confused, messed up, not cohesive as a team

Could be a natural reaction to the relative success of 04/05/06. Ups and downs. A natural flow to the bottom of the ladder.

Or the natural reaction to a new coach.

How quickly did you really think it would take for a bunch of guys, alot of whom have only ever known one coach and game plan, to welcome about 7 new guys into the team and learn a new game plan back to front?

[matrix]

our foot disposal is shocking...
you dont kick to a leading forward, you kick to the space created in front of him to lead into, the deliverer of the footy determines where the forward should be taking the mark..

im sorry but i dont care if roo bags 6 goals 1 this week....his kicking style is ordinary and not playing to the percentages of accuracy (in his action).

the foot skills of the cats and the doggies has been a stand out for me so far this season.

[spert]

Although some disposal is sloppy, the real problem is work-rate in our forward line.. apart for Roo, the rest of the forwards cough up the ball far too easily. I saw this up close against Geelong, where when the ball was in dispute, or on the ground, the Cat backs just went in head first and got the loose ball and ran hard to clear, while our forwards just didn't put anywhere near enough pressure on to keep the ball in the forward 50. Some of these one quarter fades can be explained along those lines too- when your opponent is revved up, you also have to put that extra effort in.

[saintsRrising]

Yes...workrate needs to be constant.....and the forward line needed to worka lot harder...which is one reason post Cats game I was again posting agaisnt the 3 tall structure.

The revised structure in the Dons game I think RL stated had double the number of tackles in the forward 50.