So what is our game plan

[bangaulegend]

Ok I'm probably being irrational but we had 3 small forwards that played tonight & had pretty much zero impact . Have teams worked us out already or is this just a blib on the radar

[The_Dud]

Hard for any game plan to work with skills as bad as tonight.

[bangaulegend]

Fair call but that effort was pretty insipid so were does the real change come from I didn't see anyone really fly the flag for Spud & yes the were way too good but very disappointed in the team over all

[skeptic]

The three small forward strategy is the biggest gripe I have with Ratten... posted a lot about this last year and am trying to let it slide as ppl pointed out I was getting a bit obsessive, but as you’ve started the thread...

It’s a really bad strategy IMO

first of all, as evidenced in the match thread their tall backs picking off passes... albeit poor ones... all night and we have 3 players in their that can’t compete in the air.

The meat of the issue however is that these guys need to be able to get the ball whether it is in a contested manner or having it handed to them from the contest

Otherwise you face the problem we saw with Lent last season which is that you need exceptional results from minimal chances to actually hurt the opposition.

Butler, Lonie and Higgins had a combined 25 touches, 1 tackle and 1 goal between them tonight and both of those auxiliary states came from Higgins.

It’s just not good enough. We’d have been far better off playing Bytel in place of one of them and chances are he would have contributed more even as a resting forward then what these three did tonight.

There’s only enough room for two of these three and IMO it’s Higgins and Butler because they have more strings too their bows.
I like Lonie but he doesn’t get enough ball ever... can’t go into the middle and doesn’t have decent outside skills. Odd occasions he manages to turn 10 touches into three goals but more often then not he’s completely shut out of the game

It’s a terrible, low percentage strategy

You can’t carry that

[saintsRrising]

Well our game plan tonight was kick or handball it to the Dees, and we delivered it faultlessly. Hill a real star in its execution.

[shanegrambeau]

Good OP and fair enough.

I didn’t know nor did the players by the looks.

How many times, did we just not have a target?

We held on to the ball, let Gawn and co. run back into the spaces.

And of course a crappy disposal.

I wanna know what the experts say about our structure.

It was a pretty bad game and they kicked so badly our 18 point loss could easily have been a 38 point loss.

[Yorkeys]

Hard to tell. Reassured by the assumption in the thread title, but.

[Wayne42]

I think our game plan was get ball, dispose it and hope for the best. Unfortunately it didn't work.

[Joffa Burns]

As posted in another thread I’m pretty sure it was bomb it long to Gawn, May & Lever and we executed brilliantly.

3 smalls is fine if you have King, Marshall, Ryder, Membrey bringing it to ground if they don’t mark it.

Not so great when you replace Ryder/ Marshall with Hunter / McKernan and King looks totally devoid of confidence at this stage of his development against the likes of May.

[Impatient Sainter]

Ok I'm probably being irrational but we had 3 small forwards that played tonight & had pretty much zero impact . Have teams worked us out already or is this just a blib on the radar

No we tried to play around Gawn, May & Lever and played away from our strengths. Ratts touched on it saying we had too many shallow entries and didnt use the ball well.

[spert]

Our game plan seems to be attack and no defence.

[Teflon]

As posted in another thread I’m pretty sure it was bomb it long to Gawn, May & Lever and we executed brilliantly.

3 smalls is fine if you have King, Marshall, Ryder, Membrey bringing it to ground if they don’t mark it.

Not so great when you replace Ryder/ Marshall with Hunter / McKernan and King looks totally devoid of confidence at this stage of his development against the likes of May.

Yep this makes sense
So structurally you have to adjust surely ?
Maybe we tried to lowered the eyes going into fwd 50 but our real skill level was exposed??
Worrying

[asiu]

Hard to tell. Reassured by the assumption in the thread title, but.

what ? ... that we actually have one !

[ace]

Our game plan seems to be attack and no defence.

I am sure that the players and myself understand the meaning of the word "attack", but what is this new word "defence".
Has it got anything to do with the structure that surrounds the playing surface called D Fence.
D Fence is necessary to separate the players and the crowd.
I am sure there was one last night, it is a permanent feature of Marvel.

[ace]

Game plan still is kick to the goal square.
Have a contest and the small kick a goal.
But with Gawn and May marking with the ball not falling to ground, the small were useless.
Attempts to hit a lower target failed due to no-one offering a lead and inability to hit a target.
KIng was swamped by Melbourne's tall defenders.
King needed help.
Member's can not be the only player offering leads, Battle has to do more.

The resting ruckman McKernan and Hunter should have sat on the bench.
Their inability to compete provided Melbourne's defenders with an xtra player.

The small forwards and mids refusal to guard a man rather than grass made it exiting easy for Melbourne.
They were able to exploit the stand rule to kick the ball around and run when the liked.

But don't worry Melbourne will so much easier to beat next time with Ben Brown on the end of fast delivery.

[B.M]

Don’t Richmond run Three small forwards?

[bangaulegend]

Don’t Richmond run Three small forwards?

Yeah they do but they have Riewoldt,Lynch & Dusty & their delivery is way better than ours & they move the ball quicker than us.

[True Blue Sainter]

Our "game plan" seems pretty elementary.

Basically kick it long to a contest and hope it spills favourably for one of the smalls.

Nothing too precise or tactical about it.

The worst thing is that when we face a team (like Melbourne) with above average intercept marks, we don't have a plan B

[B.M]

Aren’t we one of the fastest ball moving teams??

And we Have King, Membrey and Battle.

But we were talking about the amount of small forwards

Basically every team has three

[B.M]

Geelong will beat us as well, because they also hold their back 6

[bangaulegend]

Aren’t we one of the fastest ball moving teams??

And we Have King, Membrey and Battle.

But we were talking about the amount of small forwards

Basically every team has three

You can move the ball fast but no point if you can't hit a target & if you think King ,Membrey & Battle are in the same class ATM with the Richmond forwards you are delusional

[B.M]

But we are talking small forwards aren’t we???

[bangaulegend]

But we are talking small forwards aren’t we???

I don't want to get caught up in a tit for tat slagging match So I'm not going to reply again all I will say is that with our current skill level 3 small forwards isn't working ATM

[B.M]

But it did last season?

What’s changed? One bad game??

Castagna, Arts and Rioli are hardly anything special

IMO
Butler, Lonie and Higgins are dangerous small forwards are dangerous IMO and throw Billings and Gresham through there and you have depth and variety

What Melbourne did well, and teams that beat us do well, is hold there back 6 and not allow us to get goalside
Geelong also do it well against us

[saintsRrising]

Don’t Richmond run Three small forwards?

They do, but they also have Dusty Martin who draws all the attention and so their smalls have a more freedom that ours.