First 2 games, have not seen a speckle of a game plan. We have thrown the old one out in fear or new rule changes. Probably had to.
Our game plan has always been, hold possession, short kicking, kick to touch when under pressure, create stoppages when possible and win contested ball = win most games. Pretty simple stuff.
Recruiting policy has been contested ball winners and good kicking skills (
) to go hand in hand with our short passing game. Never have we focused on run and carry, pace or small forwards. Our football department has naively left all eggs in one basket of our 'Plan A' game plan.
With new rule changes we have been destroyed. That mixed with the same mistakes we have made for some years under Hardwick. We are in serious trouble. No kicking to touch because of tighter deliberate out of bounds. Can't drag the ball into a stoppage anymore. Thus less stoppages. This has made many of our contested ball winners somewhat less effective. We now have too many for a 'run and carry' game the AFL seems to be evolving to. Townsend, Lambert, Miles, Cotchin, Morris, Vlaustin all are contested players first and foremost. Chuck some others in there as well.
Add the interchange cap, contested ball winners are generally not running machines. Players are out on their feet most of the time, these guys aren't natural gut runners. We are getting killed with no pace or carry. The game has evolved passed our strengths. Another massive massive failure by our List Management and Football Department.
Saddest thing is this isn't something we can easily fix. Can't train pace. Not in short term., even then not a huge margin. Annoyingly at the end of Wallace era we had a heap of athletes and run and carriers who had no footy smarts, no skills and no contested ability during a 'contested era'. How ironic we now have a list filled with contested players as the game evolves back to a running pacey game. Only Richmond..
