Post Match. Hawks humble Pies . All comments.

[Dave The Man]

Also how can Hawks have 2-4 Players Free in there Forward Line by themselves?

[Geek]

Not sure about Fly's presser tonight:
"The psychology of professional sport
...the psychology of ladder position potentially...it is interesting where our players put their energy... Late in the game , Morrison tackles Noble, the crowd roars, and 5 Hawthorn players get over to celebrate the tackle...thats been us for the large part of the last 18 months...that's been our energy levels, and want, and excltement for others...yeah, it's a fascinating game..."
(Suggesting that our mindset and cohesion has suffered a major downturn recently))
"I think the game is being played above the head more than people give it credit for"'....
(is Fly suggesting that our players are in a complacent mindset before the tasks ahead? If so, he needs to address it.)
"I tend to write a script on what the game can do and potentially before the game...the script in my head was they get a fast start, 4 or 5 goals ahead and we'll be chasing our tail the whole game. that was the script in my head, that was the one thing I was worried about, um..careful what you wish for..."

"Psychology of ladder position" ...is he saying that we went in arrogant and complacent? If so, he needed to be the one to address it.

Why was fly entertaining such a script, when we are top of the ladder, and Hawthorn is 16th??

Yeah he did say they'd be looking at it.

I thought it was a sensible enough presser. A bit of 'not the finished product' meme creeping in at the end of it but he pointed out a lot of what was said around here: We aren't working as hard for each other as we used to. And we need to get whatever is ailing us sorted out soon.

[Dave The Man]

Two losses in a row
We look tired
We should of rested the older players
Why isn’t Frampton playing. Desperately need him. Bad selection move. That’s why we recruited him

Need to reset
Let’s see what next week brings

Match Selection Commodity been Terrible Recently

[Gerry Cooper]

So, Ash, Checkers and McStay in the same forward line does not work.

it hasn't worked because the three twits keep flying for the same mark instead of trying for some separation. Forward coaches need to work on that.

[Leggie]

Ah well
Looks like Cats will beat Port

[What'sinaname]

The top 2 teams in the AFL are currently two of the worst performing teams over the last few weeks.

[Piesnchess]

Fly in his pressure, re psychology, was I reckon having a bit of a go at some of our players, who maybe were drinking some of their own bathwater, taking it bit easy now. cos of our Ladder position. Now as he says, we have some work to do, and this is very true, if not a tad understated.

[Jezza]

Still 2 games clear after Port's loss to Geelong

[Piesnchess]

Ah well
Looks like Cats will beat Port

Good result for us, still two games clear on top, plus %. plus I would much prefer to face a Cats side that won, tonight, than one that lost, and be in a mood to face us. we are the ones who need to be in a foul mood next week,not them, now. a

[rad]

Give us the tough run home. We struggle against the underdogs like WC, Nth, Blues, Hawks.

We’ll be battle hardened and no complacency going into any game.

One more win should be enough to lock in top 2 but you’d hope for atleast 2 wins for confidence going into the finals.

[Gerry Cooper]

Why was fly entertaining such a script, when we are top of the ladder, and Hawthorn is 16th??

Because what's said in the team room stays in the team room, perhaps?

[What'sinaname]

Fly in his pressure, re psychology, was I reckon having a bit of a go at some of our players, who maybe were drinking some of their own bathwater, taking it bit easy now. cos of our Ladder position. Now as he says, we have some work to do, and this is very true, if not a tad understated.

Did anyone ask him about Sicily?

[Magpietothemax]

Why was fly entertaining such a script, when we are top of the ladder, and Hawthorn is 16th??

Because what's said in the team room stays in the team room, perhaps?

Sorry, not sure what you mean by this. Please clarify.

[shawthing]

Ah well
Looks like Cats will beat Port

I would much prefer to face a Cats side that won, tonight, than one that lost, and be in a mood to face us.

Not likely. If the Cats lost tonight their season would be done. Now (with the Giants losing in Sydney) they'll be back in the eight and playing for their season. Geelong will come to play. But will we?

[PyreneesPie]

Look, that was a shocker. We were destroyed in more ways than one.

The first way was like Carlton did they played keepings off. Chipped the ball around a lot and minimised turnovers across half back.
Hawks +80 Kicks
Hawks +80 Uncontested Possession
Hawks +60 Marks
They played keepings off.
This limited our own possession and what we were able to do on the counter, essentially cutting our balls off.

Now, probably more importantly is that we DID NOT react to this by pushing up and applying frontal pressure to their short chipping to create turnovers around our half forward line. This needs to become our switch in game plan for the remainder of the season as teams now try to counter our half back run and gun style we've been playing all year. Evolve now or die on the vine.
.

This sums up our present position perfectly IMHO.

We've had centre clearance problems for over a decade now, ever since Swanny and co bowed out. Nothing new there. Fly and the coaching team cleverly engineered a way around this, with the run and gun game style MM describes above.

This is where the majority of our scoring originates. It relies heavily on zonal defence and interceptors in Darcy, Murphy, Howie etc beginning the half-back run, while every other player down field runs full steam on ahead of the ball to create handball chains and quick delivery into the forward line.

However, astute coaches of opposition teams have figured out to interrupt this game plan. First of all, chip the ball around, with minimal long bombs into their own forward line. This minimizes the effect of our zonal interceptors and in itself inhibits the start of the run out of our backline.

The Hawks were also very good at applying front on pressure to our mids and wings, not allowing them the space to run ahead of any ball that happened to come out of defence.

Furthermore, as MM says, we need to man up as the opposition comes out of our own forward line, not zone off and allow them to short kick their way out of it, all the way down the bloody ground.

I was staggered that for much of the game today, we failed to adjust, to forego the zonal defence, to man up on their players and to apply full on pressure to create some ground ball contest.

Have we forgotten how to apply intense pressure across the ground and win the hard ball gets? Beau seems to be about the only player capable of consistently applying pressure on the opposition ball carrier at present. Have we come to rely too much on the easy handball chains that running ahead of the direction of play coming out of the backline sets up? What happens when the opposition stops this run? Are we relying too little on applying some real grunt work and front on pressure all over the ground, winning the hard ball. Or are we relying too much on flair and playing football that's "exciting to watch"?

Our game plan needs to be far more flexible and not so glaringly obvious to opposition coaches. Whether this can be engineered in the short amount of time left in the season is the big question I guess.