Tonights coaching effort was poor to say it nicely.
Pagan has done plenty of good things but tonight was not one of his finer moments. I have been critical of Denis' lack of imagination and tonight I thought he was trying to prove me wrong - Carrots up forward, Walker on Croad, whitnal going forward, but alas the creativity was short lived.
Changes to our game plan were not an option. The need of move the ball on as quick as possible clearly does not work for us most of the time and we need to know when to slow things down.

I would have liked to see us try to play with a focal forward a leading fisher from the square. Deluca played well for a half but was useless floating at CHF and yet they kept bringing him back on the ground to the exact same position Hawthorn didnt rate him and were happy to play wide of him and let Smith run off him.

Perhaps try Lappo up forward. We cannot win games purely by trying to flood and shut down opposition forward lines we actual;ly need to be creative and find other avenues to goal especially when we are missing our 2 key forwards.
McLaren should have been given more game time or at least experimented with up forward.
Carrots is not a forward never was, never will be, he is a good old fashioned backman who can get the ball but kicks like a backman, just b/c he kicked a great snap against the dees doesnt mean his forward.
Mcgrath had a shocker and was repeatedly thrown back to the same opponents.


Russell and O'hailpin both looked out of their depth but JR should be persevered with for the next few weeks, but Carlos needs some more time in the 2s - he had trouble reading the ball and appeared to be lost when there was a spare defender to contend with, but these are skills which will develop.

Creativity is what separates good coaches from great coaches Denis needs to listen to his assistants more and try a new tactic when things are turning pear shape. When Plan A isnt working we need a plan B when that fails we need plan C,D and E.

Well done to Walker, Whitnall, Thornton, Simmo (in patches), Saddington, Carrazo except the kicking.

Walker on Croad was a win for Pagan

Carrots forced his man to man up and should have kicked 2 or more goals.

Whitnal went foreard and kicked 3 goals - win for Pagan

Moved Lappin forward but Hawks kicked 3 goals - Lappin back to defence.

I was frustrated that Lance was left on Croad the first quarter - but Denis does not panic. When he made the move, he made the right one. Who else picked Tex on Croad - a the move that almost helped win us the game?

_________________
This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Got to admit, suprised the hell out of me. I was expecting Thornton on Croad and Walker on Williams. AW did very well, considering Croad had about 6 shots in the first qtr and only about 2 more after that.

He has taken a big step this year.

The other thing I'm still rejoicing about is we didn't get Knobel and got Eddie Thankyou Tigers

And one of Croad's shots and his goal was from a crap kick and turnover - Walker got caught running off. Not Walker's fault...

sorry mate but you need to watch what you are saying...as you make to much sense...pagan doesnt like that!!!! and what do you think our intelligent coaching staff of elshaug and mitchell would say to him...they wouldnt have a tactitcal bone in there body...they probably complimented him after he moved big red of croad!!!!

_________________
#sayerscouldbetheman!!

Coaching effort was a joke!

There was no one at FF for the whole game!!

The whole coaching staff I don't rate! For a start they can't be bothered getting out to the breaks until they are half over!! Mitchell I've never rated (since he turned up to a Bullants 3/4 huddle one day and said "you guys address yourselves") TE is the appendix of DP - all he does is yell at the players! TL has no imagination. "Our training methods are a joke"

yeah no FF, Carlos didn't work, I thought it was appropriate for Fish to play as a FF. A lot of times when we had the ball we have no one to kick it to in the forward. Whitnall was playing as CHF and they had about 3-4 lose defenders which made it hard for us to score.

coaching isnt about matchups its about skills and how drilled the players are in match conditions.
tactically were shot!

What were we attempting to do out there ???

_________________
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I think you've mentioned it elsewhere Synbad, trying not to get thrashed.

I think Pagan is slowly turning our fortunes around. We were a Shite Team, Now we are a Good Shite Team. Before we realise it we might not be Shite anymore.

So we are progressing under the Pagan Process.

_________________
I know a little secret. And i'm not sharing.

Spot on TB, it's called an honourable loss

We flood back and therefore the other side can't give us a good old royal thrashing. Very frustrating when you see the guys bust their butt only to look forward to see 5 defenders all by themselves.

But at leaste we will not get thrashed!

I dont want to Pagan bash. But I simply believe we will not move forward with Pagan. Players cannot be expected to play this sort of game. Players should be in their positions, not running up and down the flower ground like that.

Poor Fisher was running back and forward all night.

Because guess what on a fast break, they have nothing to aim for. That long goal that Whitnall got was lucky as he had no-one to kick to.

I am frustrated with the game plan, but we are getting the ball, we had just as many shots on goal, marks, kicks, handballs whatever, its just our skill level, and I think this is because they panick when they are running towards the 50 and have no-one to kick to.

DELUCA!!!!!!!!!!

_________________
Love Cricket? Love me

i've been behind pagan since the beginning but that mind set is starting to change. i mean how many years has he had now? and sure blame the draft picks, blame poor trading, blame the afl, blame the fixturing, with the list we have, we should be in a better position than what we are now. Pagan is one of the "old school" with Sheedy, Matthews, Malthouse. Maybe we need a change to this new school approach....guys like eade, roos, worsfold, thompson-have their teams playing good footy and have the runs on the board. perhaps barry mitchell?

interested to see what everyone's thoughts regarding Mitch are????? is he a better option than TD??? is TD capable of coaching a whole team and not just the forwards?

_________________
Back like a raging case of pubic lice

_________________
Not so best of TheSexySquad


AWWWWWW STEVENS.

Another possible move would have been Russell for a stint up forward in a pocket. He is not a KPP but ncan take a mark and would have been better than Carlos who ran around like a turkey and you could see the midfield did not want to kick it to him.

Seems Denis can't take a trick. He goes for the long, direct game plan and he has his critics. He goes for the possession game plan and he gets criticised.

_________________
"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Pagan has changed his game plan and he too will make mistakes. He is trying to evolve his methods and I congratulate him on that. I thought he made some great decisions last night when the changes were needed to be made. I thought the Carazz matchup was a beauty and would have been a match winner if he kicked straighter.

The current game plan means a hell of a lot of running and he is trying to organise a forward rotation system, just as we need a midfield one. We pretty much ran out of legs in the last quarter. I commented in another post re: Lance about our forward line setup.

I for one am a lot happier with our progress this year. When you miss the calibre of Fev and Waite in the forward line it is going to hurt you. Carlos is not ready at this level yet and maybe fish was an alternative at FF also. but he has a great pair of hands and can run, I I like the use of him as a flanker and floating forward.

The wins will come when the team starts to become settled and our game becomes fluent. My only criticism of Pagan is playing defensive from the starting bounce. I would like to see us play attacking footy from the start.
Apart from that, I think we will be ok and Pagan is the right man at this current moment.

_________________
Leaders do not care what other people say about them. When people start talking crap about you, thats when you know you've made it

We were missing FEV and Waite, but still had our opportunitites to win despite getting no help from the umpires all night and Croad giving Whitnall a bath early. So really, he can't have coached that badly.

If Carrots and Fish had kicked straight, we would have gone in at three quarter time 2-3 goals up and who knows what would have happened. I reckon we would have kept up our intensity in the last quarter for a start.

Should of played Whitnall up forward from the very start.Hawthorns forward half isnt all that flash

It's not that, it's all this negative flooding, it's killing us. Kills our run through the midfield and leaves us with no options going forward. Be happy to take a thrashing or two if it meant we backed the ability of our player's. List-wise, we're not looking too bad. We'll certainly win games if player's are given the chance to back their abilities. At the moment the opposition can still cut holes through us at times, even when flooding. It's only when we've been miles behind that we've attacked and got back into games. Pagan's so worried about take a thrashing he forgets we actually have to go out and win the game.

Personally I'd be happy if they pissed Pagan off completely.