I can't accept that he needs to save any players confidence. Our season is shot, gone, over, kaput. He knows it , the players know it and we as supporters know it. I personally like what he is doing with Walker. At least with him he has a plan , a vision, something tagging is going to teach him , and how he might be on the end of it it years to come.

As for tagging everyone, i'm not saying that this is the only way to go. What i am saying is that when an opposition side gets a run on we need to be individually accountable ( even if its only for 5 -10 minutes ). Man on man just to stem the flow. By going man on man , you might just find a weak link, one weak link leads to another and before you know it, you are almost back on par. Confidence can swing and so too does momentum.

IMO i can't understand why Pagan just doesn't pick a team like he had a team of champions and played them as if they were champions. What i mean is Play Lance at CHF, Play Thornton at CHB, keep Livo at FB, Campo on the ball running past recieving ( for those who think thats all he does ).

I just think the only way to give a player confidence is to set him a position and tell him to play it. What the player does then is all up to the player. If the player is good enough or has a good day he beats his opponent, he does what he should be doing and he doesn't have the fear of making mistakes on his mind. He empowers himself with his own self belief.

I'd rather see our team line up the way we did against Melbourne in the last quarter and " potentially" get flogged, than see us play the way we have been of recent and still get flogged.

We have nothing to lose, Pagan has nothing to lose. Only the players have something to lose, and that is there spots on the list, so maybe just maybe lets see who can play football , not who can flood effectively.

But thats me, and i'm not the coach nor on the MC.

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

Tractor Boy,

I am putting 2 and 2 together and thinking you were the bloke who gate crashed Denis Pagan's on ground press conference today.

If it is you, send this post to him. He did ask for it in writing.

I can confirm it wasn't me. I actually saw that on the news. To be honest i'm all for Denis Pagan, i just would like to be able to understand why he is coaching the way he currently is.

Having a weak playing list IMO is no excuse in this style of game plan he initiates. We might not be great at the moment but things do become habitual, and this ugly style of flooding is not something i want our club to be playing in the future, winning or losing. Though winning as a consequence i could learn to accept.

For me this is the right time for Dennis to think outside the square, do all sorts of experimental things. I say this because win or lose , more likely lose, no one will critise him because he is at least trying different things, trying to work out who deserves to be wearing the navy blue and who will be shown the door.

To Dennis i would say Go for it, back yourself just as you ask players to back themselves.

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

But what you're saying is we have six midfileders to go man on man - who are they? Kouta can't, he can't keep up. Campo can't, he forgets his man. Stevo won't, his instinct is to go forward or way back, Teague can't, too slow and will always leave his man to try and fill a space, Bryan is still learning, Whitss decided to drop back, Livo beat his man, T-Bird had a man that kept rotating on him, plus he had to try and help Teague and that ruckman and anyone else running back, so who? Who doesn the manning up?

It is so simplistic but to go man on man you need a damn good side, like we once had, a side that will run itself into the earth, get up and run some more. Have a look at a replay of the 95 west Coast Eagles, carlton game - that side went man on man and it damn near killed them and they just won and that was one of our best sides. This side we have is not.

But the problem is when you flood at Subiaco you still have to run and you still have to be accountable. When walker was being crashed so Judd could run free who covered Judd?

When T-Bird covered Teague's man - who covered T-Bird's?

This side is weak, structurally weak, mentally weak and we lack four quality midfielders. When the eagles flexed their muscles our guys had nothing left to give.

Its not the flooding that concerns me. Its the fact that even when flooding there were more holes that a swiss cheese because blokes still wouldn't man up, or fill holes, or run hard or do all the little things they had done for a half. that side was stuffed, stuffed after 1 half of football because only half the side runs to fill gaps and chase and run forward and run back etc. Those that did were [REDACTED] by half time, those that don't kept not.

I am not trying to blame blokes here. i think kouta cannot cover the ground as he once did, so he creates gaps for the opposition. I think stevo is carrying an injury (I hope so otherwise he is not what I had hoped for)
I think Campo does tke soft options all the time. I think Whits ran his guts out in the first half and had nothing left in his tank. Same with Bryan. Walker would have been buggered after that game.

Denis would have hoped to stem that tide with a flood, hold them like we did in the Whizz Fizz final, (we flooded then with no arguments both against them and the doggies and the dees) but these blokes have not the legs, the ground is bigger and West Coast are far better than that game. the flood did nothing but make them look a bit harder.

I am not disappointed he tried the flood, I am disappointed players still left gaps, didn't chase, didn't help walker, couldn't keep going. Still I thought we'd lose by a 150 so that's how well I'm going at the moment.

Denis likes to be able to strangle games, likes to smother their runs and make it a hard game but he has not the cattle. Some want him to change his game to suit the cattle. I want him to get better cattle.

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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!

So Dannyboy, you're saying we have to flood becasue we're not good enough to play man on man, but you're also saying you're concerned that we're not good enough to flood?

I'm with Tractor Boy in that it *seems* like the players would learn more from being flogged man-on-man than being flogged while trying to flood.

Selfishly it would also be (slightly) easier to watch as a fan....

would it?

and what would it teach?

who would it teach?

Kouta? Campo? Whits? Teague? Scotland? Stevo?

Our kids played on their man. so who would it teach?

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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!

It not about teaching "old dogs" new tricks. We all want the club to move forward and upward, and i would go as far as saying that of the group of players listed above a realistic view would be that only one is a definite in our playing plans for the future, the others will either be retired or are no certainties.
So you are correct it will not teach those guys anything. It probably wouldn't teach many blokes at the club a lot. BUT what could happen is that the younger ones , Walker Livo, Thorton,Waite,Simpson, Carrazzo of the imediate playing group plus the likes of Blackwell,Russell Betts, Setana etc etc, get a little bit of confidence from the coaching staff for committing themselves to the greater cause.

Going one on one gives our so called stars no place to hide, flodding does.
I suspect that the reason Dennis might be flooding more so now than in the past is not because this is his favourite game plan, but more so not to expose our so called stars flaws.

Dennis is being very generous to a few players on our list, by not exposing them externally, i can only imagine how quickly he wants this season to end so that he can reshape our playing list.

Play players in there respective positions. Give us a chance to get the ball forward and keep it forward. 6 forwards in the forward line and midfielders running in will always improve your chances of scoring as compared to 3 defenders on one forward , with our midfielders too knackered to move forward and attempt to help out.


I'm guessing that this week against a weakened St Kilda, Dennis will play more to our strengths, play a more shoot out style of game and see what we are capable of. I'm starting to believe we only really flood when the coach belives he needs to protect Big Name players reputations.

He has defiantely meloowed out our Dennis, if i was to offer my opinion to him, it wouldn't be centred on flooding it would be more about letting certain players now that the line in the sand has been drawn now you decide which side of it you go. Something i think Collo is addressing very well !!

PS. We'll win this week !

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

Well said Tractor Boy, man on man is the way to go with a developing list.
Playign a flood with a young list is training them to have a negative mindset. When these guys are drafted they are picked for their strengths such as skill, pace etc, not for being able to fill spaces on the ground.
Man on man will expose which players are able to take the next step & become establised senior players in the future. By playing man on man they will also be able to be coached to improve weaknesses that become obvious, playing the flood everyone sees the players as a unit going nowhere, man on man will highlight each player in a different light.
PS: Tractor boy, it is a shame you don't apply yourself to your work like you do thr Bluebaggers.

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Like the Tractor of old.

[.

[/quote]


PS: Tractor boy, it is a shame you don't apply yourself to your work like you do thr Bluebaggers.[/quote]


Mate you know who i work for so why would or should i apply myself. All this empire building going on around me , managers with no people skills, oh well at least i get paid and internet acess is free !

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

He will same as West coast, and same as West Coast if it goes pear shaped he will try and halt it.

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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!

PS: Tractor boy, it is a shame you don't apply yourself to your work like you do thr Bluebaggers.[/quote]


Mate you know who i work for so why would or should i apply myself. All this empire building going on around me , managers with no people skills, oh well at least i get paid and internet acess is free ![/quote]

LOL, you are on the money there, anyway lets not get sidetracked back to the important issue of flooding.
Think of the last side to be successful via flooding, dont say Sydney, look the talent in their forward line & they struggle to kick over 100 points in a game mote than a couple of times a season. They make the eight, yeah, but everyone knows they are not a threat to the flag with that gameplan.

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Like the Tractor of old.

Posted 2nd July 2005, Just interesting to see how things have changed.

BUMP!

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

How things have changed? have they ???

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