Athorn the Wonderkid wrote:
2005 - bomb it long to the goal square
Change game plan
2006 - find an option. dont bomb it long.
I reckon the players are still confused by the change of game plan and dont know a good thing when they see it - fev on that 6 foot nothing slowcoach was always going to be a good bet.
This is a good example of the difficulties of coaching. If you had 22 players in a match who were experienced, skillful, and composed players with great footy brains, you could be very flexible as a coach.
The problem is that most of the players a coach has on match day aren't. And not many of them make good decisions.
It would be nice to be able to tell the players to use the "best option". But if you have a young player whose kicking isn't so flash and is worried about turning the ball over, you have to expect that he will try to chip the ball 20 metres to a teammate rather than try to kick 50 m to a full forward when there are loose defenders who might take advantage of a bad kick. But if you try to force the same player to kick long in preference, he will also do this when the full-forward is surrounded by loose men (or even worse he will kick the ball long even though no forwards are there at all).
Whatever instructions you give players, you will find them selecting bad options. That's why players like Diesel were so good. You wouldn't bother telling him how to play - he would select the best option without problems.
If we had radio links between players and coach, you wouldn't have to worry about these broad orders. Every player could be told what to do in the specific circumstances whether it be a short pass or a long kick to a target or space.