Mariners v Fowler FC

[Razorback]

I was disappointed with Matty getting pinged for being too slow getting back onside after a botched Fury clearance in the first half. We won the ball in midfield and banged it straight back in with Matty still strolling back as if the ball was in Brisbane Water.

lawrie was furious with this

happened about four times early in the second half (simon and mrdja) and he said the team lost momentum as a result

Rightly so, hope they both got a big Scottish boot up the quoit. No excuse for that.

Lawrie gets furious with a lot of these things... which means that they obviously aren't part of his game plan.

So I don't understand why he gets blamed by people on here...

Lawrie gets furious with a lot of these things... which means that they obviously aren't part of his game plan.

So I don't understand why he gets blamed by people on here...

When it happens 4 times who should be blamed. These are the creases in the attitude of players that he should be ironing out!!! A big reason why I believe that he has taken this team as far as he can.

 

[soundsdifferent]

Get rid of mat simon and we will be right.

 

[typool]

silly, you can'y just get rid of a player coz he is having a form slump.. happens to all players.
a week or two in NYL and he should be fine

 

[BaysideMariner]

Get rid of mat simon and we will be right.

Nah Just some bench time or a couple of weeks in the youth league should do the trick

 

[Wilsons]

Back at the Lightning??

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Weemac (who you have slagged big time while defending far worse performing players).

I don't "slag" anyone.
I criticise at times and then explain my reasoning.

I think in regards to Weemac my concerns have been accurate and warranted. But I really don't mind if I'm wrong. I am not attached to my opinions, or as you seem to believe to certain players or our coaches. I do generally appreciate and value them and their efforts however, but not in a blinkered emotional way that you seem to think.

As to "defending" players - I assume we're namely talking Kwassie of late - and Hutch in the past? I do understand what you are saying, and I'll address it in a moment, but again, I struggle with the language you use...

Defending implies there are "sides" for and against - and I wouldn't usually bring this up but I don't think this is just semantics in this instance, as this is what you seem to so often do Wombat. You seem to firmly believe that there are always sides? The victim and the overlooked...  The hardened realist and the aoplogist... I don't see in sides. I just see one side... one club... I don't see people being blatantly ripped off and overlooked, and or hopeless fools getting game time or a team players with no heart blah blah... I just see some bad performances some times and mistakes being made... And even then I'm rarely that unhappy, because I really do see a lot of honest endeavour from our team and all involved at the club the bulk of the time and that makes me very proud.

Its one of the reasons I love our club so much. I believe, and I always have, that we are a very honest and grounded club and that that is no small achievement. We never seem to be trying to dress ourselves up as anything and instead save all our energies to work consistently doing the best we can to move steadily forward, taking the knocks on the chin as they come. We may not always go well, or get the luck we need... But until I see sufficient evidence to the contrary, I sincerely dislike talking in terms of rifts and discrimination against players or people not trying or having no skill...

As I have expressed several times in the past, I think that's ludicrous. Players may have poor games, or slumps, but it's very hard to get a start in HAL these days unless your a pretty bloody skillful player imo. This too needs to be in perspective... people like Craig Foster keep enjoying pointing out that we may not be on par with many places in the world as yet, but I'm patient, and pleased, because clearly those in charge of football in Australia have a long term vision - as mercifully for us do those at CCM.  Glad I'm not at Roar being told by the FFA we need a strategic plan and business plan to address their problems.

But in terms of "defending" our players. It's quite simple, if I think people are being irrational or talking form a position of blame or just missing information which is at hand, I will try to add what I feel is some perspective... "defending". But it is not out of some strange blind loyalty. Though as said I do feel loyalty towards the club and its players, my opinions are formed based on the evidence I see, and I may disagree with your opinion. And I may be wrong. But that's ok.

 

[MagpieMariner]

Get rid of mat simon and we will be right.

How things do change

 

[fedelta]

this bloke was in bay 23 on sat night (mariners jersey, marinators scarf), in the away bay when we played perth (with newcastle jersey and perth scarf on), and at the jets game on sunday.. he is a confused little man.

 

[MagpieMariner]

Just covering his bets

 

[bikinigirl]

. there has been some interesting and thoughtful debate in this thread ... maybe because many of the 'we're shit, sack everybody' posters have given up. there are a few themes i would like to pick up on and apply to the game (note from live observations and no benefit of a replay):

. we started well, hungry and attacking ... movement was good, the midfield strong and we shoulda/coulda scored a few more early on

. their goal took the wind out of our sails a bit ... moreso because it was off a deflection i'd suggest and we had missed a few opportunities

. it was not long until the midfiled went missing ... again. we then alternate between 8 at the back as our confidence wanes to 4, 5 or 6 upfront as we are pannicked into an urgency to score

. heff was obviously brilliant until the effects of his moonlighting or the weight of his beard started to tug at his hamstrings. porter unfortunately is often guilty of the wrong choice: right or wrong pace, shoot, cross, take on the man ... but i think he is trying to learn to play as a midfielder again, it'll be interesting to see if he gets a fair crack at it

. again i don't know if the tactics were an issue ... more the execution. when they first game out they played well but it did fall apart sooner than you would hope. regardless of the team selection the starting eleven shoulda/coulda won, and won well. the subs didn't offer anything either

. other than a mention of matty not performing in the heat little else has been made of it and i am not sure why they didn't stop for a drinks break ... i thought they had done it before and they had breaks in the kiddies game. when NQ were admitted to the league it was suggested (mostly tongue in cheek) that people would die playing in townsville and i don't think you can underestimate the effect that has had. all day i was thinking fury were at a huge advantage if they are practiced in those conditions. so our strong start quickly fell away and they dominated for large parts

. i was hoping matty would have a better game with the 'world cup squad' hype shown to be just that ... unfortunatley it was not to be and i think it is time to try something different. i notice that travis is listed on the mariners website as a forward and wonder if this might be the right idea ... nothing else seems to have worked. mrdja is the only one that seems to be able to control/keep the ball - it might help to have a little sneak running off him ... maybe even wee matt

. i also noticed how deep that fowler bloke tends to sit and it is something i have never seen from our mob ... maybe there is something in it. surely it is better than having both forwards pushing the line and having one try and bounce the ball off his head to someone, somewhere who is more often than not offside anyway

. as for the wee man ... it was interesting that somebody thought the kiwis ruined him by playing him at DM. i thought it actually started a little before then when he was getting no service and found himself dropping back deep to take the ball and run it out. unfortunately he started getting closed down earlier and earlier and dropped deeper as a consequence

. so that brings us to a back 3 ... i have only been asking for it for 5 years. being relatively uneducated i think seeing the heff at LB in season one had me thinking. but it is quite clear to me now that the midfield is a real issue for us - the squad is full of midfielders but we are still struggling. by flooding the midfield you are giving heff and porter the opportunity to play 'their' game it should give more time to the likes of hutch or the wee-man to play the ball and we should be able to hold a little momentum. with a packed midfield and flyers in heff and porter there should be more balls to the feet of travis and mrdja

. fun, frivolity and 5 straight wins will ensue

. gee that was longer than i thought

 

[dibo]

i just don't know that we've got the cattle for a back three the way we want to see it played. at its best at the moment it'd be something like:

          danny
  boogs wilko doig
porter bojic hutch heff
        mcglinchey
      simon mrdja

in spite of what some might think, that turns into a very narrow little 5-3-2 extremely quickly - as soon as we're under consistent pressure we crunch our defence down to the penalty area and then we struggle to get back out. we wouldn't have numbers in midfield because our wide men are collapsing the structure down to the by-lines and we force our opponents to try to cross into the tall timber or shoot from range.

what's more, we'd still be susceptible to quick balls through because unless we sit the back three super deep we are still leaving space to play in behind the centre halves and we'll still get killed for pace and we'll lose out on angled balls finding the van dijks, greenacres, smeltzes, brosques... you know where i'm going with this...

if we played like this, we would have to start to play the melbourne way - set up deep and the first ball out of defence *isn't* a lateral ball, it's a quick ball out to near halfway, find a target and then break like crazy people.

people who don't like long-ball football would find endless reasons to complain. while melbourne get compliments because they're playing long balls to a tubby costa rican, we'd be panned for playing long balls to a midgy weegie kiwi mcglinchey.

 

[Wombat]

Daal was fantastic. He was isolated and held the ball up to bring in Fowler and co. The way the game was played didnt suit him in the 2nd half with the ball going over his head.

Funny how we all see things differently.  I thought Daal was very average and certainly wouldn't think about signing him on that performance.
McBreen looked more dangerous in his 5 min cameo.

 

[tuftman]

. as for the wee man ... it was interesting that somebody thought the kiwis ruined him by playing him at DM. i thought it actually started a little before then when he was getting no service and found himself dropping back deep to take the ball and run it out. unfortunately he started getting closed down earlier and earlier and dropped deeper as a consequence

what about using him as a deeper lying playmaker

                      Pedj    Wee Mac    Hutcho

                                  Travis

Obviously that means that whoever we have at Left and Right Back will need to do a lot of legwork to give the attack any width, but Heff and Porter seem to do a lot of that anyway.

I just figure that if teams have pinpointed McGlinchey as being the creative element in midfield, why not make them either a) play higher up the park, and expose themselves a little to shut him down, or b) leave him be, and have a deeper line to counteract whatever he comes up with from a deeper position. Obviously having Travis behind the strikers means that teams will have to keep an eye on him anyway, which can open up space for McGlinchey to do the creative bit

 

[Jaza_SFC]

i just don't know that we've got the cattle for a back three the way we want to see it played. at its best at the moment it'd be something like:

          danny
  boogs wilko doig
porter bojic hutch heff
        mcglinchey
      simon mrdja

That's exactly how I'd do it as well, but I'd give Travis first crack at #10. Means you don't need a CB on the bench either, as Bojic is your defensive cover. Maybe Clark on the bench if you want a 4-4-2 option, but that's it.

in spite of what some might think, that turns into a very narrow little 5-3-2 extremely quickly

Correct, and most of your post is correct, but that's mostly though lack of conditioning.
Many teams in the comp could play a back 3 - I've said it about every SFC side from season two onwards. I'm a huge huge advocate of it, and only recently have I backed away from thinking it's a good idea for Liverpool (once I found some stats on the implications of the speed of the EPL on a wingback - virtually intolerable), but the thing is ...

No team ever trains that way. The HAL has seen a few different moves to 3-5-2 over the years:
*CCM in Season One I think?
*Melbourne for the first 2/3 of season two
*AUFC in Season One and Two under Kossie (combined total 3-4 games)
*SFC for one game under Butcher at end of season two
*MVFC this year
*NJFC for one game in the GF v.s. you guys
*NJFC this year (interchanged with a back 4)
*AUFC v.s. us two weeks ago (although that was a 3-4-2-1)

The results have been hugely variable. For me the biggest thing that sticks out is that the teams who used it succesfully (only MVFC and NJFC, the others were all mostly a miss), trained and stuck with it.
I think if CCM tried a 3-5-2 as above this week, it would fail. Porter would probably get lost in terms of position (though Heff may cope), the strikers may not keep the right distance between them, and the CMs would almost certainly struggle to find the right balance (as it changes significantly in that systems, and there are several tactical deviations you can take with the CM roles).
Had it been tried in pre-season and throughout the season, I think it could work VERY well. But not now - it would be a trainwreck. For evidence, look at Vidmar playing 3-4-2-1 against us recently. He had all the cattle in the right places, and on paper it made a huge amount of sense ... But on the day all the players were lost. Jamiseon/Pantelis is a perfect LWB/LW combo, but we raped that right hand side due to them not having a clue. They had no balls played through their spine from CB, the whole thing was a disaster. Again, good in theory, but HAL players aren't trained to be that adaptable.

Melbourne in season two were at their best for the first 2/3 in a 3-5-2 system. It was extremely well designed, with a few interesting points:

-------Leijer---Vargas---Piorkowski

Leijer and Piorkowski are actually playing on their "wrong" sides. Leijer is left-footed, and Piorkowski right. Leijer was previously a CB/LB option, just as Piro was CB/RB. But Merrick purporsely played them this way, as what it often did was make sure that the ball was played out of the back through CM, rather than going out wide.

Storey----Musc**t--Brebner---Caceres

Very tough in the middle. Between CM and CB alone you really have 4-and-a-half defenders. They took forwards when to go forward, and when to defend, but ultimately they sat around the halfway line in possession.
Also note the very different nature of the wide players. Caceres was very much an attacking player, just as Storey is a defender. Whilst they both played wingback quite well, the lack of balance was well designed for when Caceres decided to give up on shape, Storey dropped well in to the backline to allow the back three to stretch more and not be too caught out by the gap inside Caceres' channel. It worked well - that spot behind Caceres should have been for more of a weak spot than it was.

-------------Fred
----Thompson---Allsopp

The game was simple, Musc**t or Brebner would knock it long for T/A to score. It worked a huge number of times, Melb just soaked up pressure with bodies behind the ball and launched forward with venom. To this day I am shocked how they don't get called out for the long ball side they are (similarly though, despite being a long ball side in v2 they were value to watch a lot of the time).
Back on track though, their gameplan was knock it long, and have Fred there for the rebounds. It worked immsensely well. On top of that you'd get the interplay with Fred and Caceres, and both Brebner and Musc**t had their best HAL seasons that year (neither were mugs on or off the ball - both 9-out-of-10 seasons), but ultimately their gameplan was stay tough and rigid at the back, and let the sheer quality of the front 3 work.
And it worked. I often wonder what would have happened had Piorkowski not got injured that year. When he got injured, they went to a back four, and never quite dominated the same. The side that dominated, and let Fred work his magic, was the side for the first part of the year that played the back 3.

I'd love to see more HAL clubs try it, but really they have to be training for it in the pre-season. I've wanted it at SFC for years but never expected it because we've never tried it even in a trial. We've always taken the square peg approach to our FB roles, whereas I often think the HAL's fullback crisis (and CB overload) could be solved by 3-5-2. No shortage of Matt Thompson esque players who can play the WB role if trained to and given time to settle in (think Shannon Cole, Prad Porter, Franjic at BRFC, Tarek Elrich, there's so many).

I shouldn't be surprised though, the back 3 system is virtually dead at international level. Only Napoli do it regularly of any solid euro side.

Can't see McKinna ever doing it. Anyone who's played park football in the UK knows why   Apparently Lavicka was asked about it and blew the idea off straight away. Can't see it making a comeback in the HAL any time soon, although I do wonder if Vidmar might give it a crack next year given how many CBs he has compared to fullbacks.

 

[Forum Phoenix]

Great post.

 

[bikinigirl]

. thanks for the input Dibo & Jaza ... I understand where you are coming from

. the issue i have and your main criticism of a back 3 is that we will lose shape too quickly, so can i ask you if you have seen us play recently?

. perhaps a change may focus the minds a little, maybe even for a more sustained period than what we have been seeing lately. if we can convert a few opportunities early on, it should be easy to default back to 4-4-2 if we come under serious pressure

 

[marinermick]

Back three has gone out of the window because one rigid formation is a thing of the past in professional football. Back three does not provide flexibility and fluidity.

Barcelona are and were at the forefront of this change. Who the hell knows what they play? They are so mobile, so flexible and move in and out of formations at will as the siruation deems it.

Most of the Hal teams are trying it in one way or the other.

Starting as a traditional 4-4-2 actually gives you some flexibility as does the 4-2-3-1.  At times you can even go with two at the back if necessary, players can tuck in or out, you can flood certain areas of the park (as Barca do so well) and having the right cattle you can properly support your one or two strikers.

So, all this talk about formations is really the talk of dinosaurs as most teams do not really set themselves any typical formation for the period of the game, or at least do not aspire to.

This is why a starting back three is so unpopular, especially having three centre-backs. Does not give the flexibility to go to a back four or five, and believe it or not does not give you much width.

 

[offtheball]

A simple question about our defensive set up on corners. Why do all 11 players camp inside the 18 yard box for corners. Any clearance goes straight bck to the opposotion mid field who have time and no pressure to send it back?

 

[FFC Mariner]

Maybe we are setting a trend with starting with 4 CB's on Saturday night?

Chicken at RM suddenly made us look more balanced initially until he got dragged inside to cover the fact that both CM's clocked off at about 25 mins.

In a 442, there is no place for both Travis and Wee Mac (the Gerrard/Lumplard issue for England). Playing either out wide doesnt work as they are central midfielders.

 

[bikinigirl]

. well i am well and truly confused now ... thank you very much

. mick, it would seem we are not sophisticated/smart enough to play the fluid game you intimate we do or try to do. there is obviously something wrong with our structure or 'fluid structure' if we so consistently end up with a back 8 or a front 5 with absolutely nobody in the middle

. the midfield is where i see the problem (although scoring is obviously an issue albeit not entirely unrelated) so that is what i was trying to address

. if we employ the 'fluid structure' technically no individual is ever 'out of position' but somehow at least a third of the team are simultaneously out of position. yes i am purposely trying to dumb down your technical explanation because it seems that's what the players need (not to mention my head is spinning) ... if what you are saying is true it is no wonder they play the way they do when they come under pressure

In a 442, there is no place for both Travis and Wee Mac (the Gerrard/Lumplard issue for England). Playing either out wide doesnt work as they are central midfielders.

. this is partly why i was suggesting playing travis up front but positioning him where that fowler bloke was on saturday. it may just provide a real link, give him the opportunity to use some trickery and interact with the wee man properly ... it may just bring out the best in both of them. if mrdja is the other man up front, the way he was playing on saturday, it should all be a lot more entertaining