More relocation chat/brawling

[Wombat]

The style of play thing, I think that's interesting because it's one of the first ones we get thrown in our face on forums etc, but I have some serious doubts about its influence.
Ultimately I don't think the playing style matters much to the casual goer - the mums and dads who go because it's an occasional bit of fun and little Bruce or Sheila play for the Dragons etc. etc.... I understand that one of the points of the playing style claim, is the number of goals, but tbh, to me at least, outside of derby wins, I think the most exciting games are the close ones and then it doesn't really matter whether it is us or them who look the most likely to score, the main point is that you're on the edge of your seat for the whole game.
Some of the most boring and frustrating games that I have attended, have been the Brisbane games that we were always going to lose, in spite of the claims about playing style.. The ones where you can see that 90th minute goal coming throughout the whole game (HOW MANY F****** TIMES!?)
It is for the same reason that I found several of the loses this season, incredibly boring... It's not so much that we were playing an uninteresting style, more that we were playing poorly altogether and it was obvious that we would get smashed.

For mine, I still think marketing is a primary driver... There's a real sense of pride around the Mariners but I think they're also taken for granted a bit... People happily mention them as their team, but don't necessarily go to the games. I'm not sure how to grab them, except for persistently advertising and maintaining the presence that is there now. Certainly, threatening to take them away just works the other way around. I too maintain that, if they hadn't been going on about moving the team, I think we would have had a bumper season, in spite of how poorly we played at the beginning.

To paraphrase Middy...hmmmm.

I thought the first part of your post was head in the sand nonsense. I often wear a Mariners polo on the weekend and it often engages people to have a chat with me regardless of if I want one or not!
It usually starts with ....."did you go the other night?"
Answer...." Of course..didn't you?"
Reply this season....." Yeah first game all year/for a while.....and it sucked. So boring and we were terrible. Not sure if we will go again if they are going to play like that again".
I heard that 90% of the season.
I even had one of my best mates (who goes 5 or 6 times a year) say he wouldn't go again if we continued to serve up such rubbish. I persuaded him otherwise but he loves Footy.
Most casuals are not so easily persuaded.

The second paragraph was on the money.

 

[nebakke]

To paraphrase Middy...hmmmm.

I thought the first part of your post was head in the sand nonsense. I often wear a Mariners polo on the weekend and it often engages people to have a chat with me regardless of if I want one or not!

Considering your obvious hatred of Danes, I would expect no less

But seriously folks, I think the thing is that your experience and my comment, are not exactly at odds. My point was that the quality of the football was pretty horrid for most of this season, the key point being "we were terrible" - to me that points more towards the quality of play, moreso than the tactics... So the fact that the boys couldn't pass a ball to save their lives until the ACL started.

The second paragraph was on the money.

Cheers

 

[Wombat]

Mate....I'm happy to drink Carlsberg until the day I die.

Who could hate a Dane?.....once they stopped the rape and pillage lark.
Funny, eccentric and warm hearted.

I became good mates with the two I played with for Hornsby.

Back to your post....The quality of play and the tactics are 100% intertwined.

 

[nebakke]

Mate....I'm happy to drink Carlsberg until the day I die.

Who could hate a Dane?.....once they stopped the rape and pillage lark.
Funny, eccentric and warm hearted.

I became good mates with the two I played with for Hornsby.

I know, I know - was just razzin' - Should try Elephant Beer though

Back to your post....The quality of play and the tactics are 100% intertwined.

Understood, but I guess the thing is that there's usually a bit of lag between a lowered quality and a change of tactics. In the meantime, you have players who either don't understand the tactics or can't employ them appropriately and so, you get even poorer quality.

I'm not saying that poor tactics won't affect the crowd numbers, I'm saying that I don't think we've been parking the bus quite to the extend that it would effect the crowds. to my mind we've been playing defensively, yes, but as I've pointed out before, it's still a long way to the second half of that Victory game last season..... That was some magnificent bus-parking right there, but it would certainly become boring after a very short time.
To my mind "Defensive play" =/= "Boring Play", I think it's been a lot more fun to watch us play the second half of this season, than the first half... I went to NSO for example, that was shocking and close to being one of the most frustrating things that I've seen in a long time, no unity on the team and noone knew where anyone was... We still won, but God it was uninteresting.
We tried playing defensively then and we have been trying to do that for the last couple of months as well... Looking a lot better now and so, it's a lot more fun to watch, win or lose.