One of the most striking features of our current run of derby losses is the sameness of the defeats. The margins have differed, but the games seem to always run a certain way. The Eagles take control of the ball, and then precise kicking allows them to hang on to it until they find a tall leading target. Or a small forward crumbs it. Obviously this has been allowed to happen because in general they have been the better team, with better players. But it is has been amazing how often Fremantle have persisted with the same game plan when things have been going badly downhill in derbies. In particular, the long, high kicking to our forwards. This has been a disaster in recent derbies, yet the players persist with it. It just plays into the hands of guys like McGovern, Hurn, and Barrass. I have never understood why, when the game is getting away from them, they don't kick the ball in hard and low with the aim of neutralising the Eagles talls. Even a chaos ball would have been more effective in recent derbies than how we have kicked it forward. Another feature is our mids always seem to overposess the ball once too often and turn it over. The result is a backline that plays really well, but is eventually overrun by sheer weight of numbers of forward entries.
A number of players that have destroyed us recently are out tomorrow, noticeably McGovern and Barrass, but it would be nice to see some kind of plan B if things aren't going as planned. Not just more of the same failed style of play. One of the most disappointing things about our 10 game losing streak is that I feel like Fremantle have never 'forced' Simpson to really coach against us, because our game plan just falls right into his hands. If we are 5 goals down at half time tomorrow I really hope their is some kind of a bold attempt by Longmuir to mix things up.