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March 04, 2008
The New Challenge
He we are, on the cusp of a new year. Played a couple games. Showed enough to scare some clubs and to show we have some pretty handy young talent. So the real question for 2008 is what’s this year going to be like for us. Will we continue to be a kick A side or will we float like a drug addled yoyo. Will we still be a hungry club and be willing to do what must be done or will we pontificate, basking in the glory of our flag and the knowledge of what we have achieved.
I remember pre-season last year, thinking that for us to improve we needed to invoke a new mental approach, to create a tougher mind set. I thought we needed to set our sights high, in fact, extremely high, my target was on Zero Error. The reasoning was simply to make it clear that mediocre efforts were not acceptable, “just” getting the job done was to be unacceptable. We needed to instil a culture of harsh self judgement and for me aiming for zero error was the way to do it. The Cats approached it slightly differently but their honest public assessments by their piers did the trick. All players raised the bar and our excellent performance thru the season and our amazing performance in the GF was due in some part to these expectations.
So what do we do this year to keep our standard up?
This year our task is a mental problem of a different flavour. The issue is how we cope with being the Premier and all it encompasses. How do we cope with the pressure of being at the top of the mountain and being “the hunted”? Conversely how we handle the easing of pressure due to our success now that we have finally achieved what we have all dreamed about.
When we won the flag last year, we didn’t only break the drought for GFC, we changed the paradigm for every club in the league. The two previous flags were won in great contests but dour struggles. When I think on Swans V WC , it’s the negative flooding , the close checking and the non scoring that I first think of., Sure they produced tight , enthralling contests and close finishes but for me it was not much more than 36 highly tuned fit athletes playing jungle ball. To me our game was made great with contests, not just close scores. The best games, the most entertaining games where created when the players were willing to take risks and where they were willing to trust their fellow players to win the ball in a one on one contest. They would focus on trying to maintain your skills while playing with pace, rather than reducing the speed of play, to ensure certainty of possession. The method that Roos and Worsfold always seemed to favour was to keep the ball under control. Control is their mantra and tempo is their creed. “They can not score if we have it” and so came forth the game of keepings off. The critics might have said its rubbish football but when this methodology actually gained a premiership, others noticed and followed. Of course when nearly every team is attempting play this style, the general level of interesting football played dissipated. The comp suffered.
To be fair a few teams preferred to stride a different road. They road they chose was to break the flood by moving the football as quick as they could. Geelong though did this the best, playing at a pace that ensured negating tactics were hard to employ but also playing a dynamic, breath taking football. Their list was primed and ready to roar and roar they did. Their style was tagged by some as Tsunami football, rather ironic really to think a Tsunami was used to break a flood. And by winning a flag by play this high paced game, they have swung the pendulum. No longer is the attacking football style looked upon as the losing model and I’m sure this year will see quite a few teams try to duplicate us. The thing is its easy to run and gun , Its another to have the footy smarts to be able to use the footy at a rushed pace and be efficient. It will be interesting to see how the athletes cope with less time to make the football decisions.
For us we still must keep doing what we are the best at while blending in 3 to 4 new guys. We must continue to be what Geelong has be know for. The club that put skill on display and make the footy worth watching. Do this and continue to match the skills with hard nosed play hard football and we will have other club wondering how to beat us , and that sounds good to me.
Posted by Turbocat at March 4, 2008 10:43 PM
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