Correlation, or, Causation

"We went into the game knowing what to expect and couldn’t execute… I’m really clear on why it happened, and we are as a coaching group.”

"There's clear things in our game that we need to improve… We’ve got ideas on what’s happening; why is much more complex and harder question to answer.”

“That’s what we’re asking ourselves… We’re really clear internally about what we need to do to fix it.”

The above quotes are from Chris Scott’s last three post-game press conferences, in which he’s essentially said the same thing three times after each loss: ‘it’s not my fault’.

If we take Scott’s quotes at face value, the Cats game plan is sound but the execution of it is not. That leaves us with two troubling options:

1) The players are choosing not to follow the game plan

2) The players are incapable of following the game plan

The first is a question of effort and motivation, the second of ability. Hold that thought.

Another Scott quote: “If we’d said, 'For the first eight games we’re not going to play at home once and we’ll go into our first (home) game 5-3 and fifth on the ladder,' I don’t think we’d be distraught.”

This is big- picture perspective, something rarely heard from coaches unless they’re spinning a basketball on their finger and outlining a 5-year plan. What it does is put the loss (or three losses) into the context of its value to the season, that is, 4 points and 4 points only. However, those weeks add up to ladder position, home field advantage, and eventually a coach’s livelihood. So despite us not hearing it very often, it is pretty clear why it would be on his, and any coach’s, mind.

One more Scott quote: “We can’t talk even what we were four or five weeks ago. We need to talk about what we are now."

This quote almost contradicts the previous one. It seeks to remove context, to sever the narrative connecting the round 4 Cats, who pumped arch-rival Hawthorn, with the round 9 Cats, who got their asses handed to them by Essendon. It reverts back to a more traditional “one week a time” type of thinking, where everything is process and method in the present tense.

So which line of thinking should we believe? Is Scott just covering all bases, telling us what we want to hear? Are all wins weighted equally, or do we need to account for opponent, for style, for circumstance? Is this Geelong team lacking concentration or basic skills? Are the Cats bad or just going through a bad patch? Would a rose by any other name slip out the back of Geelong’s defensive zone and waltz into an open goal?

A quick look around the league, and the perspective Scott alluded to, is helpful here – Adelaide, West Coast, Port Adelaide, Melbourne, Freo, and Collingwood have all done the Jekyll & Hyde routine this year. And I surely don’t need to mention Richmond, who appear to permanently exist in this state. Hawthorn and Sydney, the two powerhouses of the last few years, have seemingly hit the wall, and GWS are current flag favourites because the TAB can’t find anyone else.

So part of Geelong’s struggle for consistency is just part of a healthy, competitive AFL – there are always two teams out there, both professional, with similar levels of game planning and coaching and training and medical science behind them. Some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you. It happens.

But the other, more worrying part of the equation, what Scott is referring to in the opening quotes I used, the part that would put the Cats squarely in the ‘incapable of executing the game plan’ category, is that they simply may not be good enough.

Who, in the current Geelong line-up, would have earned a place in the 2011 Cats team? Dangerfield is the only certainty. Motlop and Menzel, maybe. Bews, Stewart, Horlin-Smith, Lang, Murdoch, Blicavs, Cowan, Smith, Parsons – that’s nine players, half of the team, who have been regularly selected this year that wouldn’t have gotten near the playing field. Taylor, Lonergan and Mackie all played in the 2011 premiership, and are still key players almost 6 years later. Duncan has improved and Selwood is Selwood but the rest have stagnated, gone backwards, or can’t get on the park.

The Cats haven’t found a number 1 ruck since Ottens, haven’t found key forward support for Tom Hawkins since Podsy, have almost zero outside run and carry, and currently have a medical room made up exclusively of small forwards, i.e., the players that exude pressure on the opposition as they come out of defense; is it any surprise they’ve been caught out on the rebound the past few weeks?

It is worth noting that Geelong have been “up” since the fucking Brisbane 3-peat years. During that time several teams, including the Dogs and Saints, have gone through at least two rebuilds, the Hawks bottomed out, bounced up, and are bottoming out again, and two new teams joined the competition, taking with them seemingly half the top draft picks every year.

Meanwhile Geelong have missed the finals only twice since 2004, resulting in only two picks inside the top 15 in the past 13 years; Joel Selwood and Nakia Cockatoo. With limited access to top level talent The Cats have been forced to cast their recruiting net wider and wider; rolling the dice with re-treads such as Smith and Stanley, persisting with steeple-runner Blicavs, as well as debuting VFL recruit Stewart and Irish convert O’Connor. Perhaps it is finally catching up with them, a market correction after years of unsustainable success.

At the moment the Cats appear to lack confidence, composure with the ball, are making basic skill errors, and appear to be out of position far too often. Anyone who has played rec league basketball knows, if one player can’t grasp the team concept, or zone, or ‘structure’, you stop trusting them, which leads to indecision, players hedging, players trying to do too much, and a complete breakdown of the team concept – which can then manifest as lack of effort.

We don’t know what is being asked of these players, nor if what is being asked is beyond the talents of the current playing group, but marrying those two concepts, finding a strategy that suits the personnel you have, putting people in a position to be successful, is the key element of leadership: Ensuring the effort is there, giving young guys confidence, teaching recruits how to execute the game plan, improving the fundamental skills of inexperienced players; these are all functions of coaching.

Chris Scott has repeatedly told us he knows what the problem is; it’s time to show us he can fix it.