LostDoggy
09-06-2011, 01:40 PM
We have been mauled in the clearance stats this year, and have committed the highest number of turnovers when we HAVE won the ball out of the middle. I think everything flows from this – control the middle and you control the pace and rhythm of a game, which is half the battle towards being able to impose yourself on the opponent – don’t have the ball and you’re chasing shadows. Now that's not why we are losing games by 123 points, but that's not a tactical issue and I won't comment on the internal psychological workings at the club.
I've (clearly) had too much time on my hands during this conference, jet-lagged, sitting in my hotel room at night watching downloads of some of our games this year, and just as an outside observer I’ve noticed a few things and thought I would write up some of my tactical suggestions. None of this is rocket science, and are things I’m sure our MC are aware of, they are just VERY broad suggestions that will of course require more nuance in real game situations. I’ve just kept them simplistic for discussion, apologies if some of this is pretty obvious stuff:
Offensively:
1. Too much overlap with the inside/outside stuff. I know we want our players to be multi-dimensional, but at this point, I think we have to accept their limitations and plan accordingly. I think mjp mentioned this somewhere else, but we need to be clear with Boyd, Cross, Addison, Picken and Minson that they are primarily inside players, and their job is to get the ball to better ball users playing ‘outside’ the contest (where outside is addressed in the next point). Inside players have two and only two jobs – win the ball and get it backwards until it gets in the hands of either a ‘tweener’ (inside-outside player) or a half-back elite ball user, or kill the contest, ie. if we don’t look like winning the ball, contract space, create congestion and kill the ball. Nothing else – they do NOT get to try the Hollywood pass, or try to take on players, or be on the end of a chain of handballs. Basically, they are to play risk-free and not allowed to lose the ball. (They should all just get a tape of Brad Sewell and watch it on repeat.)
2. Designated guys playing outside the contest need to be elite ball users off our half-back line (Murph, Gilbee/Howard, Hargrave) spread out behind the contest, and designated ‘wing’ players (Hill, DJ, Moles, Sherman – guys with massive tanks, some speed and reasonable disposal) sitting laterally across from the contest – I know that there isn’t a ‘wing’ position anymore, but width is still a very important attacking principle, and we haven’t been using it anywhere near enough this year, or intelligently enough, which brings me to my next point:
3. Point of entry into the forward 50 – I’ve noticed that the our forward 50 entries have usually come from just past the centre-square, right in the middle of the park. This is a very difficult kick as you are usually weaving through traffic and kicking in congestion – last week Murph pulled off ONE stab pass, and Boydy turned the ball over every time he tried it; that’s far too low a percentage to be sustainable. I think we are pulling the trigger one disposal too early – from the middle of the corridor, everyone is streaming back and blocking space forward, so the better option is probably a sideways one to a good ball user (one of our aforementioned ‘wing’ players) stationed on the outside of the square (left or right – more on this later), who then has a bit more time to spot up a pass. The natural angle of entry from outside the corridor is also better as there is a higher margin of error – the ball will drift across the goals and give more of an opportunity to a forward playing in front to adjust accordingly. When you’re entering the 50 straight on, you need to weight it perfectly or else risk the ball dropping short (which was happening a lot to Lakey when he played forward) or going over their heads making it easier to spoil (as happens to Hall a lot).
4. The primary job of our ‘tweeners’ (outside-inside players) of which our only legitimate ones are Coons, Griff and Ward (and maybe Libba and Wallis) should not be to burst away and kick blind and long inside 50, but to get out of congestion and hit up (again) an outside player playing square of the contest, just short kicks to keep possession and circulate the ball. This will improve their kicking efficiency no end and create continuity and rhythm in their play, letting them control the pace of the game rather than have stop-start, low-percentage kicks and turnovers. They can then try the Hollywood pass once they get into the game and gain more confidence in their disposal.
5. Redefining ‘corridor’ and ‘wing’ terminology – commentators tend to use these terms very crudely – and while (I think) we are attacking too centrally this year, we have attacked from far too wide in the past. I think a more segmented view of the attacking zones maybe more useful (I know that zonal thinking has started to permeate from a defensive standpoint, but not yet from an offensive one). If we split the ‘corridor’ vertically into three broad zones, and the respective ‘wings’ into another three each, with a centre-bounce contest in the corridor we need to get the ball laterally across at least two zones (preferably with a kick, or two handballs, one diagonally backwards and another one across) before attempting the entry, meaning that our designated outside players need to hold position across from the contest to be available for the lateral pass. (This is Gia’s natural zone and where he does his best work, but I don’t know how much of it is by design and how much of it is just his brilliant space-finding instincts) – it’s essentially the space BETWEEN the corridor and the wing that we will be looking to exploit here. Changing the expected angle of attack immediately (just one or two disposals) before actual entry is subtle but means that the defensive zone set up is just that little bit out of alignment – it’s essentially Warney subtly changing up how wide he bowls from between deliveries.
Defensively:
1. The players in the various ‘components’ (backs, mids, forwards) of the team are playing individually too close to each other, but collectively too far away from the other components, if this makes any sense – ie. the ‘backs’ are too close to each other, but too far away from the ‘midfield’. We need to get a better sense of spacing between players in general play, but the groups need to be a lot more interchangeable – in other words, we need to be more ‘compact’ without AND with the ball – teams are finding space and loose men everywhere on the turnover because our midfield spreads forward while our half back line is still standing in our own half.
2. ‘Pressing’ – our players are trying to create forward pressure by running blindly at the player with the ball and smashing into them after they dispose of it, so we look half a second late to every contest. Pressing isn’t done by manic running and tackling – it’s done by perceived collective pressure. The key isn’t actually tackling, but herding – you want to be able to herd players into dead ends or into your other players, or force them to kick in certain pre-determined directions and create turnovers – for example, if your mids are stronger than theirs, you want to herd them into kicking down the corridor and trusting your mids to win the ball back, vice versa if your wings are stronger. The individual key to herding (and Geelong are doing this well this year) is body shape – the angle which you bend your run towards the ball carrier, how you face your opponent (which direction you are ‘showing’ them), and which side of their run you want to ‘block off’. The collective (team) key to herding is closeness to the ball – this is why I am banging on about being compact. If your entire team is moving as a tight unit and the spacing between players is no more than 10-15 metres from each other, when one of your players loses the ball you will have three/four players within 10/15 metres of the ball, making it much easier to create collective pressure (which is usually enough to force a bad or hurried disposal). However, if you are all 20-40 metres apart, it will be pretty easy to pick holes between you or to just run straight through, which is happening a lot this year. We may not always have to be this compact, but when opposition teams are getting a run on we need to just be able to shut a game down and take all the momentum out of it for 5-10 minutes.
I've (clearly) had too much time on my hands during this conference, jet-lagged, sitting in my hotel room at night watching downloads of some of our games this year, and just as an outside observer I’ve noticed a few things and thought I would write up some of my tactical suggestions. None of this is rocket science, and are things I’m sure our MC are aware of, they are just VERY broad suggestions that will of course require more nuance in real game situations. I’ve just kept them simplistic for discussion, apologies if some of this is pretty obvious stuff:
Offensively:
1. Too much overlap with the inside/outside stuff. I know we want our players to be multi-dimensional, but at this point, I think we have to accept their limitations and plan accordingly. I think mjp mentioned this somewhere else, but we need to be clear with Boyd, Cross, Addison, Picken and Minson that they are primarily inside players, and their job is to get the ball to better ball users playing ‘outside’ the contest (where outside is addressed in the next point). Inside players have two and only two jobs – win the ball and get it backwards until it gets in the hands of either a ‘tweener’ (inside-outside player) or a half-back elite ball user, or kill the contest, ie. if we don’t look like winning the ball, contract space, create congestion and kill the ball. Nothing else – they do NOT get to try the Hollywood pass, or try to take on players, or be on the end of a chain of handballs. Basically, they are to play risk-free and not allowed to lose the ball. (They should all just get a tape of Brad Sewell and watch it on repeat.)
2. Designated guys playing outside the contest need to be elite ball users off our half-back line (Murph, Gilbee/Howard, Hargrave) spread out behind the contest, and designated ‘wing’ players (Hill, DJ, Moles, Sherman – guys with massive tanks, some speed and reasonable disposal) sitting laterally across from the contest – I know that there isn’t a ‘wing’ position anymore, but width is still a very important attacking principle, and we haven’t been using it anywhere near enough this year, or intelligently enough, which brings me to my next point:
3. Point of entry into the forward 50 – I’ve noticed that the our forward 50 entries have usually come from just past the centre-square, right in the middle of the park. This is a very difficult kick as you are usually weaving through traffic and kicking in congestion – last week Murph pulled off ONE stab pass, and Boydy turned the ball over every time he tried it; that’s far too low a percentage to be sustainable. I think we are pulling the trigger one disposal too early – from the middle of the corridor, everyone is streaming back and blocking space forward, so the better option is probably a sideways one to a good ball user (one of our aforementioned ‘wing’ players) stationed on the outside of the square (left or right – more on this later), who then has a bit more time to spot up a pass. The natural angle of entry from outside the corridor is also better as there is a higher margin of error – the ball will drift across the goals and give more of an opportunity to a forward playing in front to adjust accordingly. When you’re entering the 50 straight on, you need to weight it perfectly or else risk the ball dropping short (which was happening a lot to Lakey when he played forward) or going over their heads making it easier to spoil (as happens to Hall a lot).
4. The primary job of our ‘tweeners’ (outside-inside players) of which our only legitimate ones are Coons, Griff and Ward (and maybe Libba and Wallis) should not be to burst away and kick blind and long inside 50, but to get out of congestion and hit up (again) an outside player playing square of the contest, just short kicks to keep possession and circulate the ball. This will improve their kicking efficiency no end and create continuity and rhythm in their play, letting them control the pace of the game rather than have stop-start, low-percentage kicks and turnovers. They can then try the Hollywood pass once they get into the game and gain more confidence in their disposal.
5. Redefining ‘corridor’ and ‘wing’ terminology – commentators tend to use these terms very crudely – and while (I think) we are attacking too centrally this year, we have attacked from far too wide in the past. I think a more segmented view of the attacking zones maybe more useful (I know that zonal thinking has started to permeate from a defensive standpoint, but not yet from an offensive one). If we split the ‘corridor’ vertically into three broad zones, and the respective ‘wings’ into another three each, with a centre-bounce contest in the corridor we need to get the ball laterally across at least two zones (preferably with a kick, or two handballs, one diagonally backwards and another one across) before attempting the entry, meaning that our designated outside players need to hold position across from the contest to be available for the lateral pass. (This is Gia’s natural zone and where he does his best work, but I don’t know how much of it is by design and how much of it is just his brilliant space-finding instincts) – it’s essentially the space BETWEEN the corridor and the wing that we will be looking to exploit here. Changing the expected angle of attack immediately (just one or two disposals) before actual entry is subtle but means that the defensive zone set up is just that little bit out of alignment – it’s essentially Warney subtly changing up how wide he bowls from between deliveries.
Defensively:
1. The players in the various ‘components’ (backs, mids, forwards) of the team are playing individually too close to each other, but collectively too far away from the other components, if this makes any sense – ie. the ‘backs’ are too close to each other, but too far away from the ‘midfield’. We need to get a better sense of spacing between players in general play, but the groups need to be a lot more interchangeable – in other words, we need to be more ‘compact’ without AND with the ball – teams are finding space and loose men everywhere on the turnover because our midfield spreads forward while our half back line is still standing in our own half.
2. ‘Pressing’ – our players are trying to create forward pressure by running blindly at the player with the ball and smashing into them after they dispose of it, so we look half a second late to every contest. Pressing isn’t done by manic running and tackling – it’s done by perceived collective pressure. The key isn’t actually tackling, but herding – you want to be able to herd players into dead ends or into your other players, or force them to kick in certain pre-determined directions and create turnovers – for example, if your mids are stronger than theirs, you want to herd them into kicking down the corridor and trusting your mids to win the ball back, vice versa if your wings are stronger. The individual key to herding (and Geelong are doing this well this year) is body shape – the angle which you bend your run towards the ball carrier, how you face your opponent (which direction you are ‘showing’ them), and which side of their run you want to ‘block off’. The collective (team) key to herding is closeness to the ball – this is why I am banging on about being compact. If your entire team is moving as a tight unit and the spacing between players is no more than 10-15 metres from each other, when one of your players loses the ball you will have three/four players within 10/15 metres of the ball, making it much easier to create collective pressure (which is usually enough to force a bad or hurried disposal). However, if you are all 20-40 metres apart, it will be pretty easy to pick holes between you or to just run straight through, which is happening a lot this year. We may not always have to be this compact, but when opposition teams are getting a run on we need to just be able to shut a game down and take all the momentum out of it for 5-10 minutes.