I don't understand this thread. All of our players tag another player at some point everytime they play.
And even our most negating taggers, like Hocking, still try and get the ball themselves and gurt the opposition the other way.
Hocking's strength is being able to tackle his man, knock the ball free or wrestle it from his opponent. In attack he has the ability to absorb one or two tacklers and still offload the ball to advantage, or provide link up play if he's in the right place.
Different instructions are not going to have us see Hocking streaming down the wing taking 3 bounces or pin-pointing forwards in the goal square. His best work is in close, and he can do that just as good while tagging. Of course he could leave his man and dive into other contests but we have guys like Jobe, Heppel, Myers who are meant to be better at it than him, and have better skills and more options when they do get it.
Sure Wannabe, every player is supposed to be accountable and "man up" when the other team has possession.
I think we worked out some numbers earlier in the thread. Say your tagger gets 15 disposals in a game and limits his opponent to 30 instead of 40, if all the saved disposals go to our side, thats equivalent to 25 for the tagger. But in reality, only half of the saved disposals may go to our side. So thats a net gain of 5 .
Now take the no tagging scenario. The proposed tagged opponent gets 40 disposals, but takes half of them from one or other of his teammates. So thats a nett gain of only 5 . If the tagger in a non tagging role can pick up 25 disposals instead of 15 he has gained 10 of which maybe only 5 come from the opposition.
So in that scenario, its a moot point in terms of pure stats.
The key is, who will be the most damaging player on the other side, who can be effectively tagged by a full time dedicated "run with " tagger..
2 fold problem re your original statement in the last paragraph (way to hard looking to snip just that quote out).
Hocking has never really been a shut down player. He is a pressure his opponent and try to make any possessions they get, sloppy. HE prolly won’t ever make a great tagger in the true sense, as he trys to cover the gaps left defensively by most of the other midfielders, which means he ends up trying to cover 3-4 players.
Secondly there’s only so much the current midfield group can do to improve their defensive efforts. One paced midfield can’t all of a sudden become speedy atheletes. When we don’t have the ball we just have to many liabilities to cover.
The only thing that can really be improved, other than picking a better mix of slower and inside players, as well as quicker players, is something Watson admitted was a problem a few years ago, and still is, in that too many players just watch the ball and follow it forward. you don’t need all of your players running ahead of their players to get the ball. you need some to stay back as cover to have a better chance to either stop a counter attack or at the very least make it harder for the opposition to get down the other end.
The good thing about hocking as a tagger is that he is dangerous when he gets the ball. Which places accountability on the player he's tagging. I don't think you can make a whole team accountable for the other teams best player unless you change the philosophy of the team. And we're not good enough to not tag players.
Yes I agree our midfield has not been good enough, and some might say that now, we have 2 Brownlow quality Midfielders and one aspiring Brownlow quality midfielder , we will have arguably a top 4 midfield in 2015 . That means that we will have the luxury of playing Hocking in his own right, in at least 50% of games. theres the distinct possibility he could increase his own possessions from the 15 average to the 20-25 average. Its not a matter of possessions, per se, but what each player does with his possessions.
What I am saying is, he deserves to be given more of a chance in his own right. Sure, cut him back into the run-with role if it doesnt work out,
I am suggesting a different mindset : Not who do we tag? at the selection table, but should we shut down player X , as a move from the box during the game?
Although I agree with most of what you’re saying, players like Zaharakis who have next to no defensive running (but plenty of offensive) stop us from having that true elite midfield.
I love the kid but he needs to step up his defensive game.
Collingwood's midfield was so dangerous in 2010 that they never even bothered tagging opposition players. The likes of Swan, Pendles, Beams, Sidebottom, Ball and Wellingham would get a heap of it and over-class the oppo's mid.
Don't think we're at that stage yet. Zaka and Myers need to consistent for Hocking to be released from the role IMO.
Mick was notorious for saying Collingwood “don’t tag.” Well before their 2010 run. Ironic that they tagged Lenny in the GF replay.