How is Harley Reid able to push away two of the strongest and most powerful mids in the competition?
Is it technique and momentum?
Or just raw strength?
Does the move originate from rugby? Or has it always been part of AFL but just popularized since Dusty Martin?
It’s hard to believe that an 18 year old is stronger than a 28 year old 100kg Petracca …
but maybe he is??
If you watched Harley Reid from his underage days, you’ll notice that he was always much bigger and more developed than his team mates of the same age… I actually thought that once he comes into the AFL then he would have a rude awakening when he realised he can’t push away grown men as easily as 65kg teenagers… But turns out I was wrong.
yes, but i dont think he solely relied on his bigger size and strength to be good at football, which is probs where you start seeing players getting found out at afl level
it’s a combination of good technique and timing, long arms and bad tackling technique from opponent. neither oliver nor petracca really got low and drove hard int those tackles (they probably couldn’t really because reid was already moving away from them at speed. his opponents will adjust to it, corralling and grabbing arms etc.
Nothing to do with strength. A stiff locked arm and someone running into it mean you can use their momentum to propel you. As long as your arm is straight and locked, even a weaker opponent can hold off a much stronger tackler. But Reid seems to put in an extra aggressive push so that the openent cant grab his arm.
You can’t just jump at a fend off like Hobbs did because you will get swatted off like a fly.
IIRC, Weddings Parties Anything (singer Mick Thomas being a well-known St Kilda supporter) named their 1989 album The Big Don’t Argue after a piece of football commentary that had Lockett issuing a “big don’t argue” when his opponent was trying to tackle him…
There was a difference between what he did to Oliver and Petracca and what he did to Merrett and Hobbs.
He pushed both Merrett and Hobbs away like they were rag dolls, whereas he pushed himself off Oliver and Petracca. His technique is insane, it really is prime Dusty, but he’s bigger and stronger and only 19.
He will be the first $2mil a year player, absolutely no doubt about that. He is exactly what Essendon needs to go from possible finals win to possible premiership win.
The History of “Don’t Argue” comes from advertising for an Australian smallgoods company (iirc it was Huttons). Its slogan was “Don’t Argue - Huttons is best” with a logo of someone holding a hand in the face of his interlocutor.
Remember when Danger tried a don’t argue against Hurls who caught his arm and flipped him over the boundary line into the fence ? Someone will catch Reid and make him think twice about doing it again.
I know Reid’s don’t argues are causing WCE fans to instantly ■■■■■■■■■. Thats OK, they have been denied for a few years now.
Merrett anticipated the fend off and tried to parry the arm away, like karate before tackling the body… Didn’t work that time but I reckon that’s got to be the approach. (Would also make the handball away upon tackling the body much harder - ball would often spill - so nearly 100% holding the ball)(So free kick Essendon 45% of the time)
Petracca tried to grab the arm with his hands, but that’s going to be rarely effective, I reckon.
only works reliably on a stationary (or close to) opponent who is waiting to wrap up a player that’s in motion. centre of mass for blokes is in the upper body* so enough of a shove to put the centre of mass above or behind the front foot and it’s all over. follow through with momentum and it’s an even more emphatic advantage.
tackling technique taught to footy players focuses on trying to trap an arm to impede disposal, as opposed to other tackling sports where the focus is on stopping forward momentum, so fending off seems ludicrously easy compared to rugby or nfl.
(* effective fend offs are rare in womens footy because womens centre of mass is typically lower (hips) so attempting to push their upper body back up doesn’t really do sht to affect their balance unless they have ridiculous upper body strength)
