Last year a feature of the games we played badly in was the dominance of spare men in defense. I think it is interesting to note that by and large teams are now playing us one on one because they know they can’t afford to give up short loose targets to us.
While we have obviously struggled to score our games have by and large been close affairs and our defense has not been exposed. Of course though our cumbersome ball movement against the man on man defense has led to a very congested forward line regardless.
I think the speed of our ball movement has improved some what over the last few weeks and consequently JD has found himself in a few more one on ones.
I’d like to see us starting to generate a bit more run from behind in the coming weeks to try and speed things up and hopefully break the man on man structure and create some over lap.
We have seen glimpses of this over the last few weeks. Fingers crossed Dempsey finds some real form and we start to see more.
Good post. Will be interesting to see how melbourne play us - I think that GWS setup well. It used to be that all you had to do against essendon was flood back and cover Goddard.
It may be ugly but its the type of footy you have to deal with in finals.
Bomber is only interested in teaching a style that can play and win finals.
I have a couple of questions.
I’ve never seen us play ‘ugly’ like what we dished out against WB, Lions and now GWS.
Is Bomber making us play that way? Or are teams forcing us to play that way with their pressure and one-on-one contests?
I have a couple of questions.
I've never seen us play 'ugly' like what we dished out against WB, Lions and now GWS.
Is Bomber making us play that way? Or are teams forcing us to play that way with their pressure and one-on-one contests?
i think it is the later and us not being good enough to break sides down one on one.
more speed of ball movement, more run and carry at pace, more shepherding is what we need, it's coming, slowly.
the advantage is that it means when we do move fast we are getting one on ones in good positions and that our defence isn't being exposed in transition.
of course we haven't exactly been playing first rate opposition in our last 4 wins.
once we get the ball movement right, which requires our players to back each other to be in the right spots and turn and go, we will be attacking a more open forward line than we have for the last few years because sides aren't being as quick to collapse back against us or as inclined to drop their spare.
it is also worth noting that bomber has actually elected to keep it one on one for the most part and not let them play a spare in our 50 which speaks volumes about how he wants the game played.
big month of footy coming up. hepp, myers and melk now have very big shoes to fill. i'm looking forward to it.
Great response Ivan.
Another glaring difference is the amount of time where we swtich, go backwards, switch. This didn’t happen during the Tigers game. We were going much more direct with the likes of Zaka, Stants and Zerrett using their speed and kicking it fwd.
GWS tried to stop that, but we still ended up making it happen in the vital stages of the game.
Bomba had the cats playing some pretty ugly footy in 05-06.
Good post Ivan. Talking in general terms but IMO most AFL teams are playing caveman footy, forward of the centre. Teams are usually immaculate with the ball coming out of defence, but when they are near the forward 50 its Bomb City - Few teams want to kick it to leading players inside forward 50. Teams that can leading targets are the ones who will feature in the fight for the premiership.
I have a couple of questions.
I've never seen us play 'ugly' like what we dished out against WB, Lions and now GWS.
Is Bomber making us play that way? Or are teams forcing us to play that way with their pressure and one-on-one contests?
Bomber is refusing to take the easy way out.
He is playing the long game (i.e. no short cuts) and, as others have intimated, insisting on a certain style of football being played that goes against the attacking grain of players naturally but is critical in winning big finals. It results in ugly, low scoring football until the players truly "get it" and really buy in to playing that way. Nearly all premiership teams of the past decade went through this transition of low scoring, ugly scraps before blossoming into high scoring behemoths that look unstoppable: Geelong (Thompson), Hawthorn (Clarkson), Swans (Roos), Pies (Malthouse). Only a Ross Lyon coached team has fallen short - and just fallen short, twice.
It's the same sort of battle Malthouse has raged at Carlton the last 2 years but appears to have lost. No coincidence that Bryce Gibbs had a "great" game last Friday night when it was a free flowing, low tackling, low intensity around the ball type game.....the sort of play Malthouse normally detests but now seems resigned to accepting.
The "better" teams we have played and belted - Roos, Blues, Tigers - all tried playing their way and got belted buy us. The "lesser" teams we have played - Saints, Dogs, Lions, GS - all started, or quickly went, man on man to ensure we didn't have a a spare across HB and set play up (i.e. adapted a defensive posture against our game plan). Bomber has insisted we continue to play the "right" way regardless and the players get caught between sending a somewhat risky pass to someone on a lead or chipping it sideways/backwards as a safer bet...which leads to players up the ground not leading. Our players don't quite have the courage of their conviction yet in taking the game on and sending that pass forward to someone on a hot but get-able lead, but they are slowly getting there.
Good news is is that our defensive structures held up Saturday night despite nearly all our defenders have average nights individually (Baguley easily the best of them) - yet as a unit they were excellent. And JD showed just what a monster forward he will turn into when given a 1:1 opportunity against his own age group.
Expect a low scoring, classic slog-fest against the Demons next Sunday as it's a twilight game. Another "ugly" win will do just fine.
No coincidence that when we took on the game plan and went up the middle against GWS, was when we looked our best. When we stuffed around and went indirect with slow ball movement we struggled and looked terrible. Good thread.
Perhaps we play better against mid ranged and above teams because they back their 'proactive' game plan against ours, allowing us to play to our strenghts. They simply hope theirs are stronger-which they often are.
Opposition coaches that know we have a more talented team, react by implementing a game plan that seeks to negate our strengths rather than focus on theirs. They hope, that by being in the game right to the death, there can be a chance of winning.
Anyway, if they can continue to work at overcoming these tactics, and sharpen their own blueprint for success at training, we should see a much more well rounded side that can compete at all stages, and in all types of games,anywhere,anytime.
It's actually a good thing when our coaches can see certain weaknesses exposed in individuals and the team by the opposition.
This allows them to truly coach- turning weaknesses into strengths and perhaps Zaka is a great example of a player that whilst addressing certain weakness, temporarily seemed to lose touch with his strengths.
But with time and good coaching, we're now seeing the benefits of what will hopefully also happen to the team as a whole.
Great post.Bomber is refusing to take the easy way out.
I have a couple of questions.
I've never seen us play 'ugly' like what we dished out against WB, Lions and now GWS.
Is Bomber making us play that way? Or are teams forcing us to play that way with their pressure and one-on-one contests?
He is playing the long game (i.e. no short cuts) and, as others have intimated, insisting on a certain style of football being played that goes against the attacking grain of players naturally but is critical in winning big finals. It results in ugly, low scoring football until the players truly "get it" and really buy in to playing that way. Nearly all premiership teams of the past decade went through this transition of low scoring, ugly scraps before blossoming into high scoring behemoths that look unstoppable: Geelong (Thompson), Hawthorn (Clarkson), Swans (Roos), Pies (Malthouse). Only a Ross Lyon coached team has fallen short - and just fallen short, twice.
It's the same sort of battle Malthouse has raged at Carlton the last 2 years but appears to have lost. No coincidence that Bryce Gibbs had a "great" game last Friday night when it was a free flowing, low tackling, low intensity around the ball type game.....the sort of play Malthouse normally detests but now seems resigned to accepting.
The "better" teams we have played and belted - Roos, Blues, Tigers - all tried playing their way and got belted buy us. The "lesser" teams we have played - Saints, Dogs, Lions, GS - all started, or quickly went, man on man to ensure we didn't have a a spare across HB and set play up (i.e. adapted a defensive posture against our game plan). Bomber has insisted we continue to play the "right" way regardless and the players get caught between sending a somewhat risky pass to someone on a lead or chipping it sideways/backwards as a safer bet...which leads to players up the ground not leading. Our players don't quite have the courage of their conviction yet in taking the game on and sending that pass forward to someone on a hot but get-able lead, but they are slowly getting there.
Good news is is that our defensive structures held up Saturday night despite nearly all our defenders have average nights individually (Baguley easily the best of them) - yet as a unit they were excellent. And JD showed just what a monster forward he will turn into when given a 1:1 opportunity against his own age group.
Expect a low scoring, classic slog-fest against the Demons next Sunday as it's a twilight game. Another "ugly" win will do just fine.
I'd argue that the defensive end has done the same all year, which also comes back to the close-in game we are playing.
The attacking flow needs Zerrett, Gleeson types as well as Goddard & Dempsey keeping their eyes up. It will come, it seems to be contagious once it starts.
Heard the other day the Dees have beaten the line 7 of their last 8, so it will likely be another grind.
Need to rewatch ANZAC day, they flicked over their style of play. Lost track of setups etc but Buckley won them that game adjusting to what we were doing.
Stop our uncontested ball and you are every chance.
we are playing a bruise free brand of footy, play on at all costs. I like it but with our confidence down I'm not sure it's the best style at the moment for our team.
I like the possession footy we played in the opening rounds though, it seemed to work against the Roos and Hawks.
Strangely I was quite happy with how we played against GWS. We controlled the game and were never Sidebottom downhill skiing ahead of the ball. Zaha is really adapting. I thought GWS jagged a lot of goals from unlikely scenarios and the score ended up being closer than it should have been.
As we have seen in the adrenalin of big matches I think we will see our players accelerate forward a lot more. But from a defensive starting position.
The theory is defence first.
When you see the big games played by Sydney Geelong and Hawthorn its how they are played.
I personally think we need 1 or 2 more pacey types to break the play up. I wish Dalgleish would get fit.
Not sure if it’s other teams adjusting and stopping us or just our guys not having the confidence to trust the ball movement plan.
I think as we become more confident from wins, maybe take a scalp against the cats we will look better, guys will start hitting the dangerous runners through the middle resulting in fast movement and easy forward 50 entries for our forwards.
Gleeson does this wonderfully through evasiveness and pace, Dempsey used to. Goddard and hibbo use long kicking. Zerret a combo of pace and kicking.
What we need more run through the middle, which I think will come with tapering of the training load towards the end of the season.
I also think we might have been experimenting a bit with the plan, not sure how but we didn’t want to give up all our tricks after we confirmed they worked in the first few rounds.
Isnt it "Roos Law" fix your defence and success will flow from that ? We are 6th on the ladder for points against. Defence is not our problem.
13th on the ladder in points for................ we will lose shootouts against teams with good forwards.
Some, like Richmond want to have a shootout game plan, and we are competitive, because out players like to be let off leash and just love to play that style. Its Sheeds / Hird footy 101.
The opposite style of footy to the shootout is man on man close checking tackling game. We cannot just take it and lie down, we have to dish it out to the opponent, and I am starting to see it happening .
For instance Zaka was BOG against GWS, he was laying lots of tackles. Its not something he did much in the past. So we are learning to respond to the challenge when sides decide to take us on with the man on man game plan. Yep its ugly.
The thing is, sides are reduced to a base level of man against man, scores are low, the difference between sides is just a few kicks. We have to get used to this style of footy, because it being imposed on us every week, except when the Richmonds of this competition go for a shootout.
But I pretty much believe that we are just 1 or 2 dominant forwards outside the top 4 in class if not in terms of the ladder as it stands. Identifying one of those top class forwards is easy. JD will now attract the top defender from our opponents. This will make it a lot harder for him .
Its the second dominant forward that will make this team great. Thats when we will start to win shootouts against top 4 teams
Numbers around the ball and run it away from us. Then if we get a forward thrust they push hard back to get their team within 70m of our goal and if one of our talls dont get it they exploit our lack of pace and just run it out.
Teams with speed should know that theyre always a huge chance against us.
Contested ball would be more of a factor if we werent so good defensively IMO. We need to be good at it to win, but if the opposition does end up being the better contested ball team on the night, its not the end of the world.
Stats may prove me otherwise but thats the feel I've gotten out of the last 4/5 weeks. Poorer teams can always be a chance against us if they exploit our lack of pace and put up a good fight with the contested ball.
Dalgleish, Komzie and Hams would be useful ins…Fantastico is going to be pushing next year too.Trav, NOB and KAV! Need to step it up a bit. These guys are all good runners and fit the game plan. I suspect they are currently going through an apprenticeship in the VFL until bomber is happy and a place opens up.
Gregory needs to put on 10 kg. champion in the making.
I really love the way that Paddy Ambrose is developing too, he is well suited to the lead up HFF, and just keeps going hard at it all day.