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?
The latter.
It has been obvious to me this year, that any side whether it be Sydney or St.Kilda that can heap as much pressure at the contested ball as they can, plus maintain enough discipline throughout the 4 quarters to go 1-on-1 will go close to beating the Bombers. The better sides have the confidence to leave their man when they are in possession to get the run and spread on the rebound, but then quickly man up at a stoppage. Sydney are the best, and I haven't seen much of them this year but sounds like Port are doing the same. St.Kilda were pretty good at it against us too (but remember a 3rd of our side was crook that week and didn't have the run they normally do).
There has been a trend over the past decade of 'manning the zone' - that is to not man your opponent directly (ie. within arms reach), but man the space off him within 10m - BUT Essendon's "A-game" crucifies you if you man the zone, because that is all the Dons players need - just 5m of space to dispose of the ball quickly - whether through a chain of handballs or quick kicks.
If you man up tight against the Dons, they are forced into instant disposal which will typically be a rushed kick or handball, thereby raising the opportunity for a turnover or another stoppage.
It was very obvious in R1 that North had been drilled to 'man the zone' and the same with Carlton. Collingwood set up that way on Anzac Day, but reverted to a man-on-man. Inherently too, if you go 1-on-1 by default you'll up your collective pressure at the contested ball too.
Have a look at contested possession counts. There have been four games very similar to the GWS game this year. All scrappy affairs - a fast, clinical side (Ess) versus a younger developing less polished side. EVERY TIME (Saints, Dogs, Lions, GWS) Essendon has lost the contested possession count - in some instances by a considerable margin.
Enjoyable post topic for discussion BTW.
HEADS UP - Melbourne have won the contested possession count in their four games. That is how you beat the Dons.
As it has been pointed out to beat the Dons you must play a contested game style and not give your opponents (us) any space. I see this as a positive not a negative. We are learning to win against this (apart from StKilda). The type of footy other teams are forced to play against us is the type of footy thats played in finals, if they don't they get pounded (see Richmond). The more practice we get playing against and winning against this style the better. I think we will be very well placed and very hard to beat at the business end of the season. I'm ready to watch us go deep into September. Stuff it, I'm ready to watch us lift the cup.
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.
I think it's a bit of both still, instead of one loose however it's just flood back in numbers.
Teams were letting us ■■■■ fart around with short passes around the backline and middle of the ground, cos all they did was flood back, and the last kick into the 50 would end the same way, with either a blind bomb or a kick to a target that was outnumbered.
the other numbers as you say go and harrass our players and hope for said bad decision making/skill to occur.
I've said for awhile now teams know the blueprint to beating us. It's just whether they have the skill and composure themselves to carry it out. Teams like the Dogs, brissy and GWS while they can relatively stay with us, still make enough mistakes for us to grind out wins.
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.
We played totally differently against Roos and Hawks. Roos very controlled, posession stuff - Hawks we were playing on, taking risks and going a lot faster & more direct.
Of course "shutting down uncontested footy" (or, to put it another way, contesting the footy) is the key to shutting us down, just as it is for every other side ever.
I'm still a bit confused as to this 'long game' that Bomba seems to get a free pass for playing. I have a few reasons that it bothers me:
- It's not his 'long game,' he wont be there next year.
- Why the fark would you recruit Chapman (who clearly will offer us very little next year), to sit through a development year?
- Was our defensive side really that poor last year, that the gameplan needed to be overhauled / refined?
It doesn't matter how teams play against us, if they find something that works, we make zero changes to combat it. As Wim said, one on one footy is like tactics 101, and it shouldn't be that hard to counter, especially against the bottom team in the comp.
I fail to see how we are on track to play 'finals style footy,' when we need to put the foot down in the last quarter just to get over GWS, the Bulldogs and Brisbane. If we got to play unaccountable teams who try to play us in a 'shoot out' like Richmond and Carlton every week of the finals, then we'd be a chance. But it doesn't work like that.
In a year where the top teams have all slipped, and the top 4 is as open a prospect as it's been for a long time, backwards should never have been an option for us this year.
The game plan under Bomber is certainly a bit different to Hird. Hird was big on the "+1" at the contest/stoppage. Bomber prefers the +1 to be in the back half - we complain about the flooding of our forward line, yet we're often setting up with a spare man in defence as well - unlike some sides who will position a permanent spare man, the Dons will often opt for a player to leave his man to drop back into the D50 temporarily, so its almost like a floating free defender, a bit like the sweeper in soccer. It's hardly original, but it does differ I think from Hird's preference to put a 'spare' around the contest.
Maybe with footy getting more and more congested around the contest just in the last 18 months, the +1 at the contest is of less 'currency' these days.
The more teams employ it the more experience we get against it and learn how to not only cope with it but counteract it.
Listen to Bomber's presser - at no stage did he feel we were going to lose.
That's garbage.
When GWS kicked three goals in a row to get within a point of us in the last quarter he looked exactly as concerned as you'd expect him to be.
Watson hobbles off the ground five minutes later, Patton sprays an easy shot...
We got there, but the game could have easily turned. One bad bounce or a bullshit free kick can change everything when it's that close.
The more teams employ it the more experience we get against it and learn how to not only cope with it but counteract it.
Listen to Bomber's presser - at no stage did he feel we were going to lose.
That's garbage.
When GWS kicked three goals in a row to get within a point of us in the last quarter he looked exactly as concerned as you'd expect him to be.
Watson hobbles off the ground five minutes later, Patton sprays an easy shot...
We got there, but the game could have easily turned. One bad bounce or a bullshit free kick can change everything when it's that close.
I'd argue they were Jeremy Cameron away from beating us.
The more teams employ it the more experience we get against it and learn how to not only cope with it but counteract it.
Listen to Bomber's presser - at no stage did he feel we were going to lose.
That's garbage.
When GWS kicked three goals in a row to get within a point of us in the last quarter he looked exactly as concerned as you'd expect him to be.
Watson hobbles off the ground five minutes later, Patton sprays an easy shot...
We got there, but the game could have easily turned. One bad bounce or a bullshit free kick can change everything when it's that close.
I'd argue they were Jeremy Cameron away from beating us.
Well...maybe, but you can only play the team that's out there.
Although exactly who we were missing gives pause for thought. Was it only Winderlich out of our best 22?
The more teams employ it the more experience we get against it and learn how to not only cope with it but counteract it.
Listen to Bomber's presser - at no stage did he feel we were going to lose.
That's garbage.
When GWS kicked three goals in a row to get within a point of us in the last quarter he looked exactly as concerned as you'd expect him to be.
Watson hobbles off the ground five minutes later, Patton sprays an easy shot...
We got there, but the game could have easily turned. One bad bounce or a bullshit free kick can change everything when it's that close.
I'd argue they were Jeremy Cameron away from beating us.
Well...maybe, but you can only play the team that's out there.
Although exactly who we were missing gives pause for thought. Was it only Winderlich out of our best 22?
Edit: And Hurley.
Guess Kommer and Jackson Merrett probably aren't in our B22, but you raise a valid point - we weren't far away from our alleged B22.
I'm still a bit confused as to this 'long game' that Bomba seems to get a free pass for playing. I have a few reasons that it bothers me:
- Why the fark would you recruit Chapman (who clearly will offer us very little next year), to sit through a development year?
But yeah, I get it. It's the long game.
Chapman knows about success and how to play the game and you would expect some of it to rub off on the developing players on the ground; just like Fletch.
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.
If we think we saw an ugly game against GWS wait till we play Melbourne. The ball will just move backwards and forwards between the two defences and there will be hardly any score kicked.
They play us one on one because we don’t have the breakaway speed as a whole IMO. We’re getting pressured with ease. Once they pressure us we tend to fark up our kicks.
We play way better against teams that don’t pressure that much like Carlton and Richbitch.
If someone said at the start of the season we were going to be sitting in ninth after round 12 and struggling to kick 80pts a game I would of been pretty dissapointed.
If someone said at the start of the season we were going to be sitting in ninth after round 12 and struggling to kick 80pts a game I would of been pretty dissapointed. We are having a tilt here aren't we ?