How did they ‘catch them off guard’ - when they were doing a similar thing as the Dogs did in 2016, and teams had all year to watch what they were doing? It’s not like it was a blind swinging roundhouse.
Teams were tyring to copy the Dogs by playing fast attacking footy but Richmond said stuff that attacking footy dosen’t win flags/finals defensive pressure does.
Game plans are like rock/paper/scissors
A good coaching group works this out pretty quickly for each team.
Depending on the list and capabilities coaches will try to - obviously - trump the opposing plan.
Teams don’t have bad seasons because others got the jump on them, but because their lists aren’t up to the performance and/or style/plan that stands the best chance of beating the opponent of the day.
The only time something like that comes into play, is list management, which is why it’s so vital to get it right and to plan ahead. On a much shorter time-scale, game selection also comes under this area, in a way. A short version of ‘list-management’, so to speak.
In my opinion.
In my opinion, if Griffiths had been available all season, he would have played all season and we never would have heard a word about one-tall forward lines.
They might still have won the flag but one of those smalls would have missed. You’ve got to play with what you’ve got.
Likewise if Roughead hadn’t broken down in finals last year, Boyd never goes into the ruck, and probably still hasn’t played a good game to this day.
Pretty big coincidence that the same sort of thing has happened and worked for two years straight. although it may well be more about throwing out the opposition’s planning and lineups than any actual structural advantage.
Move the ball 50 times quicker when they get it, but yes both this year’s Tigers and the 2016 Dogs effectively run a mad scramble where 15 or so guys chase the ball. Dogs focussed more on flicking around by hand to find a free outside kicker, Tigers opted to kick earlier and reset downfield.
Ugly, but it works.
Vast majority of games are won or lost on the turnover now, which is why I can’t understand the hardon around here for guys like Craig Bird and Anthony Miles.
Saw many games last year where the opposition just waltz it out the middle because our mids lack size some one like Miles would have been handy who can win clearances and not get pushed over easily.
You keep going on about Bird so I won’t expect to change your mind but although I only really watched him when he played with us I think you’re mislabelling him as some sort of Hardingham esque turnover merchant. His clearance work is a bit hacky (not on his Pat Malone there) and I’m not sure he’s that penetrating or chiselling with his kicking but never personally considered him a real butcher of the footy.
I don’t disagree, the issue I had (and I suspect the coaches agreed) is he was so worried about kicking it, he’d sell his team mates into trouble with a handball and dump the problem onto them, rather than risk his footskills.
Net effect is the same for the team.
Either way, everyone we’ve cut has been an average or poor user of the footy and slowish, everyone we’ve added is decent or good and moves pretty well. The direction is clear. It doesn’t include Anthony Miles.