One key step in making the Tigers our rug.
Combating their midfield & pressure game.
Richmond plays a very different game style to teams like Geelong & Sydney, and even Collingwood or GWS.
They very deliberately aim to keep the loose/ contested ball moving towards their goal. A lot of the time they don’t even bother to take possession, relying on taps, knock ons, and soccers off the ground. This allows their players to swarm forward, even slightly ahead of the ball, in the pack. Similarly a couple of players will maintain positions slightly wider, but parallel with the moving ball. They have only one or two players stationed defensively at the back of packs / behind the ball.
This wave of attackers is a key to their pressure on defensive players- the defence is relatively flat footed waiting for the ball to arrive, and the standard backwards handball ( which usually buys time & space for a clearing kick) is nullified by the three or four swarming Tigers.
They actually do a similar thing defending an attacking loose ball, but in reverse- they run past the ball to cover that side of the pack.
So what does this mean?
We need to change the direction of the ball movement.
Even a wild handball, a soccer, or a punch that takes the ball back into, or over, the pack seriously disrupts their game plan.
This opens up the contested play, they’re out of position, and there’s space for opponents to run clear. One reason why the Dogs gave them problems- the Dogs are good at this.
What we can’t do is shovel handballs backwards to guys like Merrett Zaka Hurley or Saad, which is often our default
Stringer will go to dusty at centre bounces and some clearances. It worked well against Fyfffe on saturday. Stringer is an elite stoppage player.
Player for player - given they have 3 elites missing - we have them more than covered, but we know since 2017 they execute their system and structures far better than we do.
I think we will win this week by 10 points despite 2 absolute howler free kicks to lynch and caddieshack in the final quarter, when they charge our mason with their heads. Then Mason will get fined $40k for what he was thinking about the umpires.
