I endorse this comment
4 Likes
Crows switched to it halfway through last week.
2 Likes
By the way zone defence only works from an opposition mark as the kicker is less likely to take the risky option. The zone makes finding a target more challenging.
However from turnovers the ball is in motion, opposition players are on the run or overlapping, the team who turned the ball over is out of position or flat footed. So the best immediate action is to go straight to one on one where possible or flood back defensively as quickly as possible
Or just don’t turn the bloody ball over
3 Likes
I’m guessing some of it has to do with our lack of genuine quality small forwards. Many times the opposition defenders win the ball instantly and therefore have slingshotted before we even have a chance to setup.
The biggest worry is when we have the time to setup but they still waltz through the midfield.
3 Likes
Yep, it’s because the better teams have recruited good kicks that can nail a 20 meter short pass through the zone and open up the ground with overlap running.
I know people say, “well who does man on man anymore”, but my answer to that would be, if you do what everyone else is doing, can you really beat them at it?
I would be saying, play man on man from kick ins and setup behind your man from there on. We need to look at the strengths of our list and pace is not one of them. We can’t rely on chasing down our opponents. As someone said, sacrifice scoring for a while and nail defence. We will probably lose more than we win for a while, but it will be worth it.
2 Likes
if you wnat ptsd flashbacks, early 2010s, collingwood slowly working the ball through the midfield with small leads and 15-20m kick and us not being able to stop it, even thought we’d seen this tactic for years
80% of the comp play this style, if you don’t you are left behind.
GWS, Swans, Pies, Port are all examples of teams who run and gun from the back half.
They just have better systems in place to defend the turnover.
1 Like
They have better players with better skills. We can’t compete with them.
3 Likes
This
Leads to this
And we never seem to do this
It’s always 3 or 4 blokes visibly jogging back behind the play.
5 Likes
It is interesting, because if you were 2 points down with 1 minute to go, do you keep your zone or man up? You man up. so why allow the opposition space the rest of the game?
1 Like
We rank 8th and 9th for turnover and disposal efficiency (the swans are worse that us FYI) this isn’t an excuse not to defend the turnover better
1 Like
Our disposal efficiency is based on bombing it to a contest, which makes our numbers look good. Swans actually look for targets.
1 Like
For a long time we’ve tried to exit contests from the front, forward handballs. Most teams exit backwards.
Instead of our players behind the ball we’re level with it expecting the easy ball moving forward. If you start behind you can get a second to dispose, go wide and the ball gets on the outside and most importantly if you lose it you’re in a position to defend and apply pressure.
I still think you can have a specific guy to get out the front like a Gresham but the rest have to stay in structure and be defensive first.
We really need our fringe non talls to spend a good portion of there time in defence to change the mindset.
3 Likes
This and in conjunction with the lack of running power in our forward 50. Stringer, Wright, Menzie, Guelfi are all average at best runners (Plus we often have a ruckman up there too) - hence opponents have such a simple time getting the out of our F50. We need to prioritise getting the Daveys and Caddy into the set-up as soon as possible.
2 Likes
It’s so simple. We’ve have no true pressure players being selected in a very unbalanced forward line. Playing resting mids with no acceleration as half forwards, then selecting an overly tall forward line with the remaining spots, it’s little wonder we can’t stop transition. Best example of this was when Davey came on against swans and immediately forced a turnover with his pressure focused electricity.
I’d play Merrett half forward next week and let Parish, Setter, Duz and co go to work in the middle.
At least the skipper has the closing speed and the ability to set up the forward line on transition.
7 Likes
i agree. goldy playing minutes as a deep forward too. Draper has burst speed when everyone else is flat footed but he doesn’t use it defensively. langford isn’t fast either. at any one time time will often have 3 guys who can not put pressure on the ball and stringer and menzie who either pick and chose or don’t have the high end speed required.
one thing you can say of Jones in his favour is that he works very hard and uses his speed defensively. he will chase guys all the way up the ground. He would have gone with Gulden from the back pocket in the example they gave
having draper and wright deep forward with langford is a recipe for disaster.
hot take incoming:
we should put 2mp up for trade, dees would gobble him up to pair with JVR and support Gawn. get a 1st and 2nd round pick
make space for caddy as another more nimble forward.
trade one of caldwell or hobbs for picks or an electric small forward with pace
9 Likes
I think there are two pieces of play that sum things up really well for me.
Merrett running down the wing in the clear in the 4th with Langford and Wright(?) as the targets in our 50. They both lead towards him and he kicks to a contest.
Sydney doing exactly the same thing? Both players run away from the kicker and across the ground, the ball is delivered across the field and Hayward (?) runs on to it and marks uncontested.
Collingwood changed the ball movement game last year, Sydney has done an evolution on that change. They get the ball into the hands of Warner, Heeney and Blakey as much as possible and kick across the zone diagonally rather than into it.
3 Likes
If we want to deal with Melbourne, Kozzie Pickett is out of contract.
I suspect if he leaves, he’ll head to a SA club, but gee he’d be perfect for us.
Edit: Turns out he signed a 4-year deal recently. Ok, scratch that.
When we guard grass, which every team does when appropriate, and which is only one aspect of defence, we’re very static, and often stand too far away from the opposition player to close when the kick is made.
The teams that do this better than us, are either more fluid at changing their position as the opposition players move, keeping an eye out all around them, and keeping within closing distance, or some teams spread out, but keep jogging around. 10 players moving all different directions ahead are much harder to gauge than 10 players standing stationary.
3 Likes
Also, we could probably fix this by telling our defenders to hang back rather than follow forwards all the way up. Let the transition come to us rather than chase it back to goal.
But we want to be a forward half team. Which I think is the right approach. We just need to get better at it.
3 Likes