Yeah… and the irony is that the players that people line up to abuse every week - Jake Kelly, Dyson Heppell, etc - are the very guys who run both ways.
Look at Tsatas this week, copped a pasting from a few blokes including OP, and was in our top 2-3 from a distance run perspective:
There are calls for Jye Menzie, who ran his arse off defensively all game and put loads of pressure on to be dropped.
As supporters we have to start asking ourselves what we value, too. Do the flashy things that Perkins and Stringer do make their lack of defensive accountability worthwhile? Do we value Hobbs’s hunger for the contest over his inability to keep up with guys in transition?
We need to analyse swans game plan
Study and copy and adapt
Longires comments post game indicate a better work rate and certainly they scored heavily towards the end of quarters.
Hard to tell from Tv but it looked to me like they apply a forward attacking press at times. You can count at least 13 players moving forward in sync past the middle
Their mids and half backs are involved and the they rarely get exposed on rebound as a result of elite disposal or locking up the ball
Great if you can get away with it
They don’t have slow players -cant think of one and they do have immaculate disposal
We were t disgraced but will need a better plan Tim on MCG later this year
Note: they had played one extra game this year so probably more match hardened?
I personally think that Clone Hirdy is on to something and the players are too fixated on guarding patches of ground and are being cut up by teams using run and carry.
Strangely this time last year the defensive efforts were looking much better. And to be fair, there were quite a few forced changes to the team on Saturday.
But I am going to put this squarely on Brad and his coaching team. He’s had enough time to coach them into his style of play and so far it’s not looking good defensively.
I tend to think it’s the opposite. I haven’t been to live games in 2 years, but use to go a good 10x per year and the best teams defensively were the ones that got immediately into the zone position and in a uniform way. Richmond and Collingwood being elite at this when i saw them live. It was like soldiers moving into position. We never seemed to be able to master this, I’m not sure why.
On the transition though, having a lack of good, quick pressure forwards with endurance has always been an issue. Added to that is the fact that stringer and Perkins aren’t tall but their defensive pressure is poor.
So yeah, 2 things, half forwards haven’t been good (which is the first line of defence) and still, the inability to zone properly after so many years of trying.
i think a zone isn’t really effective unless you have players (at least a handful) that can win or neutralise most contests (marking or otherwise) as a team our contested work particularly marking is non existent, as your zone will be trying to force the ball into certain areas.
to use @Bully 's example, richmond wanted all forward movement from the opposition ending in rance or grimes,2 terrific one on one defenders
I think it was 3/4 time when Merrett was giving one of his team mates a roast?
I think it was Tsatas, but not really sure. He certainly wasn’t mincing his words. I expect it was about defensive running/positioning. It’s called ‘team defence’ for a reason, and only takes 1 or 2 players to drop off or be out of position and it quickly breaks down.
Too many of our forward entries were low IQ. Kicking to an out number contest, and/or too shallow, such as one of Stringer’s, which also opened up the opposite side of the field to a Swans counter attack.
Sometimes you just have to hang on to the ball and wait for a short option to present, or if you must kick to a contest, then go to the top of the goal square, or if an outnumber then go to the pocket where it is easier to lock in or defend.
Are our mids rotating often enough? All of Tsatas, Durham, Perkins and Caldwell looked completely gassed at times and physically unable to keep up with there direct opponent.
also can we acknowledge, contests from a net neutral position (centre bounces) are not the same as in open play, we are good at one, abysmal at the other
that’s the point though. they are being coached to take up aggressive positions to intercept balls dumped forward under manic pressure. the problem is our pressure on the ball isn’t sufficient to force the dump kicks. instead sides pick their way through our pressure and then hit up their forwards out the back. we’ve been trying and failing to defend like this since 2019. we don’t have enough speed, or endurance, in the forward line or in the midfield to pull it off
it’s not about the defence not working hard enough, they are being coached to play 10m in front of their man and they can’t run them down when both are are in a full sprint back to goals. no defender could. the problem is actually whats happening up the ground with the forwards and mids.
if the forwards and mids can’t execute the plan, the defenders need to change their starting position. as it stands they are doing what the coaches want them to do.
of the circled players, it’s only really hobbs and heppell in no mans land, the rest have an opponent near them, like it or not it’s russian roulette, a lot of teams do it, we win that ball and look how many are ahead of the play.
the 3 loose players around the ball contest show harder working players.
the more concerning thing is 2 loose players in defence.
we can’t stop transition because players just run back to defence to mark a patch of grass, they neglect to as people have said realise that if the ball is in dispute that should be number 1 priority, instead of just turning and running back
Where are we at the point the ball is either a) in dispute or b) turned over? And then, where is the ball turned over? Shorter ground, shallow entries = we’re ■■■■■■.
We play fast, we turn the ball over. We play slow, defences are able to organise themselves. The trick is balancing possession retention while still having attacking flare and coverage behind. It’s personnel, skill under pressure, then what we do and how we are positioned when we lose the ball.
Brad should show the whole side that and then let them know that, that’s how far ahead of us Adelaide are and that he’s happy to see blokes, that might be considered important, Fark off if the won’t run both ways.
I’m becoming increasingly convinced that this is the biggest defensive problem we have. Every week, numerous times, I see genuine 50/50 contests in our F50 that we should be able to neutralise pretty easily, only for the opposition to rebound the ball with almost no pressure, often ending up with a scoring opportunity at the other end of the field. Our lack of forward line leg speed and the pressure it enables is killing us; oppositions are simply exploding out of their D50 and our blokes further up the field have no chance of stopping it. There’s a lot of talk about our midfield, but we have some genuinely hard-working players there now (Merrett, Setterfield, Duursma), we’ve had more than 50 inside 50s in the first two games and we’ve also won the clearances in both games. So we’re winning the ball at the source, and getting it forward with good frequency. We simply have to find a way to keep it in our F50 for longer and to stop it coming out so easily and cleanly. We absolutely must find a couple of quick guys who are willing to use their speed defensively as well as offensively.
