Strategy 2016 Tacs Trailer

[Janus]

"The encounter was a victory, but I think we've shown it as an example of what not to do. Now then, this is an example of a textbook manoeuver." - Top Gun

The difference between a successful press and an epic failure can be measured in a distance of around 10m. 10m is the difference between a long kick going to a one on one/two on two contest where speed and skill are the determining factors rather than numerical supremacy.

In the Adelaide review thread, I pointed out a time early in the match where we had the correct shape, but because the line was pushed too high up the ground it allowed Adelaide to move the ball out of defence pretty easily.

The player in the back lines has the ball. He has three options - he can do a short kick to one of the players that is tucked in between our two lines of defence, he can bomb it long to a one on one between Robbie Gray and Scott Thompson, or he can take the option he did and kick long to a mismatch contest between Wayne Milera and Tom Jonas, with another player from both sides joining in to make it a 2 on 2.

Now, I don't know about you, but when you've got clear space behind you, the ball getting to a fast player like Milera I think is quite a bad thing. What that kick also does is bypass the 5 players who were setup to press. It takes them out of the play and renders them useless defensively. But watch what happens when we move the line back 10m to inline where Jonas and Gray actually were:

Now, instead of kicking the ball to Milera in a one on one/two on two, Port has three players in the vicinity and it's no big thing for one of them to intercept the kick, because they don't have to turn first before they move toward the contest. The spacing means that even if Adelaide takes the short option at the 50m arc, those players won't be able to immediately play on due to the first and secondary lines being able to quickly collapse on him from both in front and behind like a vice. Which gives the defence time to setup properly and the forwards to push down into midfield.

The reason we are playing a press is two fold - it creates pressure in the forward line but it also slows down the play - and the slower you can make the opposition move the ball the more likely it is statistically that they will turn it over. On a ground that is over 120m in length, I'd much rather force our opponent to kick the ball 5-6 times and do the required running into space which increases fatigue than let them move the ball easily out of defence with 2 or 3 kicks and then hope that our flood/slingshot can turn the ball over in our defensive 50. Call me crazy, but that sounds like Defensive Tactics 101 to me.

Uncontested marks by our opponents aren't the enemy...it's where they receive the ball that is the key issue. 10m is the difference between a rock solid defence and a defence that leaks goals easily. That's why I keep saying it's easily fixed, and why when they DO fix it we'll have one of the best defences in the league.

I see some real genius in the way we are trying to play. It will work once the players don't get caught up in this stupid selfish idea that they need to be close to the ball in order to influence the result. In soccer, defenders aren't judged on their individual performance so much as how they work as a unit, with the only stat worth mentioning being how many goals the defence has conceded. I don't give a **** if Impey never touches the ball if he's doing his job and keeping the shape so it makes it difficult for opposition teams to move the ball toward goal. And you shouldn't either.

However, there is more to the failure of our defence than just spacing, and it involves what our wings are supposed to do when the ball crosses center. The next post will discuss what is happening vs what should be happening - and when you see that, you'll get a better appreciation of what we are trying to do.

 

[Us against the rest]

 

[Alberton Proud]

In both your examples we outnumber them 2 to 1 and we still lose in the first option

Anyway still looks very high risk whichever way you paint it

 

[Us against the rest]

This is where our problems are starting, with out clearances most game plans will fail.

 

[Us against the rest]

This game is a good guide to watch how the forward press works and the results it can bring if executed properly.

2010 Collingwood v Geelong preliminary final

 

[Janus]

In both your examples we outnumber them 2 to 1 and we still lose in the first option

Anyway still looks very high risk whichever way you paint it

It's actually 1-1/2-2 in the first example and 2-1/3-2 in the second. 1 v 1 is dependant on the skill of the attacking side vs the skill of the defender, who is always having to react to the positioning of the opposition. Forget about any players who are forward of the kick - by the time they see where the kick is going and turn, the mark has already been taken.

The other thing that I didn't point out is that if you're 10m closer to defensive 50, that's 10m less you need to run to actually get back and shore up any attack on goal.

The press is meant to be an extension of the slingshot, not a replacement. As the ball moves slowly down the ground, the defence becomes more and more compact as players who were forward of centre move back into position in our defensive half. In short, the slingshot is just the press in a different area of the ground.

 

[Far Kern]

The press is meant to be an extension of the slingshot, not a replacement. As the ball moves slowly down the ground, the defence becomes more and more compact as players who were forward of centre move back into position in our defensive half. In short, the slingshot is just the press in a different area of the ground.

Our players slingshotting out of our defensive half shape if we turn it over there and have the opportunity. Ken is building on tactical elements of our play.

 

[black28]

Great reading. In your obviously intelligent opinion how does someone like Carlisle (big slow defender) fit into this style of play?

 

[Us against the rest]

Interesting seeing Bassett is now at Port.

Put simply, leading SANFL clubs have got better at locking the ball in their half of the ground by cutting off the opposition’s escape routes with excess numbers - a tactic known in the AFL as the forward press.

Norwood was the first to master the tactic under Nathan Bassett and others, like West Adelaide, followed. Godden said it had created a need to have more pace and running power as teams looked to negate the press by moving the ball quickly and sprinting into space.

Well it worked well for the Legs.

 

[Alberton Proud]

Norwood was the first to master the tactic under Nathan Bassett and others, like West Adelaide, followed. Godden said it had created a need to have more pace and running power as teams looked to negate the press by moving the ball quickly and sprinting into space.

Well it worked well for the Legs.

We are top heavy slow and lazy - other teams have recruited and developed 6 foot athletes

I know which I'd rather have at our club

 

[Leaveit2charlie]

We are top heavy slow and lazy - other teams have recruited and developed 6 foot athletes

I know which I'd rather have at our club

You put Hammer Matt White and Krack in there our list is ok. No one has endless depth.

 

[PowerBaz]

I have some more confidence now..... thanks Janus Bassett.

 

[ozph1870]

Interesting seeing Bassett is now at Port.

Put simply, leading SANFL clubs have got better at locking the ball in their half of the ground by cutting off the opposition’s escape routes with excess numbers - a tactic known in the AFL as the forward press.

Norwood was the first to master the tactic under Nathan Bassett and others, like West Adelaide, followed. Godden said it had created a need to have more pace and running power as teams looked to negate the press by moving the ball quickly and sprinting into space.

Well it worked well for the Legs.

laughable. What he did at Norwood had zero relevance to anything afl related in 2016. He copied the west coast, Sydney, crows defensive flood to make it low scoring defensive games of slopball.

 

[ozph1870]

These tactics are a disgrace, very easy to exploit, oppo would just put the slower players zoning up in our forward line clogging up our over crowded forward line, put all the fast smalls / quick midsized players forward, kick the ball into space and good luck Jonas, Trengove, Carlisle broadbent etc keeping up with them inside a vacant forward 100...

 

[Us against the rest]

We are top heavy slow and lazy - other teams have recruited and developed 6 foot athletes

I know which I'd rather have at our club

Yep, our backs look slow with Carlile and Trengove.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

"
That's why I keep saying it's easily fixed, and why when they DO fix it we'll have one of the best defences in the league......

Yes you keep saying it, but it doesnt get fixed, so either it isn't as easy as you say, or our coaches and players aren't that good at fixing it.

 

[KenOath]

Yes you keep saying it, but it doesnt get fixed, so either it isn't as easy as you say, or our coaches and players aren't that good at fixing it.

Yep, and our first two weeks have been so far off the mark that you have to wonder what they were planning for over the summer!?

 

[Pow Pow]

The press is genius? Don't most clubs use a press and have for a long time.

 

[Janus]

So what the **** is going wrong?

The forward press itself is actually working pretty well, as attested to by our intercept numbers forward of center. I've already discussed what needs to happen for it to be fixed - it's Round 2, not Round 22, so give it time. If they haven't sorted it out by Round 6, then I'll concede they don't know how to fix it. But as others have said, this what we were doing for defense last year, so the reality is we should be getting better at it, not worse. So what's the problem?

Two words: dumb wingers. Let me explain what should be happening when the ball crosses into our defensive 50:

Alright, this is a standard defensive press (aka slingshot). You'll notice that there is a high concentration of players around the ball, but then from there every other player has spacing of around 20m or so. Don't mind the player positions so much - their primary job is to track any player that doesn't have an opponent within their area, so it will never actually look as 'pretty' as this - as I've said before, a press is fluid and constantly changing in reaction to what the opposition is doing so that we are constantly ahead of them.

When the ball passes center, four forwards stay 'out the back' (generally Dixon, Schulz, Neade and Wingard) to be on the receiving end of any turnovers, while the remaining two forwards (Westhoff and Hartlett) join with the midfield to create a wall around the 50m arc. Meanwhile, the wingers drop behind into defensive 50 (source: Hamish Hartlett in an interview on Triple M) and create an overload of a +3 in defense (assuming that we are playing a +1 in defense already to create space for our forwards in attack), denying space for opposition forwards to lead into.

But what is happening at the moment is this:

\

The wingers aren't pushing back into defense at all. They are staying in an offensive position, forward of the ball and out of the play. Now, ordinarily this wouldn't be so bad, but our whole defensive structure is geared around having those players drop behind the 50m wall and fill space. Where did most of the goals that Adelaide generate come from in the first quarter and a bit onslaught? That's right - most of them either originated or were kicked from the exact areas that our wingers were meant to drop back into. And this assumes that we are already starting with a +1 in defense - if we went with a standard defensive structure, there would be even more space for opposition forwards to lead into.

When you see an Adelaide player streaming forward down the wing with the ball and no one is within 50m of them, forcing Toumpas (who was playing in defense at the time) to leave his man to go defend at the 50m arc, which means that Pittard has to shift across to Milera and Lynch is left all on his own to take an uncontested mark? That's what happens when the wingers don't drop back into defensive 50. It leads to our defenders having to constantly switch to repel different threats, get caught out of position and generally makes their job a whole ****load harder than it should be.

That's why you don't see many defenders in our defensive 50 - we were always missing two of them. Now, you might think that the spacing of the forward press might be hard to fix...but this? This is basic football 101. How hard is it to remember to drop back into defensive 50 when the ball passes center? These guys need to stop running ahead of the play for easy, bruise free football and start putting their bodies on the line for their teammates.

Yes, I'm looking at you, Jared.

 

[Us against the rest]

Agree with you in the most Janus but our mids need to get some ball out of the middle so we can execute the press, our mids have been poor at clearance appart from a couple of quarters this year.

 

[Macca19]

Janus kicking goals at the moment. Some top notch analysis mate

 

[Janus]

Agree with you in the most Janus but our mids need to get some ball out of the middle so we can execute the press, our mids have been poor at clearance appart from a couple of quarters this year.

Oh yes, definitely. The more you can win clearances, the better chance you have of actually setting up correctly because you have possession moving forward.

That's primarily the reason why we tend to bomb the ball forward instead of hitting up targets - it's because we are losing the clearances and so want to create a situation where we can create intercepts through our attacking 50. The problem is...once we actually HAVE set up the press and have created intercept situations it's time to stop bombing the ball back in and start hitting targets.

Less sledgehammer, more scalpel.

 

[black28]

How is this strategy different to what other clubs play Janus? I wouldve thought most clubs would play this press to some degree.

 

[Nemisis]

Interesting stat: This year we have least amount of marks in the comp - average 54 per game. Something aint right - run harder boys

 

[Us against the rest]

Oh yes, definitely. The more you can win clearances, the better chance you have of actually setting up correctly because you have possession moving forward.

That's primarily the reason why we tend to bomb the ball forward instead of hitting up targets - it's because we are losing the clearances and so want to create a situation where we can create intercepts through our attacking 50. The problem is...once we actually HAVE set up the press and have created intercept situations it's time to stop bombing the ball back in and start hitting targets.

Less sledgehammer, more scalpel.

I have done some research on the press and as you have said, when the press is set up correctly and the mids are winning their share of the ball, the results can be very rewarding. Keep the posts coming, I have never really looked this closely at game plans and find them interesting.