- Jul 15, 2014
- 22,207
- 42,840
- AFL Club
- Richmond
- Other Teams
- Chelsea, LA Lakers, Western United
Firstly, what in the world is it? I can't really work out an identifiable system given that the players aren't executing whatever they're being told to do very well. They seem to look confused much of the time and kinda look like they're winging the decisions that they're making.
Apart from our general fitness, midfield speed, and skill-level deficiencies, I noticed a few things about our style:
1. We slow the play down way too much. While we stop and try to find the perfect target inside 50 or down the field, the opposition has already set up defensively. Without Lynch, we don't have a lot of strong contested marks, so the opposition defence will lap it up more than we do. We should play with pace instead.
2. We rely on precision kicking when slowing the game down. That's not going to win us many games with our current foot skills. For our skill level, it is much better for us to just kick to space if we cannot find a vacant target.
3. We're so stagnant off the ball for much of the match except for a 10-20 minute period each game. Being so flat-footed leads to little pressure on the ball carrier. That's why the opposition seem to have so much time when they have the ball while we seem to be under constant pressure. In the games we lost, you can find plenty of examples showing how our opposition were more dynamic in their running patterns. We need to improve our running patterns because it's currently very different to our Premiership years.
4. We don't use the corridor much. We tend to look at the wings and kick to a contest instead of moving the ball through the corridor and I don't know why because we usually look much better when moving it through the corridor. In the last 7 or so minutes of the Gold Coast game, I noticed that we were still trying to move the ball through a clogged wing. It's like Stuart Dew knew how conservative our ball movement was because Gold Coast players stacked the wings and basically left the corridor vacant for them to use whenever we turn the ball over. Things like this are why we lose close games and don't come back often when trailing. Look at Collingwood, who start playing attacking footy through the corridor when it's time to come back and win. Collingwood don't allow the opposition to set up defensively whereas we give them plenty of time to do so with our conservative ball movement.
We can and should rectify these four things at the very least. It doesn't guarantee that we will improve by a lot since we're quite ordinary in basic skills like kicking, but at least we can try a few things that may work. What did you guys notice in terms of gamestyle over the first 7 rounds?
Apart from our general fitness, midfield speed, and skill-level deficiencies, I noticed a few things about our style:
1. We slow the play down way too much. While we stop and try to find the perfect target inside 50 or down the field, the opposition has already set up defensively. Without Lynch, we don't have a lot of strong contested marks, so the opposition defence will lap it up more than we do. We should play with pace instead.
2. We rely on precision kicking when slowing the game down. That's not going to win us many games with our current foot skills. For our skill level, it is much better for us to just kick to space if we cannot find a vacant target.
3. We're so stagnant off the ball for much of the match except for a 10-20 minute period each game. Being so flat-footed leads to little pressure on the ball carrier. That's why the opposition seem to have so much time when they have the ball while we seem to be under constant pressure. In the games we lost, you can find plenty of examples showing how our opposition were more dynamic in their running patterns. We need to improve our running patterns because it's currently very different to our Premiership years.
4. We don't use the corridor much. We tend to look at the wings and kick to a contest instead of moving the ball through the corridor and I don't know why because we usually look much better when moving it through the corridor. In the last 7 or so minutes of the Gold Coast game, I noticed that we were still trying to move the ball through a clogged wing. It's like Stuart Dew knew how conservative our ball movement was because Gold Coast players stacked the wings and basically left the corridor vacant for them to use whenever we turn the ball over. Things like this are why we lose close games and don't come back often when trailing. Look at Collingwood, who start playing attacking footy through the corridor when it's time to come back and win. Collingwood don't allow the opposition to set up defensively whereas we give them plenty of time to do so with our conservative ball movement.
We can and should rectify these four things at the very least. It doesn't guarantee that we will improve by a lot since we're quite ordinary in basic skills like kicking, but at least we can try a few things that may work. What did you guys notice in terms of gamestyle over the first 7 rounds?
