Managing momentum and deliberately taking the foot off for periods during the game

[PerthBoy86]

I had several thoughts after the Lions ran down the Giants on Saturday night. The first thing that jumped out at me was, as many others have observed and dissected, the Giants have struggled to arrest opposition momentum this season. When the oppo get on a run, they leak runs of goals. Sometimes it happens early, like the first quarter against the Lions at the GABBA, and sometimes late, like on Saturday. I guess in this case it says about how the Lions can score quickly, but I think Kingsley and the Giants aren't the best at arresting that momentum when things get chaotic, they're not on their terms etc. But they're far from alone, and imo that was the main chink in their armour. It's interesting to note that overall, however, the Giants are the only team to have no really been thrashed all year, their biggest loss if I recall being 30-40 points. Likewise they're not a team that tends to thrash teams much either. With all these rule changes the AFL is about momentum - which makes it interesting, but it means coaching, tactics, strategies etc all have to adapt and evolve accordingly. I think the Giants have most of the ingredients to excel at the game style, but this is something they need to and will doubltess address.

Which also brings me to another thought: there's a lot of talk about peaking at the wrong time during the season, that indeed it's better for teams to have down periods. If we assume there's something to this, I think it also applies to games. When the Pies kept coming back last year in the last quarter, I always felt it was partly on purpose. It was a strategy to take the foot off the pedal/ease off a little bit during periods and save up your energy for a final burst. I wonder if Sydney have also been trying this approach, despite lamenting their poor starts. Like sure they've had poor starts, but they've come back a lot like Collingwood. On the flipside they had quite a few close losses. Anyway, do you think this is an often ignored/underappreciated aspect of the game? I think managing momentum, and knowing when to push and when to hold back is increasingly important in today's game. Of course, if you can go full pelt for the entire game great (unless you want to save some energy for the week after), but my observation of footy as it stands in 2024 is it's more of a factor than ever.

 

[kickazz]

You can't go flat stick for 120 minutes - I think in the noughties it was the Swans that called it 'Tempo football' (which unfortunately manifested itself as horrible repeated ball ups and gang tackling).

But yeah, I think if you could sense when the opposition have a bit of extra energy about themselves - if you had a specific game plan to hold that off for a bit before biting at them again - that would be a really powerful system to have.

6-6-6 makes this harder. As does the interpretations on tackling/htb and marking. The game favours runners now like never before.

 

[PhatBoy]

I had several thoughts after the Lions ran down the Giants on Saturday night. The first thing that jumped out at me was, as many others have observed and dissected, the Giants have struggled to arrest opposition momentum this season. When the oppo get on a run, they leak runs of goals. Sometimes it happens early, like the first quarter against the Lions at the GABBA, and sometimes late, like on Saturday. I guess in this case it says about how the Lions can score quickly, but I think Kingsley and the Giants aren't the best at arresting that momentum when things get chaotic, they're not on their terms etc. But they're far from alone, and imo that was the main chink in their armour. It's interesting to note that overall, however, the Giants are the only team to have no really been thrashed all year, their biggest loss if I recall being 30-40 points. Likewise they're not a team that tends to thrash teams much either. With all these rule changes the AFL is about momentum - which makes it interesting, but it means coaching, tactics, strategies etc all have to adapt and evolve accordingly. I think the Giants have most of the ingredients to excel at the game style, but this is something they need to and will doubltess address.

Which also brings me to another thought: there's a lot of talk about peaking at the wrong time during the season, that indeed it's better for teams to have down periods. If we assume there's something to this, I think it also applies to games. When the Pies kept coming back last year in the last quarter, I always felt it was partly on purpose. It was a strategy to take the foot off the pedal/ease off a little bit during periods and save up your energy for a final burst. I wonder if Sydney have also been trying this approach, despite lamenting their poor starts. Like sure they've had poor starts, but they've come back a lot like Collingwood. On the flipside they had quite a few close losses. Anyway, do you think this is an often ignored/underappreciated aspect of the game? I think managing momentum, and knowing when to push and when to hold back is increasingly important in today's game. Of course, if you can go full pelt for the entire game great (unless you want to save some energy for the week after), but my observation of footy as it stands in 2024 is it's more of a factor than ever.

It’s an interesting idea that I’ve never really given much thought to in AFL.

Following rugby league closely you get to appreciate that there are times that every team will go into ‘game management mode’ well before the end of the game, based on the momentum of the game and what’s been happening in the minutes preceding a particular portion of the game. Then when they get the opportunity they will ratchet up the pressure and start to change their game a bit.

Obviously teams do this in different ways in the two sports but in both they have to manage their output to some degree and to be honest I’d never really given much though about AFL teams managing their own momentum beyond trying to put a cork in the opposition’s.

 

[Corn Cobbers]

6-6-6 makes this harder.

That's it right there I reckon

Used to be pretty rare to lose after leading by 5 goals, 1 in 20 chance, now it happens every week!

 

[PetterdHoisted]

I had several thoughts after the Lions ran down the Giants on Saturday night. The first thing that jumped out at me was, as many others have observed and dissected, the Giants have struggled to arrest opposition momentum this season. When the oppo get on a run, they leak runs of goals. Sometimes it happens early, like the first quarter against the Lions at the GABBA, and sometimes late, like on Saturday. I guess in this case it says about how the Lions can score quickly, but I think Kingsley and the Giants aren't the best at arresting that momentum when things get chaotic, they're not on their terms etc. But they're far from alone, and imo that was the main chink in their armour. It's interesting to note that overall, however, the Giants are the only team to have no really been thrashed all year, their biggest loss if I recall being 30-40 points. Likewise they're not a team that tends to thrash teams much either. With all these rule changes the AFL is about momentum - which makes it interesting, but it means coaching, tactics, strategies etc all have to adapt and evolve accordingly. I think the Giants have most of the ingredients to excel at the game style, but this is something they need to and will doubltess address.

Which also brings me to another thought: there's a lot of talk about peaking at the wrong time during the season, that indeed it's better for teams to have down periods. If we assume there's something to this, I think it also applies to games. When the Pies kept coming back last year in the last quarter, I always felt it was partly on purpose. It was a strategy to take the foot off the pedal/ease off a little bit during periods and save up your energy for a final burst. I wonder if Sydney have also been trying this approach, despite lamenting their poor starts. Like sure they've had poor starts, but they've come back a lot like Collingwood. On the flipside they had quite a few close losses. Anyway, do you think this is an often ignored/underappreciated aspect of the game? I think managing momentum, and knowing when to push and when to hold back is increasingly important in today's game. Of course, if you can go full pelt for the entire game great (unless you want to save some energy for the week after), but my observation of footy as it stands in 2024 is it's more of a factor than ever.

STAND football - 100 uncontested marks in a half of footy by one team

It was the tactic that put premier Collingwood’s season to sleep.

Puts everyone to sleep, GWS just missed the memo somehow, which made for an exciting game!

 

[Elixuh]

GWS will find it most difficult to shutdown games given that style of play is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum to their natural gamestyle.

On Saturday they started chipping it around with like 20 minutes or more of game time left. They stopped moving. Became defensive and reactive. Very hard to then get momentum back.

Subject to the lead you have, you can only generally shutdown games with 3 or less minutes on the clock. Lions learnt this against Melbourne in 2023.

As soon as GWS started chipping the ball around and not moving it I knew it was on. Tough time to learn these lessons.

 

[adammania9]

Good example of the fine line between winning and losing, and how teams are judged on it. If GWS hang on in either final, they look smart for conserving energy they’ll need in future weeks.

Collingwood were the worst culprits this year. Got away with a few wins we were lucky to, and dropped games that cost us finals in the end. A few supporters were berated on our board for criticising our win against Carlton late in the year where we led by 32 points in the last and only got over the line due to an after the siren miss from them. This followed a repeated trend of us taking the foot off the pedal during games which were won and ended up much closer than they should have. The following week, the same method cost us our season against Sydney.

It’s too risky to take the foot off so early in games. It’s costing teams too often.

 

[Andyy]

This is what Richmond's dynasty was built on.

Along with a handful of stars, plenty of B graders and a handful of role-players - timing the run, absorbing pressure and applying it at the right time.

Although they didn't win the flag in 2018 there were so many games that were won in the 3rd quarter alone after teams had taken a shot for the first half but admittedly they didn't time the 'season run' very well and peaked too early. But 2019-20 was quite textbook.

Agree you cannot go flat out for 4 quarters. I think most good sides balance absorbing pressure and taking a good shot for at least one quarter most of the time.