AFL Autopsy RND 11: Beaten at the Poohtress

[ghostdog]

Power 'not sold on the competition', Bombers take positives from loss

After improving to 5-6, Port Adelaide's season is getting back on track

www.afl.com.au

Don’t normally see much interesting in the match reports, but since I personally wasn’t counting how many goals port kicked or when that’s actually kind of surprising.

They only kicked one goal after half time!

A tale of two halves indeed.

We parallelled them though; we only kicked four points from about the 12 minute mark of the third term until the end of the game.

 

[Bjchan13]

And the better alternative seems like one of the most obvious ways to get the ball moving from the backline. If everyone is loading up on one side of the ground then wouldn't you look to hit players leading hard into the space created on the fat side of the ground? Then maybe some overlap runners and some forwards starting to lead up to half forward/wing on that fat side? Requires hard running but you're also making the opposition chase you. Maybe we arent fit enough to do it.

 

[Lore]

And the better alternative seems like one of the most obvious ways to get the ball moving from the backline. If everyone is loading up on one side of the ground then wouldn't you look to hit players leading hard into the space created on the fat side of the ground? Then maybe some overlap runners and some forwards starting to lead up to half forward/wing on that fat side? Requires hard running but you're also making the opposition chase you. Maybe we arent fit enough to do it.

Been a problem all year. People kept complaining Perkins hardly got a touch — he was the guy on the fat side with three opponents to himself in most of our early games this year. And then yes, if we chose to use the fat side we wouldn’t get across the ground fast enough and it’d be a 3-on-1.

 

[Bjchan13]

Been a problem all year. People kept complaining Perkins hardly got a touch — he was the guy on the fat side with three opponents to himself in most of our early games this year. And then yes, if we chose to use the fat side we wouldn’t get across the ground fast enough and it’d be a 3-on-1.

Yeah it depends how the opposition is setting up their zone for each kick out. If Perkins has 3 defenders on him then theoretically we should have 2 free players somewhere

 

[Lore]

Yeah it depends how the opposition is setting up their zone for each kick out. If Perkins has 3 defenders on him then theoretically we should have 2 free players somewhere

Clogging up the skinny side so we can overhandball it and turn it over, then they shoot out the back using the free players coast to coast.

 

[Bjchan13]

Clogging up the skinny side so we can overhandball it and turn it over, then they shoot out the back using the free players coast to coast.

So dumb, but we've seen it all year. Surely its not the gameplan

 

[Lore]

So dumb, but we've seen it all year. Surely its not the gameplan

No idea Although we’ve seen a few guys yelling at each other lately to pick up the loose man.

 

[Mr Mojo Risin]

Clogging up the skinny side so we can overhandball it and turn it over, then they shoot out the back using the free players coast to coast.

We have been missing Langers and Cox, Draper doesn’t mark enough etc. I’d imagine being predictable and kicking to the congestion is a form of creating a contest and if a turnover occurs it’s not in open space, giving our defense a better chance.

It’s all a process of development and adjustment. We’re not good enough closing down open space or kicking to advantage yet to go to the fat side.

Additionally we need to get better at working through congestion with handballs. While it won’t win us games right now doing this, it ticks a few boxes of development IMO.

 

[Lore]

We have been missing Langers and Cox, Draper doesn’t mark enough etc. I’d imagine being predictable and kicking to the congestion is a form of creating a contest and if a turnover occurs it’s not in open space, giving our defense a better chance.

It’s all a process of development and adjustment. We’re not good enough closing down open space or kicking to advantage yet to go to the fat side.

Additionally we need to get better at working through congestion with handballs. While it won’t win us games right now doing this, it ticks a few boxes of development IMO.

We had this problem even when we had Cox, but yeah. I'm sure he also benefits from Langford or Snelling being out there telling him where he needs to be.

In terms of a return goal, either wing is fine, it's the corridor that can create an easy shot dead in front if you turn it over (as Parish found out yesterday). If they take a mark on the fat side 55m out on a stupid angle they're still going to need to work it back in or take a shot that's harder to convert, so you have more of a buffer there.

Weight of numbers is a factor when kicking down the skinny wing though – but it's only an advantage if you have a contested marking target there every time. Our contested marks that have the endurance to run up and down the field all game are on the injury list, and Baldwin, Bryan, Francis aren't the cover for that.

The little blokes are presumably swarming that area to try and 'trap it in', so if you can't take a clean grab, you bring it to ground and try to run or handball out of trouble. But the problem with playing a high pressure structure like that is you have to be able to withstand the same pressure, or you turn it over. Which basically summarises the last ten weeks.

It took Jones half a game to blow the cobwebs out and start taking marks, and it also looks like Durham has reinvented himself as a contested mark as well, plus we have Phillips with his AFL standard tank. It certainly helped somewhat, and so will getting Langford, Stringer and perhaps Cox back. We were lucky that the handball game worked out for us once the rain came down too. I guess they must've trained with a bar of soap during the week?

Hopefully the kids improve but in the mean time we haven't had the right kind of depth to execute a marking based kick in structure all game – and if you're losing the centre clearances then your kick in structure has to stand up or you're going to look exactly as we have done, coast to coast goals while everyone is out of position to defend the transition.

 

[Chief Hopper]

I thought the dons played the best i've seen for a while.
If we didn't miss so many set shots for goals the first quarter we would have won etc as the rest of the game we were the better team.
Having Jones on the field really made our fwd line look much more potent.

SPP tackles seemed to be on the edge of being a bit too rough? I thought a couple were a bit late and worthy of a free kick.
Hasn't he injured a few of our players over the years?

 

[silk]

Been a problem all year. People kept complaining Perkins hardly got a touch — he was the guy on the fat side with three opponents to himself in most of our early games this year. And then yes, if we chose to use the fat side we wouldn’t get across the ground fast enough and it’d be a 3-on-1.

Feels like it's been a problem for at least 5 years. Hurley used to do it all the time over and over. It's one of the reasons we're so hard to watch sometimes. We'll see other teams score a goal off of our behind, but then when they kick a behind we get locked in so easily, and it's usually a matter of them getting repeat entries until they get a goal.

 

[Yoda_]

Why do you even listen ? You know what is coming in any coaches press conference. At least truck has given a few drive by shots to the senior players.

No, this comment was before Rutten's presser. implying I wasn't going to bother. I didn't

 

[Yoda_]

I thought the dons played the best i've seen for a while.
If we didn't miss so many set shots for goals the first quarter we would have won etc as the rest of the game we were the better team.
Having Jones on the field really made our fwd line look much more potent.

SPP tackles seemed to be on the edge of being a bit too rough? I thought a couple were a bit late and worthy of a free kick.
Hasn't he injured a few of our players over the years?

The tackling when they have the ball was a little cringe. Mentioned Port players continually threw themselves forward seeking a free kick.

 

[Mr Mojo Risin]

We had this problem even when we had Cox, but yeah. I'm sure he also benefits from Langford or Snelling being out there telling him where he needs to be.

In terms of a return goal, either wing is fine, it's the corridor that can create an easy shot dead in front if you turn it over (as Parish found out yesterday). If they take a mark on the fat side 55m out on a stupid angle they're still going to need to work it back in or take a shot that's harder to convert, so you have more of a buffer there.

Weight of numbers is a factor when kicking down the skinny wing though – but it's only an advantage if you have a contested marking target there every time. Our contested marks that have the endurance to run up and down the field all game are on the injury list, and Baldwin, Bryan, Francis aren't the cover for that.

The little blokes are presumably swarming that area to try and 'trap it in', so if you can't take a clean grab, you bring it to ground and try to run or handball out of trouble. But the problem with playing a high pressure structure like that is you have to be able to withstand the same pressure, or you turn it over. Which basically summarises the last ten weeks.

It took Jones half a game to blow the cobwebs out and start taking marks, and it also looks like Durham has reinvented himself as a contested mark as well, plus we have Phillips with his AFL standard tank. It certainly helped somewhat, and so will getting Langford, Stringer and perhaps Cox back. We were lucky that the handball game worked out for us once the rain came down too. I guess they must've trained with a bar of soap during the week?

Hopefully the kids improve but in the mean time we haven't had the right kind of depth to execute a marking based kick in structure all game – and if you're losing the centre clearances then your kick in structure has to stand up or you're going to look exactly as we have done, coast to coast goals while everyone is out of position to defend the transition.

From my perspective it’s the lack of success taking contested marks that causes opposition teams to make sure they outnumber us on the fat side and through the middle to force us to go there. So we go there because the numbers dictate we go there most the time and like you say we have a chance to swarm a ground ball or stop the opposition having open space from a mark.

It’s far from ideal but it’s good development for our guys to make the right decisions and learn to work through congestion.

What I would like see more though is work rate of our players through movement from the skinny side laterally to either create even numbers elsewhere or make the skinny side the fat side. Obviously more contested marking would help, but until then…

 

[ant555]

From my perspective it’s the lack of success taking contested marks that causes opposition teams to make sure they outnumber us on the fat side and through the middle to force us to go there. So we go there because the numbers dictate we go there most the time and like you say we have a chance to swarm a ground ball or stop the opposition having open space from a mark.

It’s far from ideal but it’s good development for our guys to make the right decisions and learn to work through congestion.

What I would like see more though is work rate of our players through movement from the skinny side laterally to either create even numbers elsewhere or make the skinny side the fat side. Obviously more contested marking would help, but until then…

Agree that our marking is a real issue.