The death of offensive footy

[bombermick]

The onset of what appears to be the demise of the mighty Geelong and the sacking of Matthew Knights got me thinking. Both St.Kilda and Collingwood rely on defensive game styles. It's all about defensive pressure on the ball carrier. Although both can score heavily, "Saints footy" is a replica of "Bloods footy", while the Pies don't attack the corridor for fear of a turnover.

Geelong played a very attractive gamestyle that was a pleasure to watch (except when you were on the end of a 100 point belting). Even Essendon, in the shadows of regular heavy defeats played a kamikaze style of play that regulary left the slow Saints in their wake. Will the game return to a more attacking style, or has the game forever changed thanks to Paul Roos and Ross Lyon.

 

[Judd2Sewell]

So Essendon and a Geelong with Ablett are the only two sides in the whole of the AFL to play an attacking brand of football?

Ridiculous. Knights was fired because he was rubbish. Collingwood may play the boundary, but they enter the F50 pretty much more than any other side, which is the definition of attacking football.

 

[Drummer_19]

Who gives a shit? You do what you have to do to win games and put yourself in a position to win a flag. If that involves playing a defensive style then so be it. Wouldn't care if essendon won every game 55 - 45 if it meant us winning every game.

 

[Barabbas]

Who gives a shit? You do what you have to do to win games and put yourself in a position to win a flag. If that involves playing a defensive style then so be it. Wouldn't care if essendon won every game 55 - 45 if it meant us winning every game.

Yeah but I'd care, because then Essendon would be winning games and footy would be boring.

 

[LordJimmy]

Will people stop bitching about this?

Geelong 2009 and Collingwood 2010 have averaged 1 goal a game more than the Saints 2009 side.

To be honest, I don't think anything is more satisfying that seeing hard, brutal football where we tackle and chase and worry the hell out of the opposition. Us putting them out of their depth in an absolute physical sense is such a great thing to watch.

People whinge and bitch because whenever we can't put a blowtorch to our opponents we shut them down and retain the ball. So? Your side should man up. It's a clever defensive tactic and nothing is wrong with it. It's been proven that if you simply play better than us in the right way, you can beat it. If you can't, you're not good enough.

St Kilda's football over the past few years has produced some incredible football. Yet once or twice a year there's a stinker that the other team had a hand in and everyone is flooding the message boards crying about how we ruined the game and how us winning is bad for the game. Never mind the fact that we've been involved in two of the greatest Grand Finals of all time. Never mind R14 2009 that everyone goes on and on about being amazing. What of us kicking 10.0 in a quarter against the Eagles, or the 8.1 against North this year?

Fast, outside, flowing, high-scoring football is lame. Especially when the main stars are soft hacks who only got in for running fast and being on the end of fast play. If you've ever played football, you'll know that there is nothing exciting about running around in space. The real fun is had in packs and hunting as a group. This is what St Kilda has done best. It's what Sydney did best and it is the most important part of football and should be preserved above all else. Once you appreciate the physical and mental toughness required to win the ball in close by actually experiencing it yourself, I think you see the more engaging side of "Saints Footy" and Collingwood's "Swarm" tactic.

If you enjoy your Carlton and Essendon sides at the moment, good for you. But I call it fast food football and it's a blight on the true values of our game.

 

[sparklig]

Freo play offensive footy

Yes, it's a bad joke

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Freo play offensive footy

Yes, it's a bad joke

Yes, they certainly offended me in the elimination final

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

Colllingwood lead the comp for inside 50s and are the second highest scoring team in the comp.

In other words, no one is more attacking than Collingwood so what are you crying about?

We're so attacking, we defend in our forward line.

 

[FAIRANDBALANCED]

Will people stop bitching about this?

Geelong 2009 and Collingwood 2010 have averaged 1 goal a game more than the Saints 2009 side.

To be honest, I don't think anything is more satisfying that seeing hard, brutal football where we tackle and chase and worry the hell out of the opposition. Us putting them out of their depth in an absolute physical sense is such a great thing to watch.

People whinge and bitch because whenever we can't put a blowtorch to our opponents we shut them down and retain the ball. So? Your side should man up. It's a clever defensive tactic and nothing is wrong with it. It's been proven that if you simply play better than us in the right way, you can beat it. If you can't, you're not good enough.

St Kilda's football over the past few years has produced some incredible football. Yet once or twice a year there's a stinker that the other team had a hand in and everyone is flooding the message boards crying about how we ruined the game and how us winning is bad for the game. Never mind the fact that we've been involved in two of the greatest Grand Finals of all time. Never mind R14 2009 that everyone goes on and on about being amazing. What of us kicking 10.0 in a quarter against the Eagles, or the 8.1 against North this year?

Fast, outside, flowing, high-scoring football is lame. Especially when the main stars are soft hacks who only got in for running fast and being on the end of fast play. If you've ever played football, you'll know that there is nothing exciting about running around in space. The real fun is had in packs and hunting as a group. This is what St Kilda has done best. It's what Sydney did best and it is the most important part of football and should be preserved above all else. Once you appreciate the physical and mental toughness required to win the ball in close by actually experiencing it yourself, I think you see the more engaging side of "Saints Footy" and Collingwood's "Swarm" tactic.

If you enjoy your Carlton and Essendon sides at the moment, good for you. But I call it fast food football and it's a blight on the true values of our game.

Actually over the season Collingwood scored 414 more points than St.Kilda...which would equate to about 18 more points a game, which if Im not mistaken would be about 3 goals more a game.

There is some merit in what you say though, but I would say, probably with bias, that Collingwood is a lot more attacking than St.Kilda.

 

[IllBeTheJudge]

Actually over the season Collingwood scored 414 more points than St.Kilda...which would equate to about 18 more points a game, which if Im not mistaken would be about 3 goals more a game.

There is some merit in what you say though, but I would say, probably with bias, that Collingwood is a lot more attacking than St.Kilda.

I don't think Jimmy was trying to compare
Sounds to me like he likes the contested side of how Collingwood and St Kilda (and indeed Geelong, when they needed to) play the game

I think games can be too attacking, and too high scoring. It becomes like basketball which is fun to play, but awful to watch

And I hardly think any team can kill off another style of play. As the OP mentioned, do the fast stuff right and you can beat St Kilda's style. So surely this would in fact encourage offensive football, not kill it

St Kilda's and Collingwood's game styles, different to each other as they are, were both designed to beat Geelong. Next year, teams will be better at executing a game style designed to beat Collingwood and/or St Kilda. Which might be fast flowing attack football. Maybe Melbourne play that style now, and are getting better at it

So my point is, you develop a game style that:
a. your team can actually carry out. This was the Knights issue at heart (the team couldn't do what he was trying to do)

b. beats whoever is at the top of the tree at the time

 

[Slattery_20]

Collingwood aren't really a defensive side. Set up with numbers in front of the ball. They like to suck the other team into over-committing to the contest & swoop on the scraps and then get it out into space.
They do direct the ball out wide, to try and limit the damage if they turn it over further up the field; but they do run forward of the ball a bit.

 

[Ron The Bear]

Will people stop bitching about this?

Geelong 2009 and Collingwood 2010 have averaged 1 goal a game more than the Saints 2009 side.

To be honest, I don't think anything is more satisfying that seeing hard, brutal football where we tackle and chase and worry the hell out of the opposition. Us putting them out of their depth in an absolute physical sense is such a great thing to watch.

Sure, but you don't want 17-18 sides playing similar, grinding styles week in, week out. Which is what we're heading towards.

 

[Cynic]

You're implying that the defensive strategy is unbeatable and as such teams won't bother trying to beat each other strategically, they'll just play man against man.

I imply this is crap.

 

[DanA]

I think the words attacking/offensive football are a poor choice of words. I think daring football is more apt.

Collingwood and St Kilda play a very risk adverse brand of football relying on organisation and pressure to win games. Geelong and Essendon take far more risks in the way they play relying on individual brilliance.

I think it's fair to say that Geelong beat teams because nobody had a comparable level of talent. The game plan worked perfectly provided we had better players who would regularly win individual battles. This is no longer the case at Geelong.

Regarding strategy I think what were seeing in AFL mirrors very closely with what's happening in Soccer in particular last years Champions League Final (Barcelona vs Inter Milan).

Barcelona play with frontal pressure and high defensive line working extremely hard to win the ball back. They dominate possession and are the world best team at the moment.

Inter Milan are not worried so much about possession but rather holding their shape.

To me that's Collingwood vs St Kilda as far as strategy goes.

 

[King Elvis]

Knights was a shit Coach.

Crows play attacking footy - when we have a fit side.

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

Collingwood only averaged 7 points per game less than Geelong this year despite having a much tougher draw than them and fewer home games against bottom sides where they can boost their average.

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

Collingwood only averaged 7 points per game less than Geelong this year despite having a much tougher draw than them and fewer home games against bottom sides where they can boost their average.

And that was also with us being 14th for accuracy.

 

[Lach72]

Yes, they certainly offended me in the elimination final

But... but...

Sigh...pay that

We do play offensive footy but tend to leak too many goals

 

[kranky al]

What of us kicking 10.0 in a quarter against the Eagles, or the 8.1 against North this year?

that never ever EVER happened ok - and i will thank you to never ever EVER mention it again - ever



ever

 

[Timmy from Thomastown]

And that was also with us being 14th for accuracy.

Take away rushed behinds - our forward pressure ensures we average more rushed than most teams - and doubt we'll be that low in the accracy rankings, but yeah, fair point.

 

[Royal Flush]

. If you've ever played football, you'll know that there is nothing exciting about running around in space. The real fun is had in packs and hunting as a group.

I like what you wrote and I too enjoy the intensity on the man and the ball.
Which leads me to an of the topic point. The next new franchise should choose the nickname the Wolves-hunting in packs.

 

[bombermick]

I'm not arguing that Knights was a good coach or that Essendon had the capabilities to play his style of football. I'm simply worried that a pressurized, risk-adverse style of game will become the norm-at least for a few years.

Tough, inside battles can be fantastic games such as last week's GF. But they can also be terrible blights on our game eg: Saints v Bulldogs from this year.

If you asked me if I would prefer Knights coaching us and getting spanked every second game, or having a more defensive style and climbing up the ladder, I am obviously choosing the latter. But if you told me I could either watch Geelong or the Saints at their peak, I'm choosing Geelong every time.

 

[Better_Than_You]

Give me last Saturday's Grand Final with hard, tough man-on-man footy over a 20 goal each soft shoot out demonstrating 'offensive football' with loose man everywhere any day of the week

 

[bombermick]

Give me last Saturday's Grand Final with hard, tough man-on-man footy over a 20 goal each soft shoot out demonstrating 'offensive football' with loose man everywhere any day of the week

It's better if there are contrasts in game styles. Geelong v St. Kilda for instance. West Coast were pretty attacking in their duels against the Swans. If every team played like the Saints it would be a snooze-fest.

 

[melbournemartin]

Watch Melbourne play, we try to attack the corridor and overall play a very offensive gamestyle. Essendon in 2010 was like Melbourne in 2008...attacking just for the sake of it with no solid idea how to do it. After another 2 years we're now becoming competent at it.