Demons kicking skills and footy smarts

May 30, 20196 yr

On 5/28/2019 at 4:58 PM, binman said:

On the couch had a fascinating stat on Monday. The 2 teams that move the ball slowest as measured by play on from mark or free are the top 2 on the ladder.

And the inverse is almost the same. We are one are one of the quickest teams and are near the bottom of the ladder

Added to that the cats, pies, eagles and to a lesser extent gws are all high possession sides who simply deny the opposition the ball and more than happy to chip it around their defensive 50 and use the width of the ground. This represents a significant tactical shift in the game away from our and richmonds approach.

The tigers team have been rhe strategic benckmhmark in the last 2 years (even last year - easy to forget that prior to being been by the pies in the finals they were the overwhelming favorites to win the flag as they had been all year).

The real question is will the slow, maintain possession style (a staple of soccer for forever and a day - for good reason as your opposition can't score if you have the ball) will prove to be the premiership wimning model in the next few years.

Leaving that question aside we are spectacularly ill equpied for that strategy as it relies on excellent kicks and players with enough pace to recreate a marking, outlet option.

Our kicking is appalling. On our list the ONLY two players I trust with ball in hand is omac and salem. That's it.

A combination of both for mine. We don't have this as part of out game style unfortunately. For as long as we don't we will struggle to make regular finals appearances or be a serious flag contender. Ball control and possession / slow play is critical in today's ballistic running via the AFL's insane interchange system.

On 5/28/2019 at 5:36 PM, btdemon said:

The difference between us and the Tigers is that they have more pace and skill. They apply pressure through great defensive positioning and pace. We can't quite match them in this regard. Their offensive running is better and smarter too and they have some great forwards in Reiwoldt, Martin, Rioli, Lynch, Castagna etc. While they are not necessarily brilliant, their system is. Ours requires a higher level of physical contest and has taken its toll. I hope that Goodwin and the coaching panel have a development plan. The current one is not sustainable.

A big part of our issues lie with recruiting fails and depth issues.

Agreed, the full time chaos method is not sustainable, neither for four quarters or the season.

Opposition teams regularly going on a scoring run/blitz, with little or no resistance, for chunks of a game is the obvious sign of the effect of doing so far too often for too long. Probably also impacting the amount of turnovers.

IMO we will continue to struggle while Goody chooses to ignore the above and instead just soldiers on.

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