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Role of the winger, fat side and kick ins

deelusions from afar
deelusions from afar
in Melbourne Demons

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This isn't so much a thread about who should be playing on the wing with the perennial debate about who is best to join Langdon as the other wing raging elsewhere.

It's more about understanding the tactics and the role of the modern winger and kick ins / ball movement.

For example, on the weekend, Langdon was on the fat side of the ground - the side of the ground that we never kick to when kicking in from a point.

The fact that we always kick to the same side (which no surprise is also the side Gawn is on), is that simply because of the dominance of Gawn? 

If we had two recognised wingers (eg had we got Smith in the trade period) would this approach be any different?  I.e. having Brayshaw on the side where the ball is moved slower is no coincidence but how would you maximise two wingers if you had them?

Is there a problem with always kicking the same side - being predictable?  I haven't watched the other top sides close enough to know but I suspect they would be similar.  At the same time I feel like if you were an opposition coach our predictability could be exploited by stacking the Gawn side.  Obviously we're prepared to switch to Langdon's side but most of the time we don't look to do this - we certainly haven't kicked out to the Langdon side any time I can remember this year.

Is the possibility of having TMac and Jackson (in addition to Gawn) roaming up the ground change how we would approach this?

Looking forward to hearing people's thoughts

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    5 minutes ago, deelusions from afar said:

    bumping 'cause I'm needy but mostly as I'm interested in knowing a bit more about how this works - and the collective demonland brains trust is pretty knowledgeable about modern trends and tactics.

    Here is an outstanding article by Mitch Robinson on the wing man role. why-allaustralian-panel-made-a-mockery-of-players-by-not-selecting-genuine-wingmen

    With Langdon and Brayshaw we have wingmen that fit his description with each of their roles having a different emphasis that suits their respective strengths.

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    2 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

    Here is an outstanding article by Mitch Robinson on the wing man role. why-allaustralian-panel-made-a-mockery-of-players-by-not-selecting-genuine-wingmen

    With Langdon and Brayshaw we have wingmen that fit his description with each of their roles having a different emphasis that suits their respective strengths.

    Brilliant read that. 

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    1 hour ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

    Here is an outstanding article by Mitch Robinson on the wing man role. why-allaustralian-panel-made-a-mockery-of-players-by-not-selecting-genuine-wingmen

    With Langdon and Brayshaw we have wingmen that fit his description with each of their roles having a different emphasis that suits their respective strengths.

    Great article thanks!  Interested to know how much our style is dictated by who plays on the wing.  Would we be doing things differently if we had recruited Isaac Smith in the off season?  If TMac is given a run there, what happens?

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    1 minute ago, deelusions from afar said:

    Great article thanks!  Interested to know how much our style is dictated by who plays on the wing.  Would we be doing things differently if we had recruited Isaac Smith in the off season?  If TMac is given a run there, what happens?

    Without going into all the attributes Robinson discusses I think yes we would be doing some things differently.in the sense that the Brayshaw role would be tweaked to suit the strengths of Smith or McDonald and perhaps our kick-ins/structures/ball movement coming out of defence would be a little different on that side of the ground.

    Having said that I don't think the essence of our game plan would change except for 'natural' evolution during the season.

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    Langdon always appears to be playing the far side wing, which is opposite to the interchange. We then typically kick long on a slow play to the interchange side. This helps the midfield rotations.

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