Centre Bounce Analysis from Grand Final

[monoccular 17,411]

Fabulous hard work Mate.  Well done.

I guess we will go even better when Jackson matures a bit more with his tap work,  

Having an amazing midfield team makes it work well too.

[durango 2,004]

The analysis is okay but the problem was that some players when they are static they lack the strength or nous to just knock the ball on because footballer like Treloar want to pickup the ball naturally whilst Viney is a scrounger and will use any method to force the ball forward towards his goal resulting in the Bulldog players being too far forward and becoming useless.

This is were the Demons midfield excelles because everybody in the group knows their job and the midfield chemistry comes to the surface, with no individual not doing their job and Petracca and Oliver brilliance helping the cause.

[Axis of Bob 11,671]

I think that the analysis looks at the centre bounce like it's a basketball play. One of the fundamental differences being the ease of winning possession and maintaining possession. He looks at ruck taps as being the way of gaining clean possession (like a basketball play), when that rarely has a strong impact when compared with directing the play into general areas where you can have a structural (or personnel) advantage. 

Melbourne's dominance of scoring from stoppages were for a few reasons:

1- Being able to maintain dominance at the defensive side of the stoppage.

We always maintained the most defensive player at the stoppage. Each time the Dogs won the ball they had to shift the ball around our mids, go sideways or kick forward quickly. These resulted in their clearances being less effective. But that isn't the only aspect of defending. Our other mids used defending the stoppage as the basis for attacking. There were several occasions where the Dogs would cheat a bit on the contest and then be caught out if they lost. We didn't do this, but rather played the defensive side of opponents, forcing them to go through multiple layers to get a clean takeaway. The reason why some of those big contests were lost by the Dogs late in the 3rd wasn't because of Liberatore as the sweeper, it was because the big guns like Bontempelli overcommitted to winning the ball, or assuming they'd win it, and got caught in positions where they could no longer defend. We maintained the ability to defend, even when we lost the clearance.

2- Being able to transition decisively from the contested ball phase into offense.

The same idea, but because we were holding more defensive positions, our mids could react more quickly to winning the contests because they knew that they had defensive cover if things got messy. It's very much our 'offense is generate from being the best defence' mentality. Having a dedicated defensive minded midfielder in the centre allows you to attack when you win it. In other words, we were quicker at turning contested ball into offensive running than the Dogs were at turning it into defensive running. It didn't necessarily result in us winning more (or fewer) clearances but it did mean that our next offensive possessions were far more decisive than the Dogs'.

3- Rucks being able to follow up post bounce. 

This was really big. The taps are largely useless, except for getting the ball into general areas where you are dominant. Sometimes a Hollywood tap comes off, but these are rare (although the impact of a truly great set play can be big, albeit it a bit of a party trick). What Gawn and Jackson did so much better was to be much better on the ground than Martin and English, especially since a lot of teams don't appear to really plan to defend it. Jackson's work here late in the third was special. Gawn and Jackson were responsible for a few occasions getting forward of the stoppage whilst their opponents stood like statues in the centre. By competing for the ball inside they allow us to get a numerical advantage outside the contest (which is very dangerous) and by spreading from the stoppage whilst others compete it also provides us with an advantage outside. The youtube guy missed this completely (he even thought Jackson got forward of the stoppage by stumbling!) but it's a really important part of our centre advantage. 

4- Being able to dominate the outside of the stoppage. 

This was where the stoppage was won an lost. When the Dogs had their run on in the 2nd it was through Bontempelli and Macrae wheeling out onto their left side whilst carrying the ball outside the stoppage. That was where they were dangerous, not because they won the ball on the inside but because they were able to turn that into dominance on the outside. In the 3rd it was the other way around. Oliver was able to force Bontempelli on the inside of the stoppage where he was less damaging competing with multiple opponents, and if we won it then we had the outside dominance and moved the ball really quickly. We were able to get this dominance through Petracca's power and discipline, Oliver and Viney pushing opponents into the stoppage, and Gawn/Jackson being able to spread better than their opponents.

The key to winning the stoppage battle isn't being able to win possession .... any team is able to win their fair share of stoppage possession, but rather it's ability to turn those stoppage wins into something more useful and dangerous than your opponents.

[binman 42,560]

Great analysis  AoB.

A few random reflections/things i'd add: 

• I have only watched about 10 mins of it (i skipped though it and watched random bits) - and the youtube man makes some interesting points. Agree he's not got it totally right, but what i really liked was the vison of multiple center square bounces (not all, despite the 50 min run time) - you can watch, listen and make your own mind up
• Center clearances are important, and obviously if you can score goals directly from them then even more so. But i'd argue around the ground stoppages are more important for us in terms of their impact o getting the game played on our terms (or not) and therefore the outcome of games. Not as sexy - but more important.   
• Related to the above point, sure goals we score from centre bounces can turbo charge our scoring, but over the journey the pressure we put on opposition mids that you highlight, and the impact of that pressure (eg shallow inside 50s, dump kicks we intercept, pushing the ball and play to the wings etc etc) is actually way more valuable than the galsa we directly score
• Totally agree on the value of of Max as essentially an extra mid
• Two ironies come to mind in terms of the advantage we get of Maxy and Jacko being extra mids.
• The first is that Beveridge no ruck required philosophy is probably predicated on the advantage of having an extra mid at center clearances - philosophy that might work against other teams but not us given how bllody good our rucks are
• The second irony is that they bring an extra to around the ground stoppages to get an advantage and create more scoring opportunities, which is in effect the advantage we have at center bounces - ie an extra at the stoppage
• to be fair to youtube man he did point out that English and martin don't offer much after the bounce, envy noting at one point that martin ended up on the ground
• Finally, i reckon there is one piece of the puzzle you haven't directly mentioned (and nor do youtube man) - with Maxy's dominance we get a huge advantage knowing the likely drop zones. And Jacko often looks to halve contests and drop it at his feet (and is very good at it) - which gives us the same advantage in terms of the likely drop zones