loose men in the back line...

[deanox 9,678]

i thought we struggled early, on the back of a number of issues but one that stood out to me was the loose man in the backline. richmond did a great job of ensuring they always had a loose man. he normally started in the back line, but when they were attacking on the wing, the loose man often appeared on the opposite wing allowing a spare man to run into (or towards) the forward 50. yes i know that we had a loose man in the back line as a result but there is a fundamental difference. they had a 5 man forward line, which meant 11 players in their forward 50. we had 6 on 6, plus the loose man, making it 13 players in our forward 50. given that we had no one who could be relied on to mark in packs, these extra two men meant that a) leading space was reduced and B) our crumbers were cramped for space. this loose man was obviously richmonds plan not ours because they used their loose man as part of their offence, while our loose man purely was a third man up in the D50.

eventually, after a quarter and a bit of being killed by the loose man, we sent our loose man back with richmonds leaving 10 men in their forward line, and 14 in ours. once again richmonds forward line is much more open. this man on man contest worked for a bit, and cut the richmond drive, but before too long richmond had put another loose man back. men in the respective forward lines now: 9 to 15. again they used this spare man for drive and were successful. they smashed us running thru the centre didnt they? eventually we manned up again making it 8 players in theirs and 16 in ours. double the amount of players means half the amount of space. richmond killed us when they went forward because they could lead where they wanted too. by only having 4 players in the forward 50, they had spare players who could set up around the 50 and just beyond as a 'wall' to keep the ball in their. when we attacked, their 8 players all went back, ours followed leaving us no space.

personally i think this was a key reason why we got beaten, we were out coached severly in this dept.

what do you guys think are appropriate solutions? and did you notice anything ive missed? imo we needed to man up their players because they were providing too much run for richmond. perhaps we couldve manned up their runners with our defenders and had our small forwards push up the ground more to drag their defenders out of the 50? this miht or might not have worked, depends if ther defenders wanted to follow them or not. we could have tried marking the ball around the 50 mark instead of the 30-40 range because there is more space there (less players). we good of tried yo use our better lnoger kicks to take shots from here.

could we have put our spare players on the wings as extra midfielders giving us more runners and numbers around the ball, thus making the loose men accountable?

thoughts?

[deanox 9,678]

45 views. did everyone find this boring or did i sum it up too well? lol

[beelzebub 23,200]

not a lot left to say ! definitely a key ingreddient to last nights debacle. We shall leave out here all the mitigating and cotributing factors in the lead up.

A key element of your analysis is a theme that too often repeats itself though the pages of forum observations is that whilst ND seems to have some capability prior to the game he is all too often too slow to react and is often out coached mercilessly.

Aloowing the loose back was but a symtom of that.

[Pepe Dee Pew 0]

If the midfield gets flogged so does the backline.

Even SOS in his prime would have looked like a dill last night.

It has been a while since Godders has been one of our best mids. If the mids are winning the opposition are starved of the ball.

No piont in judging all on that game. Our mids will not be that bad like that for a while.

Haing said that Polak probably should have been manned up.

Also as an observation we lacked pace coming out of the backline. Bartram and Whelan should help that. Also when the mids get flogged it seems the whole team looks slow (which is not the case).

[deanox 9,678]

but tactically how can we combat the situation of the opposition playing one or two men loose in defence? i think the only real answer is make our loose men attack and be damaging, making their players accountable...

[waynewussell 4,873]

deanox, a refreshingly detailed analysis. Well done. It looks to me that you either were a very astute observer at the game or you watched the replay carefully. Either way, I commend you. As for an answer, I would need to watch the replay to comment on your observations (yes, I recorded it!). I limited my 'at the game' observations to bad decisions made by individuals.

- Brown's appearance was going to be pivotal to the Tigers showing. That he got the ball so often in the first 10 minutes set the team and the crowd on fire. Bell was chosen as his opponent and was not up to the occasion. I would have looked to someone to enhance the theatre of the moment... Whelan... Pickett, who was trying to make his own statement and whose hardness (you know what I mean) would have played on the emotions of Brown (who must have had some doubts).

- Robbo's first long lead and mark out on the fifty lead to a kick across to a point 15 -20 metres in the pocket rather than at the sticks. This was obviously a pre-ordained place to put it rather than a considered attempt to put it where we were... end result, only Polack and another Tiger there to take the mark.

- Our kicking into the forward fifty in the first 20 minutes reeked of "Neita's not there, I better not go direct and long" mentality, which meant forwards were making 1, 2 & 3 leads that were not honoured. The Tigers, on the other hand acknowledged every loose man opportunity, whether the kicker could make the distance to goal or not. This made our sleepy backmen look like clowns. End product... DEMORALISATION of the weak minded.

- To finish with, here's a theatrical analysis of the body language of Bruce, Robbo and Yze at Brock's selection as skipper for the night... "WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT!"

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

IMO the best way to combat a loose man in defense is to put another player in the forward line and bring it back to a 50-50 contest.

People seem to panic about this idea of an overcrowded forward line, but if you have good crumbers in place (i.e. Davey) then I would much rather have some congestion than otherwise allow the opposition to play a loose man like Richmond did with Polak.

[deanox 9,678]

...

cheers for the kudos i only watched the game live, i really cant be bothered sitting through a replay of that!

a good point you make about browns early touches, and a similar thing could be said for richo and his kicking, he was kicking poorly, all we needed were a couple of good spoils and it would've made it very hard for him to get back into the game. as it was, those two caused us lots of problems. imo holland was the wrong match up for richo, and we shouldve gone for carrol from the get go.

i think you also made a good observation regarding their willingness to use the loose man as an uncontested runner, while we looked to kick it into the forward line quickly. it was like we wanted to get it there and not muck around with it, but our lack of organisation in the forward line destroyed this. i am not sure if our loose player(s) worked hard enough to get into a good position for us either. im not sure the value of a loose man at the stoppage compared to a loose man on the opposite wing. too many times did the tigers clearance go straight out towards where a loose man was waiting, away from everyone else. our loose man might help us win the pill but then we had no one to give it too. is this a problem with the players work rate or a problem with the under lying tactics?

[deanox 9,678]

IMO the best way to combat a loose man in defense is to put another player in the forward line and bring it back to a 50-50 contest.

People seem to panic about this idea of an overcrowded forward line, but if you have good crumbers in place (i.e. Davey) then I would much rather have some congestion than otherwise allow the opposition to play a loose man like Richmond did with Polak.

thats what we seemed to do in the second half and it ended up being 8 men in their forward line at 16 in ours, because when we manned up richmond put another man back. i thought the open forward line really suited richmond and gave richardson a lot of freedom to run around, made it easier for him. how often do we complain that neita doesnt have space to lead into? richo had it in spades today and robbo was cramped.

i agree, clint, that we should always man them up at first to negate their running game plan, but then i think e need to devise a way to drag their players back in front of the ball, even if that means pushing some of our forwards back to drag their defenders away...

perhaps the 'extra' forwards (players 7 and 8) who have been dragged forward for match ups should start up on the flank/wing allowing loose possessions 60 to 70 out from goal? at least it sets us up, rather than a blind bomb from the centre.

[Jarka 767]

The best way to beat the flood is for the midfield to get on top and play fast, rebounding footy.

Teams that flood will always try to run the ball out of their defense, but if your midfield is applying the right pressure and dominating then you can turn the ball over and quickly get it to your key forwards. We, however, have two problems with that. Firstly we only have one key forward, but he's now 32 and will continue to struggle with injuries untill he retires in one or two years, and secondly we've been forced to play two of our promising midfielders in the forward line because of the first problem.

[Roger Mellie 3,883]

I remember a similar situation when playing Hawthorn a few years ago....I think when we were playing them first up - the same player did it to us twice. An unaccompanied Hawk would line up on the wing (rather than the back line) and the brains trust didn't rate him so despite the fact that he towelled us at least twice, we didn't bother to put an opponent on him. Cant for the life of me remember who the player was...a fringe player at the hawks who is no longer there and played off the bench a bit.

I distinctly remember tearing my hair out as this player slotted goals and jogged back for the bounce, only to have no opponent.....again and again.

Is it all in the exhaustive planning?....a player is not rated and allowed to do what they please for half a game? Maybe it's a combination of:

1) players not being switched on and

2) maybe in the planning phase, it filters down the ranks that a player isn't rated and the on ground response is a reflection of this

Anyone remember the Hawk?

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

Anyone remember the Hawk?

Adrian Cox?

[Roger Mellie 3,883]

Yeah that's the [censored]!

Cheers

[45HG 1,539]

that loose tigers player on the wing really hurt us as well i feel, especially as our skills weren't up to scratch. coming out of the backline, especially on the members wing (as thats where i see best), we were constantly faced with a richmond player between the ball carrier and the intended target (the same target we used effectively against the crows and pies). this resulted in static movement and allowed the, harder-running, tigers players to push back into our forward line

[Jumping Jack Clennett 1,749]

Wow, Deanox! What an astute and incisive analysis. I wouldn't dare attempt to enlarge on it, since my understanding of the set-ups is nowhere near so deep. I think you have a special skill.

Perhaps the inability to be effective with our congested forward line was exacerbated by the absence of TJ, who has a remarkable skill at pinpointing team-mates amongst a crowd of players, with bullet-like passes.( though he's been less effective at this in '07)

Another suggestion: it was obvious we were too short in the forward line and weren't going to take marks. So why kick it in high?( I've noted this a few times with "Flash"' when he's the only leading option , and the ball's delivered high.) Why not deliberately land the ball at the foot of the pack(it's too hard to go OVER the pack)? If we're smaller, and outnumber them, that should be to our advantage. Polak's a great mark, but what hope does he have with ther ball on the ground and Davey or Brock buzzing around?