Axis of Bob

"Relatively slowly" means that the ball hangs in the air for a period of time, which allows defenders to cover that space. It means that just because you're in space it doesn't automatically mean that the ball has enough time to get to that open player before a defender can cover them. Unlike a short handball, which can get to a team mate before the defender has time to react. The time the ball hangs in the air is the reason why a zone defence works, because you don't need a defender playing on every forward, you just need a defender close enough that they can cover the kick by the time it reaches them. Just because it's the fastest way to move the ball forwards doesn't mean that it's fast.

Firstly, I think pressure acts are a better indicator. You can see these on the AFL site but they're much more difficult to track because the AFL site is awful. Usually they show that Weid and Fritsch are the worst, Kozzie easily the best and everyone else in between (although closer to the bottom). I think that keeping our forward deeper is important to use our mediums properly. Mediums need space to beat their opponents, generally, whilst talls and smalls are less disadvantaged by congestion. However it does mean that we are in less of a position to defend when the ball is turned over. It requires that the midfield push up to our forward line to seal off the exits and compress the field, and I think the midfield failure to do this was probably the main cause of our poor 3rd quarter last week.

Just looking at the stats, during the 2 weeks where we played a single tall setup (Geelong and Richmond) Fritsch's had an almost hilariously low (for a forward) 3 and 4 pressure acts. By comparison, our number one key forward, Tom McDonald, had 10 and 8 in each game, whilst Kozzie had 16 and 19. Yikes! I'm not doing this to single out Bayley, I'm just showing that kicking goals isn't the only thing we need to look at. Currently the balance of the forward line doesn't seem quite right, IMHO, because our highest quality forwards are of a different style to the midfield and defence.

Well it was interesting earlier in the year where Goodwin played with just one tall forward. It was hailed as a failure, but it was certainly more geared around our strengths and weaknesses of our forward line. The difference, of course, was that the forward was McDonald rather than Weideman. The games were we did this were against Geelong (TMac and Fritsch barely touched it) and Richmond (we were constantly outmarked up forward), before the plan was dumped and we brought Weideman in for the Gold Coast game. Interestingly, even though we played better, our second forward didn't get near it and 4 of our forwards didn't even register a tackle (Weid, TMac, Fritsch and Bennell) as we thoroughly destroyed them in the midfield. Let's look at the top teams at the moment: Port (Dixon, Ladhams and Georgiades), Brisbane (McStay, Hipwood), Geelong (Hawkins), West Coast (Kennedy, Darling), Richmond (Lynch, Riewoldt). Those teams have a range of styles in the forward line but, with probably the exception of Port, the common thing is that they play the minimum number of non-defensive tall forwards they can whilst still being able to stop the opposition marking the high ball. Geelong only need one because Hawkins is enormous, and Richmond and West Coast can play two because their second forwards (Darling and Riewoldt) are excellent defensively. I would be trying to do the same thing, where I have the minimum number of non-defending talls up forward whilst still bringing the ball to ground. Weideman can do this with another player who also has a secondary role - that could be either Jackson (forward ruck) or Fritsch (tall / medium). I actually think that we should be looking at getting Fritsch into a half back role to use his marking, and kicking whilst being protected by a defensive zone, whilst giving Jackson the second tall forward role (or McDonald doing the same until Jackson returns). After that you can have Melksham playing as a defensive medium (which he has done more effectively prior to 2020), Kossie and then a choice of the best performing of Spargo, Bedford, ANB (who is by far our best defensive forward), C Wagner or Chandler. I've always liked the idea of Viney forward, but I think the issue is with the types of player in the forward line (and balance) rather than the specific personnel.

This is what I think is most important. We have a game plan that relies of the contest and defence. We have a big, brutal defence and a big, brutal midfield. They thrive on the contest and drive the ball forward. We have a silky, attacking forward line that is good at turning chances into goals .... but they're mismatched with the rest of our side. We have two tall forwards (Weid and TMac), three mediums (Fritsch, Hannan and Melksham) and two smalls (Kossie and Spargo) rotating through over the course of a game. This works just fine against teams where we can defend easily with our midfield/defenders (like we have the last 3 weeks) because these players are very good at turning this dominance into goals. But when you play these 7 forwards then you are effectively playing with 4 non-tackling forwards (Weid, TMac, Fritsch and Melksham) and our ability to slow down the opposition's attacks is really compromised. We currently have a bifurcated team: forwards and everyone else. We win games when we can make the game a slog, because we have a real advantage in the hard, contested football. We don't win shootouts, and haven't for a while because we have drafted and selected a team of big, brawling bruisers. This highest score we've conceded in a win this year was 63 against Gold Coast. In our others wins we conceded only 53, 48, 37, 35 and 44. Our losses in low scoring contests (against Brisbane and Geelong) were by 4 points and 3 points. So we should be trying to make each contests a contested slog, because we are well placed for that but we have selected a forward line for a free flowing, high scoring match. It's trying to have your cake and eat it too rather than doubling down on your core strengths and bludgeoning your opponent into submission week in and week out by selecting a fast, high pressure forward line that can play the same high pressure game as the rest of our team. That might mean that we have to leave some of our better players out of the side and bring in some clearly less talented players to play more defensive roles in order to help our team play more cohesively.

This isn't a great sign for Richmond, TBH. Some ageing footballers who have lost a bit of their youthful zip get frustrated because things are harder for them than they used to be. That's when you see little things like Ablett Jnr give a couple of little sneaky one where he never used to. It's usually an indicator that the veteran is just hanging on and they know they're not as good as their brain instinctively remembers itself to be. Richmond have had some pretty dodgy moments this year. I dare say that things aren't as easy as they used to be and they're feeling very vulnerable. I think Dimma has just given about 8 other clubs a real shot of confidence with those (hilariously stupid) comments.

Why do I have to be the creepy looking one? ?

You certainly need to be able to do all aspects of the game, but there are some things you do better than other teams and you need to ensure that your strategy exploits that. Richmond does that with their forward pressure by drafting and playing a bunch of quick, agile small forwards. West Coast does a lot of different things well, but their success is mostly based on Hurn, McGovern, Shepperd and Barrass marking the ball at half back, so they defend very aggressively and rebound before the zone can set up by going for intercept marks more than other teams. We are, generally, about setting up strongly behind the ball with our gun talls (May, Max, Jake) to force teams to slow down and chip to a team mate. That usually leads to slow play and a long kick to a contest which we can kill out of bounds or ball up (or win a fall of the ball contest). This then allows us to play our one wood, by getting Max and our big mids together, where we have a big advantage and can use that to win games. It has taken time to get us strong enough behind the ball to let us use our strength in this way, but our strong defence allows us to use our biggest strength more often to win games. You would love to be perfect at everything, but you've only got a certain amount of draft/trade/financial resources to spend on players so you have to prioritise your strategy to give you competitive advantages that you can use consistently.

I'd argue that all successful modern AFL coaches are your 'type one', but the development of the game plan can either be done taking account of your players or not. But this is done over the course of many seasons of drafting/trading rather than season to season. A coach will come in to a club with a long term plan of what they want to do to win a flag. But you need to have a competitive advantage in order to win a flag. For Richmond it's defensive pressure, and Dustin Martin. For West Coast it's intercept marking and Nic Naitanui. Brisbane have excellent small, buzzy attacking midfielders, Charlie Cameron and Harris Andrews. Ultimately, you're committed to playing the style you you have envisioned because you are building the list according to that plan. We've clearly built a game around our best players (ie, Gawn, Oliver, Petracca, Viney, Brayshaw) and then gone about trying to find the players that would allow us to maximise their dominance. Playing Brisbane's short possession style wouldn't suit us, but we haven't recruited for that either. I suppose my point is that I think all successful modern coaches are type one, because it's just so hard to win a flag that you you don't win on in season tactics but rather on the culmination of a longer strategic plan involving identifying the game style based on your strengths and recruiting over time to maximise your ability to execute it.

In an era of free agency and player driven trades, your perception as a club int he AFL industry is really important. We should be giving Jones a chance to get to 300, especially if his form is there or thereabouts. I'd happily give him an extra year next year to do so, as he's a positive role model around the club, effectively only takes up the last pick in the draft and demonstrates to the AFL industry (players, agents, coaches, administrators etc) that we are a club that looks after our players whilst and that you/your client would be better off being part of our club than you would at another. Plus he deserves it.

Those number show a total of 20 centre bounces: 20 ruckman attendances (13 LJ, 6 TM, 1 SW) and 60 midfielder attendances. There were 4 bounces to start the quarters and there were 18 goals ..... but there were goals kicked after the siren in the first (Larkey) and second (Weideman) quarters, which didn't result in centre bounces. Edit: SNAP!!

I just went back to look at his stats from the start of his career: Game 1: First ruck against Paul Salmon and Nathan Thompson. No recognised ruck backup. Game 2: First ruck against Shaun Rehn and Matthew Clarke. No recognised ruck backup. Game 3: First ruck against Matthew Allan and Trent Hotton. No recognised ruck backup. Game 4: First ruck against Greg Stafford and Adam Goodes. No recognised ruck backup. Game 5: First ruck against Scott Wynd and Luke Darcy. By this time they finally brought in Stunning Steve McKee as backup. McKee was backup from rounds 5 to 10. Fraser then rucked solo (with only Anthony Rocca as part time backup) in every game for the rest of the season, aside from round 18. This was during a time where nearly every club had two recognised mature ruckmen in their team, whilst Collingwood had a precious skinny 18 year old pick 1 'once in a generation' ruck .... and they absolutely destroyed him. It was criminal.

I think I still get harrowing visions of Josh Fraser being physically belted for 100 minutes a week every time I see an 18 year old being thrown into the centre bounce!

He's a smart player but he's not the high ball competitor that we need. Jackson has been admirable in this facet since he's come in, which is a string that you could easily imagine him not having as a first year ruck. I think we saw the forward line as being TMac and Weid, with Jackson getting a few games for development and Brown being a solid back up if our more mature bodied keys forwards were injured. We've been fortunate that Weid has been fit and productive, and Jackson has been so competitive as a forward/ruck in his first season (coming from basketball too). Effectively TMac has become the backup to Weid and Jackson, which is a luxury at the moment. I don't think Preuss is redundant because I'm sure they'd rather use him as a battering ram to protect Jackson early in his career if Gawn is injured. The ruck is a brutal slog of a position and Jackson is worth protecting.

I can only assume that you're talking about a cross between Voss and Mitchell ..... because Voss and Mitchell are nothing like each other as players!

Or maybe even another Ginger Baker:

I think what Sparrow does is provide the counterbalance as a defensive minded mid. He lacks polish but not power and he's an excellent tackler. It's similar to what Harmes would do a few years ago. You need players like this to stop the opposition being able to take the ball unpressured out of the front of a stoppage.

Agreed. They seem very confident in the top end talent available and are taking their shot. They've given away quite a bit, both younger and older players. Usually you would associate this with a cleanout of older players to focus on rebuilding with youth, so I'm interested to see what the overall strategy is, or whether there are just some players available that they really, really like.

I think it's probably more about playing him more often in the forward line, than making him a forward. He's a proud player who has won B&Fs and just lost the captaincy. The last thing you want to do is give him implied reinforcement that his value is diminishing in the club. He usually plays lower minutes than most midfielders, so I would be telling him that we want to have him on the ground for longer, so he's going to do more minutes up forward, especially during the condensed fixture and given his importance once finals come around. He'll have success up forward so you'll be able to play him more up forward as the numbers show his quality up there. He's also a player that you want around the footy in big games and at big moments. His power and aggression in stoppages and around the ground is really, really valuable in finals. He was the leading contested ball winner in two of our finals in 2018 (on both teams) and he plays well when the pressure steps up. I'd play him as a 50/50 mid/forward. But in big games he still plays mainly midfield for mine. His power and aggression around the contest wins finals.

The 666 is only a minor tweak that happens for a very short time, but I do think it has an impact. 1) With numbers behind the ball a hack kick forward from a rushed centre clearance is barely worth anything because it will be cleaned up by the extra numbers. We do see quite a few goals from the centre bounce, which is good. 2) It makes it a bit like an onside kick in NFL when the game is reasonably close late in the game. There is an increased ability to score, so there's always the faint hope that you could kick 3 quick goals in the last 3 minutes to win the game, even if you've only kicked 4 goals for the game in total.' It makes the game a bit more chaotic. It's probably the most exciting part of the game now.

What he does do is play 90+% game in the midfield with manic running. This leaves the bench space for other midfielders to be fresher for longer.

I agree generally with @Pollyanna though, as height is important and not many players of Spargo's height make it. If he was 180cm he'd be a lock, rather than still being speculated on. The problem with very small players is their ability to win the footy in contests because they get knocked off the ball easily (look at Daniel). Spargo doesn't really because he's still quite strong (and wins contested footy) and the role he plays doesn't require him to be a big ball winner but rather a clever facilitator. Most of the really small players need a special trick. It's usually speed (Boomer Harvey, etc), but I'm really happy that the game has changed enough that there are roles for short players who are real, genuine footballers (like Spargo and Daniel .... who is probably my favourite non-Melbourne footballer). Pickett is even shorter but has a trick or two .... speed, agility, power, vertical leap, skills, hands, game sense, work rate, dance moves, goal sense, toughness. I hope I'm not underselling him.

Spargo didn't test at draft camp that year due to injury but prior to injury he did a 7.83 second agility test. The draft record is Stephen Hill with 7.77s, and 7.83s would have been 5th best of all time.

I agree that he'd make it for sure as a 6 footer. I think it will be interesting to see how he goes otherwise, because he's a real footballer. In his favour is that he is pretty strong for his height, has agilty and that the game has changed a little. He's an excellent decision maker, good defensively and a real 'gamer', who does a lot of little stuff that helps a team win. So the only real issue is about whether he can win enough of the footy to be worth a constant spot on the team. He's not lightning, but he's good in tight and has agility. He's a good fall of the ball crumber but I think his real value is as a forward half midfielder. He doesn't have the size to win one on one contests, but in that role you don't often have to. You need to push up and defend and then be a link in the chain going forward, as well as being a crumber and pressure player for the long ball. He has great attributes for that, especially in a tough, high pressure finals game where good decisions, toughness and 'doing the little things that it takes to win' are at a premium. He's not the player to bust it open, but rather the type that enables others. He has good endurance, a natural brain, is quite strong over the ball as well as making excellent decisions. I think he probably ends up playing the ANB role minus the ball-in-hand-liability.

There was an interesting post game interview one week with Mitch Hannan. He was saying (paraphrasing) that one of the things that the coaches really like about his game is how well he mans the mark. You wouldn't have heard that 20 years ago!!