Choco turns to basketball

[Ford Fairlane]

According to 10 news tonight, Choco has had Phil Smyth poring over hours of Sydney tapes, unravelling the mysteries of their basketball style zone defence, to give him the tactical edge in the game on Sunday.

I wonder if Choco has thought of using football tactics. Still if it works, we might've found our next coach. And under Smyth, Tredders has 15 years of footy ahead of him! ;)

[Troy Wingate]

FF, you'd be very surprised how similiar basketball is to football, especially when it comes to the zone defenses.

But it's also very simple to beat if executed properly. Quick ball movement, longer (but acurate) passes. Quicker movement gives the defense less time to react therefor the zone gets beaten.

[*PAF]

According to 10 news tonight, Choco has had Phil Smyth poring over hours of Sydney tapes, unravelling the mysteries of their basketball style zone defence, to give him the tactical edge in the game on Sunday.
...
Do you get the feeling that sometimes we overcomplicate things?

[Ford Fairlane]

FF, you'd be very surprised how similiar basketball is to football, especially when it comes to the zone defenses.

But it's also very simple to beat if executed properly. Quick ball movement, longer (but acurate) passes. Quicker movement gives the defense less time to react therefor the zone gets beaten.

Just assure me of one thing Troy. That beating a zone D doesn't involve moving the ball around the perimeter of the 50m arc (3 point line) to free up a loose man for the shot on goal. Cos I've seen us try that at the SCG. It usually comes a cropper with a turnover and we watch them zoom downfield with the ball for the easy lay up.

[Ford Fairlane]

Do you get the feeling that sometimes we overcomplicate things?

I get the feeling someone does.

[Bresh]

Just assure me of one thing Troy. That beating a zone D doesn't involve moving the ball around the perimeter of the 50m arc (3 point line) to free up a loose man for the shot on goal. Cos I've seen us try that at the SCG. It usually comes a cropper with a turnover and we watch them zoom downfield with the ball for the easy lay up.

Actually, rotating the ball around the 3-point line quickly is the best way to beat a zone... of course, it is infinitely easier to do than kick a football around.

[Troy Wingate]

Just assure me of one thing Troy. That beating a zone D doesn't involve moving the ball around the perimeter of the 50m arc (3 point line) to free up a loose man for the shot on goal. Cos I've seen us try that at the SCG. It usually comes a cropper with a turnover and we watch them zoom downfield with the ball for the easy lay up.

The zone defense I was referring to was the type of 'Trap' zone defense that MANY teams play when the offensive team is trying to get the ball upcourt. It's the same as trying to beat the zone while trying to get the ball upfield. All it requires is quick, effective movement. Zone defense's are so much more simple to beat that what people think. The only reason they are so hard to get by, is that players do not execute it properly. I'm guilty of that myself on the basketball court.

[Ford Fairlane]

I've watched a few games this weekend and the resemblance betwen footy and basketball (or Gaelic Football) is getting more apparent. Zones, presses, up one flank, down the other. And the new kick in rule makes it even more obvious.

To paraphrase The Firm ... "It's footy Jim, but not as we know it".

[portentous]

With Phil Smyth around, we could re-draft Brett's dad :)

[crazy_big_al]

Actually, rotating the ball around the 3-point line quickly is the best way to beat a zone... of course, it is infinitely easier to do than kick a football around.


yes mr basketball

[wharfie_1870]

.......To paraphrase The Firm ... "It's footy Jim, but not as we know it".It's a pity the players wouldn't take notice of The Firm, "Only going forward, still can't find reverse", instead of all this backwards and sideways rubbish.

McCoy: Please, Spock, do me a favor ... 'n' don't say it's "fascinating"

[Ford Fairlane]

Looks like the new football is frustrating Chip Le Grande (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18701221%255E2722,00.html) too ...

Having a ball, keeping it
Chip Le Grand
April 04, 2006
FOOTBALL may have gone mad. For a proper diagnosis, we will need to wait a few weeks and see whether the early symptoms abate. But on the evidence of the seven games before last night's match, the game is heading towards a place far removed from what the AFL's laws of the game committee intended.

Kicks are up by 10 per cent from last year's season averages and handballs are up by 15 per cent. Teams, on average, touched the ball 33 more times at the weekend than they did last year. Yet inside 50s have not budged, fewer goals were kicked and a smaller percentage of possession was contested.

In simple terms, the game is faster and more furious but going nowhere. For evidence of this, look no further than Fremantle's loss to Hawthorn on Sunday.

Fremantle had 371 possessions and took 170 marks - more than any team in VFL/AFL history. Yet for all the damage Fremantle did on the scoreboard, it may as well have spent two hours practising circle work.

Hawthorn's tactics were splendidly simple. It instructed all six defenders to play in their positions and ignore their opposing forwards when they ran up the field in search of kicks. Aaron Sandilands dropped back, as ruckman are wont to do, and occasionally a wingman dropped into the defensive 50 as well.

And there they waited.

When Fremantle got the ball, it went forward with ease. With loose men everywhere, it had no problems chipping the ball around and retaining possession. It was all too easy. Then it arrived 70metres from goal and had nowhere to go.

Like the big, bad wolf, it huffed and puffed beyond the 50m arc and couldn't budge one brick. The Dockers bombed the ball long, which is the same as a wolf trying to scoot down the chimney. To the surprise of no-one, they finished the game out of breath and 22 points behind. Rarely has so much work been done for so little gain.

Elsewhere, strange things were afoot. Richmond had 331 possessions against the Western Bulldogs but kicked the ball long only 30 times. Carlton had 361 touches along the way to beating Melbourne.

Geelong had 150 handballs. As coach Mark Thompson said yesterday: "If you ended up with 130 handballs in a game of football six years ago you would be angry as buggery."

For now, the AFL is neither angry nor concerned. A league spokesman pointed out that high possession counts and uncontested styles of play are typical of early rounds. As the season progresses, the AFL expects normal transmission to resume.

The league is happy with the way the teams have adapted to the rule changes. The television figures for Thursday night's season opener were strong and first round attendances have been sound despite the unavailability of the MCG.

In announcing the new rules, the AFL's intention was to create a more continuous style of play and more contests for the ball.

Stoppages have been reduced from last year's average of 49 to 43 and clearances are up, which is what the laws of the game committee intended. But the more continuous nature of play has had no impact on scoring, with 26.8 goals scored on average per match last weekend compared with 27.9 goals last year.

The bigger concern is the percentage of contested possession. Last season, only 34.6 per cent of possessions were hard won. Last weekend, that number slipped back to 33.2 per cent.

For a snapshot of how football is being played, consider Byron Schammer's stats for Fremantle on Sunday. Schammer is only 176cm tall, short even by midfield standards. Yet he took 13 marks.

Not that long ago, Stewart Loewe would take 10 marks in a game of football and be judged best on ground. Now we have Schammer pulling down three more marks than Aaron Sandilands. Only they are gifts instead of grabs. This, if nothing else, shows the way in which the value of possession has cheapened. If football was an economy, its inflation rate would rival the Weimar Republic.

It is premature to sheet all this back to the rule changes entirely. Perhaps the style of games we saw over the weekend were the result of too many coaches having too long to think about what the rule changes might mean.

There is the view, held by Swans coach Paul Roos and Adelaide's Neil Craig, that the evolution of ball sports worldwide is towards more defensive, possession-rich games, and that AFL is heading the same way.

But whatever the reason - and it will take a month or two to work things out - the game did not stand still over summer. The pre-season was a taste of things to come and now it is here for everyone to see. The easiest thing in modern football is to get a kick. The hard thing is making it count.

[Eddie Woloschek]

According to 10 news tonight, Choco has had Phil Smyth poring over hours of Sydney tapes, unravelling the mysteries of their basketball style zone defence, to give him the tactical edge in the game on Sunday.

I wonder if Choco has thought of using football tactics. Still if it works, we might've found our next coach. And under Smyth, Tredders has 15 years of footy ahead of him! ;)

If Roos himself explained it all to Choco, he'd be no more able to stop it. In fact, knowing the Sydney gameplan might end up hurting more than it helps because it will send the Port tactical genii into more stupidity.

[Toots Hibbert]

According to 10 news tonight, Choco has had Phil Smyth poring over hours of Sydney tapes, unravelling the mysteries of their basketball style zone defence, to give him the tactical edge in the game on Sunday.

I wonder if Choco has thought of using football tactics. Still if it works, we might've found our next coach. And under Smyth, Tredders has 15 years of footy ahead of him! ;)
I think it would be a real plus if we had a style of play that other coaches were trying to beat. We seem to be playing catch up in the area of tactics. A few years ago our ball movement was cutting edge but football has moved on. Whenever there is criticism that we are slow to go forward the answer given is that the other team wouldn't let us. Choco's answer seems to be a more extreme version of the original game plan he brought to the table when he took over as coach. To date this version has failed whenever the blow torch of close checking pressure has been applied to it. I hope he can think his way through this.

If the situation outlined by Chip Le Grande in the article posted by FF persists then we're in for a period of largely unattractive possession football with few highlights to make a crowd jump to it's feet. Just a wild notion:- I wonder what would happen to the style of football if the centre square was removed. It was brought in to open up the game. Football has evolved so far that now removing it might open the game up.