Coming off some demoralising efforts, are the Saints going to plan for a commendable performance for a possible Loss, by re-employing their flooding tactics as per Swans game?
Flooding defensive 50 arcs has become commonplace, the idea being to force numbers back deep into defence to deny the opposition space and time to set up goals. But flooding has its problems .
In defending so much, teams often denied themselves a chance to score. Many times this season, teams have run the ball out of defence, reached the midfield and stopped. Reason being, the player with the ball had no one up forward to kick it to.
With numbers back in the flood, the Saints are going to designate defensive rebounders, players with dash and good kicking skills(Riewoldt). They are encouraged to receive and their teammates are encouraged to feed them the ball. As attacking defenders, they get caught out occasionally with looseness. And one forward should be sent out not to score and create, but to drag the Saints attacking half-back (Riewoldt) away from the action. His main role is to keep Riewoldt away from the ball. Maybe stand near the point post. If the ball comes near him, go across to the opposite pocket to lure Riewoldt away.
The counter to flooding could be to bomb it in long. As we surge forward and see that our attacking space has been filled, we have to maintain possession. There is no point kicking long to the goal square if the opposition outnumber us two to one. So we will need to chip the ball around our 50-metre arc until we find our designated long kick (possibly Tivendale or Bowden). The emphasis is on keeping possession. Only at the final option should we kick long to a contest situation (Look for Otto) or shoot at goal.
Another option could be not to tackle, If a Saints player(Milne) in space has the ball, we should corral him to force a looping kick, rather than rush a tackle and be sidestepped, allowing him to pass to advantage or kick a goal.
Another strategy, is Midfield rotations, we need to shuffle players to share the workload and attempt to confuse the Saints. Within a quarter, they should be leading from the goal square, contesting in at centre bounces, sitting on the pine or rebounding
from defence(Like Campbell in Eagles game). Even if a player is running hot, he still needs to take his time-out as planned by the coaching staff. An amazing stat so far this season is that Essendon doesn't have a player in the top 20 for kicks, marks and handballs. The Dons are proving that teams sharing the workload still have the real advantage as they showed against the Saints last game.
Late in the game, if Saints are leading(maybe marginally), they will work to run the clock down. We should look at taking the man from the mark, we are then encouraging the ball-holder to play on quickly and restart the game where he would otherwise stall. A man on the mark is effectively out of the play. Without one, that player is sent back into the flow of the game, then placing himself in an area where the ball might go to next. Hopefully the umpire will also realise, that when a player who has just marked the ball and in error steps off the line, will call him to play on.
We really need to give the Saints another Shellacking, capitalise on their many skill errors and thus giving us our best chance to increase this mediorcre percentage.
Flooding defensive 50 arcs has become commonplace, the idea being to force numbers back deep into defence to deny the opposition space and time to set up goals. But flooding has its problems .
In defending so much, teams often denied themselves a chance to score. Many times this season, teams have run the ball out of defence, reached the midfield and stopped. Reason being, the player with the ball had no one up forward to kick it to.
With numbers back in the flood, the Saints are going to designate defensive rebounders, players with dash and good kicking skills(Riewoldt). They are encouraged to receive and their teammates are encouraged to feed them the ball. As attacking defenders, they get caught out occasionally with looseness. And one forward should be sent out not to score and create, but to drag the Saints attacking half-back (Riewoldt) away from the action. His main role is to keep Riewoldt away from the ball. Maybe stand near the point post. If the ball comes near him, go across to the opposite pocket to lure Riewoldt away.
The counter to flooding could be to bomb it in long. As we surge forward and see that our attacking space has been filled, we have to maintain possession. There is no point kicking long to the goal square if the opposition outnumber us two to one. So we will need to chip the ball around our 50-metre arc until we find our designated long kick (possibly Tivendale or Bowden). The emphasis is on keeping possession. Only at the final option should we kick long to a contest situation (Look for Otto) or shoot at goal.
Another option could be not to tackle, If a Saints player(Milne) in space has the ball, we should corral him to force a looping kick, rather than rush a tackle and be sidestepped, allowing him to pass to advantage or kick a goal.
Another strategy, is Midfield rotations, we need to shuffle players to share the workload and attempt to confuse the Saints. Within a quarter, they should be leading from the goal square, contesting in at centre bounces, sitting on the pine or rebounding
from defence(Like Campbell in Eagles game). Even if a player is running hot, he still needs to take his time-out as planned by the coaching staff. An amazing stat so far this season is that Essendon doesn't have a player in the top 20 for kicks, marks and handballs. The Dons are proving that teams sharing the workload still have the real advantage as they showed against the Saints last game.
Late in the game, if Saints are leading(maybe marginally), they will work to run the clock down. We should look at taking the man from the mark, we are then encouraging the ball-holder to play on quickly and restart the game where he would otherwise stall. A man on the mark is effectively out of the play. Without one, that player is sent back into the flow of the game, then placing himself in an area where the ball might go to next. Hopefully the umpire will also realise, that when a player who has just marked the ball and in error steps off the line, will call him to play on.
We really need to give the Saints another Shellacking, capitalise on their many skill errors and thus giving us our best chance to increase this mediorcre percentage.
