Backing off the mark... the worst tactic ever employed by a Bulldogs coach?

[flamethrower]

Have started seeing other teams employ this tactic in the limited games I watch. Maybe it is just confirmation bias, but it seems every team that does this surrenders territory allowing deeper forward entries that initiates a switch in momentum to the opposition, and results in a loss.

It is the equivalent to the prevent defense in American Football, where a team allows the opposition to march the ball all the way down the field and only start defending once they get within 20 yards of the end zone. Many a wise NFL scribe has said all a prevent defense does is prevent you from winning.

And Beveridge's not manning the mark tactic has had the same consequence...it is preventing the team from defending the entire field, allows the opposition to move the ball into the forward line with impunity, and score at will - in other words it prevents the team from winning!!!

 

[doggies ftw]

Have started seeing other teams employ this tactic in the limited games I watch. Maybe it is just confirmation bias, but it seems every team that does this surrenders territory allowing deeper forward entries that initiates a switch in momentum to the opposition, and results in a loss.

It is the equivalent to the prevent defense in American Football, where a team allows the opposition to march the ball all the way down the field and only start defending once they get within 20 yards of the end zone. Many a wise NFL scribe has said all a prevent defense does is prevent you from winning.

And Beveridge's not manning the mark tactic has had the same consequence...it is preventing the team from defending the entire field, allows the opposition to move the ball into the forward line with impunity, and score at will - in other words it prevents the team from winning!!!

I still don’t think I’ve seen it or at least noticed it in the center of the ground for other teams though. I think most clubs employ it deep in defence - which I think is a good call, you don’t have to push to man the mark whilst they chip it around the back line, it doesn’t matter if you give up 20m just maintain your zone and make sure they’re forced to kick down the line rather than hit up targets coming through the centre.

But once it goes out of the defensive half I haven’t really seen anyone do it - unless they’re caught out of position and don’t make it to the mark before ump calls outside 5, whereas we’ll contest an aerial contest, be standing on the mark then turn our backs to the ball and run away from the player to give them their extra space.

It’s hard to watch

 

[Mr. Walker]

Yes, I understand the idea behind it. But when do we ever manage to react to prevent or intercept those disposals? And oppo players have more space to get momentum as they kick, which gains the kick extra distance. We are giving the opposition an advantage.

This is the key point for me. I think I understand why we do it, but it NEVER seems to work in limiting the opposition movement of the ball. So either the players are doing it incorrectly or the tactic itself doesn’t work. Either way the coach should have made changes by now, but no. It’s bewildering.

 

[_Mike_]

IMO the worst thing about this year is that this is the second time they wont make the 8 after making a GF the year before.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

Yeah I'm not keen on it. Can understand why we'd try it but it just lets the oppo push forward with no pressure

 

[LondonBulldog]

Bevo has seriously underestimated the time factor in manning the mark. The player needs to run back to get behind the mark and give him space to kick. This time allows the defence to get back, set up, man up etc.

Once you back off the opposition can play on quickly catching our defenders out. It’s ridiculous and it’s turning me off footy. The stats are backing up that it’s not working, someone needs to override Bevo on this one.


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[BIG_BONTS]

How hard would it be to change this tactic during the season? Would it disrupt some structure we have trained? Seems crazy that we haven't even tested reverting back yet to see if it helps with defensive pressure.

 

[Mahama]

I think the impact of not standing the mark is completely overstated and a convenient excuse for why our zone defence has been so poor this year. Having a stationary player on the mark isn't going to stop the 45 degree short/medium passes that have been cutting us to shreds the last couple of weeks - the stand rule was designed so the player with the ball can literally just step around the mark and do exactly that kick with even less pressure.

The bigger issue is whatever's going on with the rest of our zone. Why are our players suddenly incapable of reading and responding to opposition kicks? Why are there so many holes in the middle of the ground? Why is the zone so ineffective even against slow ball movement? Why are so many of our formerly good interceptors now rarely getting to contests?

Makes me think our biggest priority in the off-season should be to spend the coin necessary to get an experienced, highly-rated assistant coach who can take the reigns of the defence and fix the absolute mess it's become.

 

[doggies ftw]

The bigger issue is whatever's going on with the rest of our zone. Why are our players suddenly incapable of reading and responding to opposition kicks? Why are there so many holes in the middle of the ground? Why is the zone so ineffective even against slow ball movement? Why are so many of our formerly good interceptors now rarely getting to contests?

You’ve summed it up here though, all of these things are happening because we don’t man the mark and don’t hold players up, allowing them to play ahead more quickly than we can get back to set up (considering how high we push too)

Watch it closely it becomes quite obvious when you focus on it - by not manning the mark our next line of the zone is constantly being caught out of position. By manning the mark yes you’re useless once the player with ball in hand is back and ready to dispose but you’ve held him up 3 seconds forcing him to back up and kick over you. When we stream straight past the player who marks the ball they instantly move forward and are ready to dispose and hit up another target before our zone has had time to set up. It’s at the stage now where opposition players are taking the mark and as they know no one will man it they just instantly start moving forward and have time and space to hit up the next target - meaning there’s uncontested options throughout the whole ground. We’re losing 3 seconds at every uncontested mark through the middle of the ground, that is a huge amount of ground for our players to get back and try and set up correctly

It’s the sole reason teams are just moving the ball through uncontested 30m passes through the corridor constantly - this should not be happening.

 

[bullish23]

Said it was batsh1t crazy back in round 2. Fagan on 360 gave Bevo a backhander more or less saying its not working at all, and doesn’t understand why we persist with it.

But where are the players and particularly the leaders - Bont, Keath, Duryea, Macrae - in all this? Every week they get vision of their own game and team focused stuff as well. Surely they see the insanity (actually the stupidity) of it all, and no one has spoken up?

There are some on here who get good inside info. Has it never been raised?

 

[maddog37]

It may have merit as a tactic but as soon as other teams know you will do it every time it becomes totally redundant.

It is a gift to opposition coaches.

 

[Mahama]

You’ve summed it up here though, all of these things are happening because we don’t man the mark and don’t hold players up, allowing them to play ahead more quickly than we can get back to set up (considering how high we push too)

Watch it closely it becomes quite obvious when you focus on it - by not manning the mark our next line of the zone is constantly being caught out of position. By manning the mark yes you’re useless once the player with ball in hand is back and ready to dispose but you’ve held him up 3 seconds forcing him to back up and kick over you. When we stream straight past the player who marks the ball they instantly move forward and are ready to dispose and hit up another target before our zone has had time to set up. It’s at the stage now where opposition players are taking the mark and as they know no one will man it they just instantly start moving forward and have time and space to hit up the next target - meaning there’s uncontested options throughout the whole ground. We’re losing 3 seconds at every uncontested mark through the middle of the ground, that is a huge amount of ground for our players to get back and try and set up correctly

It’s the sole reason teams are just moving the ball through uncontested 30m passes through the corridor constantly - this should not be happening.

I'll have to have another close look next week, but my strong impression from last night that the Swans were able to pick their way through our zone slowly, which is massively concerning. As in, they'd take a mark, go back, assess for ~5 seconds, and then pick off a 30m pass. Repeat until they're inside 50. That's the stuff that makes me say there's bigger issues at hand than where the player is on the mark. Any decent zone should be able to force deep kicks to a contest once it's been set for more than a few seconds.

Perhaps there is also more vulnerability to quicker ball movement like you say (though not manning the mark also means teams can't use overlap handballs from marks to get super deep entries, so perhaps that evens it out), but I suspect if we manned the mark last night we'd have been picked apart just as badly. Would be nice if the fix was that easy mind you...

 

[doggies ftw]

I'll have to have another close look next week, but my strong impression from last night that the Swans were able to pick their way through our zone slowly, which is massively concerning. As in, they'd take a mark, go back, assess for ~5 seconds, and then pick off a 30m pass. Repeat until they're inside 50. That's the stuff that makes me say there's bigger issues at hand than where the player is on the mark. Any decent zone should be able to force deep kicks to a contest once it's been set for more than a few seconds.

Perhaps there is also more vulnerability to quicker ball movement like you say (though not manning the mark also means teams can't use overlap handballs from marks to get super deep entries, so perhaps that evens it out), but I suspect if we manned the mark last night we'd have been picked apart just as badly. Would be nice if the fix was that easy mind you...

I agree there was bigger issues last night, I think the effort was extremely poor leading to those things you’ve mentioned - I suspect the belief has now slipped from the group, and it’s all just too hard right now.

But going back to when you couldn’t really fault our effort just our execution - I really think this tactic has had pretty devasting consequences to our season,

It’s just fundamentally flawed, we push up our defence super aggressively high but are happy to give up territory to the player with the ball so they have more space to get it in long over the back of our high defence.

Fingers crossed it is an easy change but either way it and a lot of other things need to change

 

[Dogs Rule]

Next year Bevo is going to make it so easy for the opposition to kick goals that the opposition will eventually get sick of kicking goals, that is when we start kicking goals.

Can't wait for next season already...

 

[_Mike_]

Next year Bevo is going to make it so easy for the opposition to kick goals that the opposition will eventually get sick of kicking goals, that is when we start kicking goals.

And then the goals will kick themselves

 

[Timewillcome]

I have discussed thoroughly in other threads and most of what I said would only be repeating others frustrations above, but if this is the hill Bevo has chosen to die on, I say bring it on and persist with it dopey.

His stubborn, always right attitude is on full display with his persistence of this absurd tactic.

This tactic would be dropped first week under any new coach. It's not that hard to untrain something so unnatural to most players.

He escapes criticism because we are a small club. Anywhere else he would be gone already.

 

[footscray1973]

Posted this in the Gardner thread, probably just as relevant here:

"I'd like to see Bevo come out of retirement and try to play KPD in our team. Or even just anywhere in defence. Then see what he thinks about his game plan and dropping off the mark."

 

[gordo2016]

Remember Terry Wheeler once advised The Hawk to kick against the breeze if he won the toss. He got advised by a Fisherman before the game that the wind would change around half time and then they would have it for two quarters in a row. Seemed like a dumb tactic, especially after they got blown away in the first quarter and the wind dropped right off after 1/4 time.

 

[Munnez]

It’s aim is to obviously try and cut off that 45 kick.. and yet we still can’t defend it.

Give players space to work in and you get cut up. With that space given the kicker gets much more momentum to get depth on kick or the ability to pick off the 45 kick that starts the momentum that makes it difficult for us too defend

 

[glenashley]

Not totally opposed to it.

Remember, the other option is to stand and do nothing, so I dislike people saying that it's poor in it's own right.

Still on the fence...

 

[adogsfan5]

Embarrassing footage.

 

[doggies ftw]

Embarrassing footage.

Glad it’s being picked up on by the media,

“What are they guarding?” *ing praise the lord, I said this 2 weeks ago, we’re bloody great at guarding the space 20-40m in front of the ball carrier, but I think we’ve forgotten that the average AFL player can kick well over 40m lmao, our zone is a bloody joke

 

[stefoid]

Standing the mark just makes the player a statue. I understand why dogs do it. Allows them to move and react to a short kick or handball.

theoretically, but does it actually?

It certainly gives the opposition player a lot of time and space so he doesnt have to back up if he wants to kick directly over the mark, or feel in any way pressured by nearby opposition, because his closest opponent is backpedaling away from him. A nice moment of calm to assess his options without distraction and kick in any direction without having to backpedal himself.

 

[Hobdog]

How did we get in such a mess and how have we come to the conclusion that it’s worth persevering with? We all know the saying: What’s the definition of insanity…..?


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[Pep_x]

Be good if Bevo was put into some of the footy shows this week to try and explain what he's attempting with the tactic and why he's stuck with it.
Won't happen tho, will it.