Clearances are killing us

[The Great Gabsby]

One thing I've noticed all year is how inept at clearances we are. Its not so much the quantity of clearances that we are achieving as a team, but more their effectiveness.

Can anyone remember the last time we had a clearance from the centre which resulted in one our players receiving the ball with time and space to deliver to our forwards? I can't. For the most part, our clearances consist of hurried kicks forward under pressure which give our forwards no chance at all.
We are particularly bad at this out of the centre. From stoppages around the ground we seem slightly more adept, perhaps because we have a few more numbers at the ball.

But it begs the question though, is it our midfielders which are useless or our midfield setup?

 

[Wonaeamirri33]

Combination of a weak midfield and, for most of the season, an injury-depleted ruck division, I'd say...

 

[The Dr]

And what compounds it is the fact we often can't even make it hard for the opposition with their clearances. How many times to they just break away from a stoppage and stream upfield?

 

[Dez!]

And what compounds it is the fact we often can't even make it hard for the opposition with their clearances. How many times to they just break away from a stoppage and stream upfield?

Dunno but the one time that sticks in my mind is when the siren goes to start the game and the umpire bounces the ball, the tap goes straight to an opposition midfielder who gets the clearance, ball goes inside their attacking 50 and they goal. All that happens in the space of the first 10 seconds as well.

 

[Colin Grigson]

Its hard to tell... What's obvious is that the ruckmen we've employed do not have a good understanding with the roving players. They don't seem to be working as a unit. I mean, maybe its just that the mids lack the anticipation to read where the ball's going to end up from the ruck contest & then the pace to be able to break clear and move the ball forward.

I think we have too many slow coaches around the stoppages, but I think we're getting beaten my ruck/roving combinations that work a lot smarter than what we do, and who have a better understanding of what needs to be done. The better teams also consistently provide blocks, shepherds & tackling which enables them to more effectively clear the ball.

Mark Williams & Scott West have got a lot of work to do with the players because its just a shambles at the moment - our stoppage work that is...

 

[Wonaeamirri33]

Good point about the issue of understanding between the rucks & the roving players, but that would have to be at least partly because of the amount of times we've had to chop & change our rucks this year, I'd say.

Not that our midfield has been all that settled either, albeit that we're obviously slow in that department already, as I said, and as I was saying in my chat with Dean, our overall workrate when we don't have the ball, not to mention our effort in the 50/50 contests, has dropped off badly in the last month, which is obviously a part of this workrate issue.

That factor's definitely killing us right now.

 

[Colin Grigson]

That factor's definitely killing us right now.

Its tough trying to nail down one or two factors when there appears to be a complete failure in the midfield...

I agree Wona that when the ball is not in our hands, we are by 'far' the worst team in the competition at figuring how to get it back

I think we lack 'footy' intelligence and we need to bring in players that are not just merely 'athlete's' but 'students' of the game.

We play a lot of dumb footy ATM...And we have athlete's that are also decidedly un-athletic strangely enough...