Roast Collingwood's Backline

[danielnajdek]

Defenders play worse under pressure? Interesting...

What do you want....

 

[Ed D]

I think people are just starting to expect too much of this side. We are 1st, we have by far the biggest % and our defence is ranked in the top 4 in the league (attack is 1st by a mile). Yet despite this, there is still plenty of criticism on this board. Personally I'm very happy with our start to the year.

I agree with this.

I'm not worried about our backline at all at this stage. It's round 5 coming up...

 

[Quicky]

Our backline will be fine. Tarrant is still settling and we can't expect great things from Maxy straight back. I rate Keeffe but his VFL form isn't good enough for a recall just yet.

 

[Rustin Cohle]

Also, we're ranked third for the teams that have played four matches. Geelong's points against is so much lower because they played that shitful game against St. Kilda and the Sydney match last week, both of them being low scoring teams in general (not that I'm attempting to downplay Geelong's defence here).

Hawthorn is only one point less than us, so it's really not much of a concern.

 

[ksardog]

we are definately down that one complete shut down tall defender with the retirement of presti and the injury to n.brown. taz isnt suited to the big body forward and neither is reid therefore our press up forward has to be at its best against the better sides with good tall forwards. i think this is where we have been let down, maybe adding a bit of pace in the forward half with either mccaffer or dick may help the situation. would like to see us get keeffe plenty of game time during the year against lesser opposition to get him ready for the future, i really liked what i saw of him in the preseason.

 

[HeavyPop]

Not sure if it's the fault of the backline completely. Alot of people are saying our forward pressure isn't up to the standard we set last year, which would be a huge reason. If you're keeping the ball in the opposition 50, the backline obviously isn't under as much pressure.

It also has alot to do with these lapses they seem prone to. 6 goals in the 3rd by Richmond and 6 in the 3rd by Port. In the games where we have stayed focused for longer, we have only conceded 74 and 56 points which you would take everytime.

 

[Soul_Pie]

Keeping the ball inside your attacking half is the key though. The defence was well protected and was much stronger because of our all ground set up which really helped stifle opposition attacks. This season we haven't quite been as dominant in this regards.

If you don't protect the defenders, then you get scored against. This is particularly true if you are use a press like we do. Even the best defenders in the comp get exposed by the quick break through the middle, and for whatever reason teams have been able to get a run on at various times this year. I think it's partly a fitness thing, because we are probably not at optimum fitness yet, but also I don't think the press is operating at a lower level. We need to find that intensity and that swarm mindset that gained us so much success.

 

[daics_35]

The OP is spot on, our deffenders shit themselves if its man on man. We were the same last year but the trick is too play a three tall forward line against us and then Maxwell will have to play on a tall which he couldnt do to save his life. We saw against Richmond, Miller had four scoring shots and lost Maxwell to easy. Same goes for Harry Obrien, the bloke cant play on talls, he gets dominated all the time, they should just stick to playing him on the shorts. So far I have been less then impressed by the backline but its only April, I wouldnt wanna see us play our best football at the this time of the year.

 

[Alexander323bc]

As long as we win the ball from the middle and kick more goals then the opposition I dont care if we play Jarred Blair on the 'gorilla' forwards! Defenders save you games, they dont win you games.