Contest clearances

[The Butcher]

Made me balk a bit when Lyin said pre game something along the lines that we are right up there for sideways and backwards kicks and do our best to always avoid a contest. It made me think back to games against the cats,pies,saints etc in the past few years where we were just killed in the contests all around the ground. In my mind I told myself no we're better than that now, that's complete rubbish, I hope the players heard that. Now I wonder.

Obviously you plan and play to your strengths, but has our game style been hiding a complete lack of progress in our ability to win the ball around the ground? With all our winning I'd just sort of forgot to Look Look Look for any weaknesses. In the Pies losses in particular, I used to walk away thinking how the hell did they manage to waltz away with the ball at every contest around the ground. How many lucky bounces can one team get? Felt the same yesterday. It's not the bounces.

If we've been winning in this area up until this week tell me please so I can rest easy, and STFU.

Side note. Ross has soo much more speed to work with now. Impressed by the speed of a number of the purple pissants.

 

[Moti]

We have big aggressive midfielders like Z and Cunnington. If they don't win the ball they are pretty poor. Just like any other predominantly inside player. Freo aren't that quick, it is just that we lack pace in the centre square without Wells and Harvey as we have a group of midfielders who are plodders. When we get hands on the ball, it isn't an issue, when we don't, we look slow.

Z is a pretty average clearance player this year, been surprising considering his body size. Swallow does it by himself predominantly.

 

[roos_fanatic08]

It is really dependent on goldy. If he fires and we get our hands on the footy first then we look good, but when he has a down game our midfield really lack defensively.

 

[chubbspeterson]

Not sure what Lyon is trying to say. We do move the ball as close to our forward 50m rather than just bombing it when there's the spare man back in defense, because if the kick is too shallow, the ball just gets rebounded if the kick isn't to advantage. To me that's just being smart about your forward entries.

 

[Kcrack]

Goldy had gastro FFS. Can't get clearances when the ball's going down the enemy's throat.

 

[Twinkletoes]

Yep, Goldy was a witches hat nailed to the turf against Freo. We played a player short against Andre the Giant.

 

[keeno 111]

I don't understand, If goldy was seriously that sick why was he playing?

Surely we have a back up plan for unexpected events like this?

 

[Gen Y]

I don't understand, If goldy was seriously that sick why was he playing?

Surely we have a back up plan for unexpected events like this?

You would have brought in Will Sirakowski? That was the option. (Both affiliate teams played the day before, Pedo is injured, hamish is injured, daw is a rookie, mabon would have had similar impact as goldy and had already played).

 

[keeno 111]

I would of played anyone that could just contest againts him rather then playing a sick player.

 

[Mav]

You would have brought in Will Sirakowski? That was the option. (Both affiliate teams played the day before, Pedo is injured, hamish is injured, daw is a rookie, mabon would have had similar impact as goldy and had already played).

In hindsight it would have been the best move. Both goldy and drew had bad games, may as well have had drew ruck and throw Scotty mc or Sam down forward with Will in defencr

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

This is purely the difference that experienced, physically mature midfielders can make.

Sandilands: 29 years & 8 months, 211 cms, 122kgs, 180 games
Mundy: 27 years & 1 month, 192 cms, 92 kgs, 160 games
Barlow: 24years & 8 months, 191 cms, 92kgs.

They are monsters. Mundy is the same height as Wayne Carey.

Goldstein, Ziebell and Cunnington are babies compared to these three.

Spitta is thereabouts, and it's no surprise that he held his own against Freo on Sunday.

 

[Mav]

This is purely the difference that experienced, physically mature midfielders can make.

Sandilands: 29 years & 8 months, 211 cms, 122kgs, 180 games
Mundy: 27 years & 1 month, 192 cms, 92 kgs, 160 games
Barlow: 24years & 8 months, 191 cms, 92kgs.

They are monsters. Mundy is the same height as Wayne Carey.

Goldstein, Ziebell and Cunnington are babies compared to these three.

Spitta is thereabouts, and it's no surprise that he held his own against Freo on Sunday.

Mundy, Barlow and Cunnington...6 clearances each. Jack, 7.

Give it up

 

[r_boy]

Mundy, Barlow and Cunnington...6 clearances each. Jack, 7.

Give it up

Their quality of clearances was much better though, mainly due to Sandilands.

 

[Hard_to_Beat]

Their quality of clearances was much better though, mainly due to Sandilands.

Goldstein Cunnington Swallow and Ziebell are easily going to be a better combination than anything Freo or most other sides can put together.

Mundy is a fairly beige footballer when you consider his age, size and experience and the fact he gets an arm chair ride from Sandilands.

 

[Mav]

Their quality of clearances was much better though, mainly due to Sandilands.

Jacks been 'throwing the ball I'm his boot' for a while now. Funny how people on here hate the 'just kick it' calls but love Jack! Our main problem on the weekend was poor disposal. Bad kicks, bad handbills. Scotty Mc even gave 2 goals away by giving it straight to a docker inside their F50, but no mention of him having a bad game. We just played shit all over the ground

 

[GarnerSmash]

This was something that concerned me in the preseason and early on in the season proper but I now realize that our contested possession numbers are low by design. We currently rank 13th for contested possessions although all this does, and Ross Lyons comments support this, is highlight the change in playing style we have undertaken this year.

We have gone from one of the highest contested possessions teams in 2011 to 13th in 2012. We have also gone from one of the lowest uncontested teams to third highest. We actually win more clearances than our opponents so that indicates that we can at least match it in the hard stuff. Considering we have a relatively immature group I expect that we will continue to improve our ratio of contests won while maintaining a focus on maintaining possession by moving the ball sideways and backwards to work our way through opposition structures to find better avenues inside 50.

Freo on the weekend brought the right attitude which we failed to match.

 

[Shinbones]

We have big aggressive midfielders like Z and Cunnington. If they don't win the ball they are pretty poor. Just like any other predominantly inside player. Freo aren't that quick, it is just that we lack pace in the centre square without Wells and Harvey as we have a group of midfielders who are plodders. When we get hands on the ball, it isn't an issue, when we don't, we look slow.

Z is a pretty average clearance player this year, been surprising considering his body size. Swallow does it by himself predominantly.

If you watch z he intitiates contact with his direct opponent to keep him from the contest to allow spitta or wells to have run at the ball he usually goes to their contested best to keep the away from the play very good to watch

 

[roos_fanatic08]

This was something that concerned me in the preseason and early on in the season proper but I now realize that our contested possession numbers are low by design. We currently rank 13th for contested possessions although all this does, and Ross Lyons comments support this, is highlight the change in playing style we have undertaken this year.

We have gone from one of the highest contested possessions teams in 2011 to 13th in 2012. We have also gone from one of the lowest uncontested teams to third highest. We actually win more clearances than our opponents so that indicates that we can at least match it in the hard stuff. Considering we have a relatively immature group I expect that we will continue to improve our ratio of contests won while maintaining a focus on maintaining possession by moving the ball sideways and backwards to work our way through opposition structures to find better avenues inside 50.

Freo on the weekend brought the right attitude which we failed to match.

Itsn't that just because we are playing a free-flowing game, hence less ball-up's and hence less chance to win clearances and contested possessions?

 

[Saintly31]

If you watch z he intitiates contact with his direct opponent to keep him from the contest to allow spitta or wells to have run at the ball he usually goes to their contested best to keep the away from the play very good to watch

JZ had a poor game on Sunday (no shame in that, nearly the entire squad did) - he was ordinary when he didn't have the ball, and even worse when he had it. Whilst he is a favourite amongst supporters for his committed attack on the footy, he doesn't need excuses made for bad games and low numbers - he is better than that.

We badly missed Adams and Wells on Sunday in a game when the heat was really on in the contest. Wells is very underrated in getting his own ball, whilst Adams is a warrior who relishes physicality.

 

[The Butcher]

Goldy had gastro FFS. Can't get clearances when the ball's going down the enemy's throat.

True. I was really more talking about the contests that occur NOT as a result of a bounce or throw in. When there is a long kick to a pack etc. Where the numbers at the contest and the positioning aren't as pre determined.

 

[utility]

We badly missed Adams and Wells on Sunday in a game when the heat was really on in the contest. Wells is very underrated in getting his own ball, whilst Adams is a warrior who relishes physicality.

True but they were missing Pav so no excuses.

Probably a good lesson for our mids to read an opposition ruckman because they didn't do it well on the weekend!

 

[ozzyoslo]

Does anyone feel that's jz role has changed with Cunnington in there instead of Adams? I mean cunnington has come in to do zeibells role now that Adams is out is zeibell doing his old role before the holiday or is doing patches role now? The chemistry has changed and zeibell still needs to find where he's at.