Analysis Field Positioning

[John Who]

Do you mean in regards to the actual oval itself? As in, how well is it draining, etc?

I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny, but I'm referring to player/positional field changes. I don't particularly care how well the Oval is draining, because it'll impact both the teams the same.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny, but I'm referring to player/positional field changes. I don't particularly care how well the Oval is draining, because it'll impact both the teams the same.

No, I wasn't trying to be funny at all.

I honestly wasn't sure if you were referring to whether we change how we structure up in dry weather vs wet weather, or if you were wondering if Adelaide Oval played differently in wet weather (i.e. the Riverbank stand still provided protection from wind, so kicking for goal into the breeze at that end wasn't overly affected).

In terms of our positioning, we still stuck to our 7 man defence and 4 man forward line in those games (something we have done in basically every game this year). As discussed earlier, earlier in the year we had Betts and Cameron coming off the back of the square, but on the weekend we had them lining up in more of a wing position (with the wings almost on the back corners of the square).

I am not sure why, but in all 3 of the wet games we have handled the wet ball a lot better than our opposition and were still willing to take on the smaller pin-point passes, rather than reverting to the "traditional" wet weather style of game plan of get ball, boot it forward, rinse, repeat. There was also the usual overlap handpassing and run.

On the weekend we definitely didn't switch play as much as we would in a dry game, but we still tried to switch a lot more than Port did (albeit with mixed results).

The fact that we are sticking to a similar game plan in those games without constantly fumbling the ball due to the wet ball may be why we've been able to kick big scores, despite the wet conditions.

 

[kulak]

In the wet, we definitely play more of a territory game, less of a possession game.

More likely to kick high and long to 20m out, less likely to spot up a leading target.

Once we get the ball forward as quick and deep as possible, our press pushes up so that a quick kick out from defence gets won back, causing repeat I50s.

Hard to tell much more than that from TV.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

In the wet, we definitely play more of a territory game, less of a possession game.

More likely to kick high and long to 20m out, less likely to spot up a leading target.

Once we get the ball forward as quick and deep as possible, our press pushes up so that a quick kick out from defence gets won back, causing repeat I50s.

Hard to tell much more than that from TV.

The bit that I found difficult to comprehend is that Port allowed our spare defender to sit back by himself around 60m. So when the highly predictable quick kick came out, the spare was generally able to win the ball back and put it back inside 50.

Surely you'd learn to man that spare up and make him accountable.

 

[Crow_Magnon]

Earlier in the season our wings were heading in to the contest quickly at centre clearances to get more numbers around the ball for us. This left their players staying outside the contest and a quick give to them and they were off with limited pressure from us. We've stopped being so sucked in to the contest since about the middle of the season. We now set up a 'circle' around that stoppage with four outlets or stopping their four outlets having free space. Both Matt and Brad have changed the way they play as well since the inclusion of Hugh. Both are showing more more outside work than they were at the start of the season and it's working very well for us. Watching the placement of our wings is key to figuring out which structure we are working with. At the start of the year when we were flying, we always had one of the wings often being that last player in defence to protect the goal square (often Atkins). This then stopped for a while when other teams started to stop that happening. The last couple of weeks you see our wingers floating down back again.

About half way through the third quarter we changed a few things up as well on the weekend and stopped that 4 wing set up. Laird had a little midfield stint for a short period. There was some other things but I couldn't fully figure them out as we were still kicking goals, so I was a little invested in watching those happen, and we weren't doing it for too long.

The one set up that really killed Port was the way our defence set up protecting the wing where the ball was in our forward line. We shut that space down as it is the only game plan Port have. This meant that there was often a Port player free in the middle, but his opponent was standing just far enough away that he could get to him if they decided to switch into the middle or could become another intercepting loose defender when Port would kick it long down the wing.

Really good analysis. I noted that we were able to flick the ball around 3 or 4 times to eventually free up a player to have a better chance of delivering to our forwards. As WTF also pointed out, players like Tex / Eddie are leading up more often now also, with Gov / JJ seemingly hanging back near the goalsquare, giving the mids more options to choose from.