Focus on tackling needed

[SellarStardom]

After watching the Geelong gamne one aspect that stood out was our inability to stick tackles and more importantly to lay tackles that pin the arms of opposition players.
In addition, some of the other NAB games have highlighted the value of tackling. It seems the club doesn't focus too heavily on this aspect (I could be wrong) and I think this is a serious issue.
Tackling can be essential, improtantly our forward line delivers very little tackling pressure on opposition defenses. People will say that our young guys are pretty small and skinny but tackling is an art, some real small guys in the AFL and SANFL are masters of tackling.
Why doesn't the club get in a specialist tackling coach from Rugby or US football? With the right training and execution even a guy like Mackay could be a serious tackling force. In the Geelong game we laid tackles but time and again the Geelong players either slipped them or were able to get a disposal away.

 

[Vince Van Mackay]

If you're first to the ball, tackling is secondary.

 

[Southerntakeover]

If you're first to the ball, tackling is secondary.

No team ever has 100% possession though. Good tackling and pressure in general are hall marks of most great teams.

 

[Mismatched]

After watching the Geelong gamne one aspect that stood out was our inability to stick tackles and more importantly to lay tackles that pin the arms of opposition players.
In addition, some of the other NAB games have highlighted the value of tackling. It seems the club doesn't focus too heavily on this aspect (I could be wrong) and I think this is a serious issue.
Tackling can be essential, improtantly our forward line delivers very little tackling pressure on opposition defenses. People will say that our young guys are pretty small and skinny but tackling is an art, some real small guys in the AFL and SANFL are masters of tackling.
Why doesn't the club get in a specialist tackling coach from Rugby or US football? With the right training and execution even a guy like Mackay could be a serious tackling force. In the Geelong game we laid tackles but time and again the Geelong players either slipped them or were able to get a disposal away.

From what I hear the Crows have had a wrestling coach in to help with their tackling and thats what all the rugby and many of the AFL teams as well I guess are doing, so they are putting some sort of an emphasis on it.

 

[Vince Van Mackay]

No team ever has 100% possession though. Good tackling and pressure in general are hall marks of most great teams.

Yeah I know, but what I'm getting at is I'd rather us focus on getting to the ball first, first, because we don't do that too well, and that is more worrying than our tackling.

 

[Geoffa32]

Yeah I know, but what I'm getting at is I'd rather us focus on getting to the ball first, first, because we don't do that too well, and that is more worrying than our tackling.

Why not focus on both. The two best clubs do. Thats where we want to be in two years time. Now is the time to get the fundamentals in place. Both of these areas are fundamentals.

 

[Damp Squarie]

After watching the Geelong game one aspect that stood out was...

...running and linking handball; playing on at all costs.

Collingwood seemed to have picked up on this too based on last nights game.

Pressuring the ball carrier into hospital handballs seems to be our forte; then we seem to be able to stik the tackle as a consequence of referred pressure.

It pretty hard to stik a tackle when they know its coming.

 

[noddy]

There was a comment that Robert Walls made last night that i have some agreement with & that is

"these days if a player can't deliver the ball properly then he has limited time in the AFL"

 

[spexau]

Considering the entire Geelong team has the most mature bodies in the AFL it's not surprising seeing our undeveloped boys not stick many tackles. I thought our pressure at times was very good though and there were some good tackles where we pinned there arms, they are just so strong they can get little dinky kicks or handballs out. Wouldn't read much into it yet.

 

[AFC1990]

Geelong = mature bodies with great core strength. Guys like Thompson, Porplyzia and Reilly should be, or are, there. Van Berlo, Vince and Knights are developing very well in this regard. You would hope Douglas, Dangerfield, Cook and Otten will get there. Look at the sheer size of Ablett these days . He was always good, now he is also huge, with an ass the width of Pluggers. Corey, Bartel, Ling etc all stand in tackles and dish off. We are x pre seasons from having a spread of players capable of this. Will watch with interest the "new, improved and beefed up hard men" of the PAPs against the Cats this weekend.

 

[cmndstab]

Yeah I know, but what I'm getting at is I'd rather us focus on getting to the ball first, first, because we don't do that too well, and that is more worrying than our tackling.

On this point, there's one thing that I don't quite understand yet. Usually when watching the Crows play, when they do something wrong, I can figure out what went wrong and what they should have done instead. Against Geelong last weekend, the ball just seemed to bounce the right way for Geelong. When there was a loose ball, it tended to bounce to a Geelong player. When we misses a pass a Geelong player was right there, but when they missed a pass, we weren't in a position to mop up. It sort of seemed like they were lucky, just being in the right place at the right time - but there is no way they could have been that lucky as often as they were, or that we could have been that unlucky as often as we were. So there is obviously something we are doing wrong.


Does anyone with a better concept of football understand what it was, and can you explain it to me? I can't help but feel that get this right and the match would have been very different last weekend.

 

[Crow-mo]

There was a comment that Robert Walls made last night that i have some agreement with & that is

"these days if a player can't deliver the ball properly then he has limited time in the AFL"

I think there is a lot of truth in that.

 

[magtrev]

On this point, there's one thing that I don't quite understand yet. Usually when watching the Crows play, when they do something wrong, I can figure out what went wrong and what they should have done instead. Against Geelong last weekend, the ball just seemed to bounce the right way for Geelong. When there was a loose ball, it tended to bounce to a Geelong player. When we misses a pass a Geelong player was right there, but when they missed a pass, we weren't in a position to mop up. It sort of seemed like they were lucky, just being in the right place at the right time - but there is no way they could have been that lucky as often as they were, or that we could have been that unlucky as often as we were. So there is obviously something we are doing wrong.


Does anyone with a better concept of football understand what it was, and can you explain it to me? I can't help but feel that get this right and the match would have been very different last weekend.

Working/running harder both ways to support or pressure the ball carrier or reciever than we were.

 

[Vince Van Mackay]

On this point, there's one thing that I don't quite understand yet. Usually when watching the Crows play, when they do something wrong, I can figure out what went wrong and what they should have done instead. Against Geelong last weekend, the ball just seemed to bounce the right way for Geelong. When there was a loose ball, it tended to bounce to a Geelong player. When we misses a pass a Geelong player was right there, but when they missed a pass, we weren't in a position to mop up. It sort of seemed like they were lucky, just being in the right place at the right time - but there is no way they could have been that lucky as often as they were, or that we could have been that unlucky as often as we were. So there is obviously something we are doing wrong.


Does anyone with a better concept of football understand what it was, and can you explain it to me? I can't help but feel that get this right and the match would have been very different last weekend.

Hard running so they can have numbers in the vicinity of the ball carrier. There was little hard running from the Crows, so we had no numbers.

 

[KUNG FU]

Don't need to stress. It was Geelong. We were 8th in the league last year for tackles, could do better, could be worse. The whole 'first to the ball' argument works both ways. Geelong were 2nd in tackles last year, Essendon were 4th.

 

[beartoo]

Absolutely right that the Cats worked much harder than us and that the bigger bodies were able to stand up and dish off in tackles. But we did have 48 forward entries to their 36. They converted, and as has so often hapened in the last couple of years, we did not. It's a long time ago now , but I seem to remember 5 or more very gettable goals being burnt. If those gettable goals had been got, the result would have been close.
Part of our problem was the speed with which they were able to flood back and clog us up. We have to move the ball quicker into the forward line. We have to have mids delivering pinpoint passes to position. We have to have forwards capable of getting loose and leading to the right places.
I assume that is what the new gameplan is all about. Maybe we have to be patient until it clicks.

 

[Coopers]

There was a comment that Robert Walls made last night that i have some agreement with & that is

"these days if a player can't deliver the ball properly then he has limited time in the AFL"

Agreeing with walls is a bannable offence.

 

[Tex200]

On this point, there's one thing that I don't quite understand yet. Usually when watching the Crows play, when they do something wrong, I can figure out what went wrong and what they should have done instead. Against Geelong last weekend, the ball just seemed to bounce the right way for Geelong. When there was a loose ball, it tended to bounce to a Geelong player. When we misses a pass a Geelong player was right there, but when they missed a pass, we weren't in a position to mop up. It sort of seemed like they were lucky, just being in the right place at the right time - but there is no way they could have been that lucky as often as they were, or that we could have been that unlucky as often as we were. So there is obviously something we are doing wrong.


Does anyone with a better concept of football understand what it was, and can you explain it to me? I can't help but feel that get this right and the match would have been very different last weekend.

I will have a stab (no pun intended) at this but am no expert.

As everyone would understand now AFL has become zone game and moved away completely from the old man on man days of the SANFL. If you have ever played or watched basketball its becomeing very similar to the old 2-1-2 zone defence...very hard to penetrate and usually the only way of opening up a free man was very quick and accurate passing around the key and catch them out trying to reposition.

AFL works very similar and the "rolling zone" is effectively just making the whole ground an imaginary key way. The way teams are trying to beat it is just as i have described above...quick, accurate passing to transfer play across the ground to create an open man. I think what we saw against Geelong was a side who executed this better and a side still learning it and so any error on our part was picked off swiftly whereas our zone positioning was not as wellpositioned and so the turnovers were not punished.

I really hate the way the game has gone to a zone based game like basketball and even soccer. I see the only solution is to do what the NBA did years ago and penalise zone defence leaving a return to man on man.

 

[beartoo]

Copy all that. But how do you penalise zone defence?

 

[Tex200]

Copy all that. But how do you penalise zone defence?

Good question. I guess it would be a matter of an umpire paying a free kick whenever he catches a player guarding space and not a player. Hopefully that would soon clean it up. Its a blight on the game and has taken away so much of what is unique about our game.

 

[KUNG FU]

Jesus, penalties for a zone defence? That would be putting far too much pressure on the umpire, and they are already maligned enough!

Same thing was said about the flood, coaches overcame it. There are cracks in the zone defence and the game will move on. Its just defensive work. Nostalgia plays a big part when people talk about how much they dislike the modern game. Even watching the 97-98 GFs seem scrappy and slow to me. Not that I mind that kind of game either, SANFL fan right here. This issue sort of reminds me of NFL vs college ball in the US. A lot of people prefer college games because the NFL athletes are so well drilled that a lot different types of play or strategy are simply unable to be executed against the calibre of athlete in the NFL. People still love the game. But even so, AFL is so far away from that sort of situation.

 

[Tex200]

Jesus, penalties for a zone defence? That would be putting far too much pressure on the umpire, and they are already maligned enough!

Same thing was said about the flood, coaches overcame it. There are cracks in the zone defence and the game will move on. Its just defensive work. Nostalgia plays a big part when people talk about how much they dislike the modern game. Even watching the 97-98 GFs seem scrappy and slow to me. Not that I mind that kind of game either, SANFL fan right here. This issue sort of reminds me of NFL vs college ball in the US. A lot of people prefer college games because the NFL athletes are so well drilled that a lot different types of play or strategy are simply unable to be executed against the calibre of athlete in the NFL. People still love the game. But even so, AFL is so far away from that sort of situation.

Far from the flood being overcome it has impacted even further. The flood was the original zone and all thats happended is the coaches have moved it up out of the 50m defensive area so effectively there is a flood/zone around all parts of the ground.

I do agree though it would be hard for an umpire to police. Make no mistake though the fabric of the game has changed. We are now philosophically defensive and guard territory in the same way soccer, rugby, NFL, hockey and basketball do

 

[beartoo]

Here's an idea...number the forwards in all sides from 1 to 6, backs 7 to 12 (we might copy rugby and allocate a number to correspond to each position on the ground) Draw a line across the ground at the mid-point and ban forwards from straying into their own backlines and backs from going forwards.
A free kick in the goal square to the opposition if players are caught out.
I stand by for an avalanche of protests at an idea to so radically change the game.

 

[Geoffa32]

Simple

Each side only allowed to have a maximum number in the 50m arc at any one time. Say 8players per team. It can be any 8, but if a 9th playr goes in a free kick from where that player is.

Boundry/goal/field umpires can call a free kick for any offending player.

On the flipside make a minimum number of players to always be in the 50m arc. The players dont need to be designated, any three. So we could swap Tippett for Maric in play to rest either player.

 

[KUNG FU]

Gross. Netball.