Analysis Loss of structure during games

Aug 16, 2009
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The quick play on directly forward v the slow, switch, chip pass option = more risk, but greater reward, when you take the slow option, and add in a goodly amount of unforced errors, the turnovers provide opposition easy scoring options.
We need more blokes that can kick the ball low and and fast. When you have blokes with 9 irons for boots the switch becomes useless, the defensive grid just moves across. Once we get Goater and Perez, hopefully also Bergman, into the side the ball movement will change dramatically. While off that though.
 

zoomba23

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Jun 17, 2017
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Biggest gripe for me is the number of players going for the mark or spoil......... it only takes one ..... could the rest of you nuffies stay out of it ??? thanks.
This is one that really gets on my nerves, and is noticeably absent in the play of the good teams 90% of the time. All it takes is a bit of situational awareness, and for someone to call the ball as theirs. Rudimentary schoolboy tactics that really shouldn't need to be taught at this level
 

Shagga is all Class

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Our players are always getting sucked into any contest anywhere on the ground.

Stoppage after stoppage all our players go into the contest the oppo stays out and we get killed on the breakaway chasing arse. Happens consistently.

Reminds me of a preseason game in Launceston I went to where the Hawks were so disciplined and we were a rabble during their flag run.

Hale even lined up from the goal square and the Hawks still drilled as if he were going to kick a point.

Hawks maintained their shape, they always had a down the line version of the Eagles Web and stoppages had plenty of players on the outside to either spread the ball or apply defensive pressure.

Win or lose the stoppage and they either spread, or tackle, or force the hack kick down the line where they had the outnumber and they were away again.

Then during the regular season, I watched as the Hawks were not invested in winning every contested ball, they were invested in maintaining a shape and wherever they got the ball, it was then easy to spread.

Even during the Collingwood sides of 2010/2011, I noticed how we would kick the ball down the line repeatedly and have 3 contest in the air whereas Collingwood had smalls where by the time the ball arrived, were set up like centre bounce contest with no opponent.

Good teams know what they are doing and everything is a set play. They play the percentages and get value from their possessions as they have a spread of players and always get the overlap.

Poor teams have 3 players go up in a marking contest or 3 players go for the same stoppage ball. Do that and you then have no defensive pressure and no spread.

Poor teams even when they win the ball, then play hot potato or have to stop when they take a mark.
 
Mate you were saying in the changes thread that Comben should come in for Goldy. Which small would you want out?
If we want to keep the same structure then I’d rather Comben in as the second tall

But if we are going to play a structure similar to round 1 which most teams play now then he comes in for a small take your pick of Polec Scott or young
 

Themanbun

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Apr 19, 2019
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This is probably a good place to dump our discussion from last year. Worryingly we haven't rectified it, although we took strides in the second half of 2021.

Stuff it. Just a few exhibits from the match.

Exhibit A: pretend this isn't Cam Zurhaar and another medium North tall contesting here. In this image we have just won a contest in St Kilda's attacking half and are trying to rebound. So, pretend it's a jet of a KPF and a lightning quick small forward. If we win this contest, in which we're outnumbered to begin with - who do they kick to? They are the two North players furthest forward of the ball. They'll have to slow it up and wait for someone to stream forward.

View attachment 1141170

Exhibit B: About a second after this frame as St Kilda start moving forward, Larkey (top left of the image) starts running as hard as he can to CHB. He consciously makes a decision to do this, which I can only imagine is instruction. If we do manage to force a turnover, who is going to present to allow us to start going forward?

View attachment 1141172

Exhibit C: Thanks to Tom Powell, we won a contest about 40m out from St Kilda goals, and we start moving toward the left of screen. Tom handballs off to LDU who bites off a fantastic corridor kick. Larkey marks. He can't kick it to Zurhaar at the bottom of the screen, because Zurhaar has to steam forward to provide a presence in our 50 and structure up there. So he has to hold play up a tad to allow us to roll forward.

View attachment 1141175

Who are his options in sight? He chooses and successfully hits Taylor Garner, who is actually leading away from the ball carrier, probably no more than 20m away. He could have hit whoever the blur is at the bottom of the screen, but that's where our structure invites indecision and causes turnovers. There is not a single player leading at him and demanding the ball in a lane. Not one. They're all heading back towards the goals to re-establish a structure.

View attachment 1141178


Personnel alone is not going to fix this, IMO. I don't have access to scores from opposition turnovers but my guess is we'll be dead last, or thereabouts. We look much better coming off a centre clearance with the 6-6-6 rule mandating forward structure.
 

The Anvil

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Oct 5, 2004
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Bang on mate. Our forward line is filled with only one natural forward in Larkey, the rest are makeshift or shoehorned there which leads to a disfuntional forward line. They all chase the ball instead of creating space for each other.

Adding natural forwards like Ford and Curtis will go some way in addressing this which will Improve our execution into inside 50 as clearer options will becone available.
As named last week in the forward line:
Taylor, Larkey, Mahony
Horne-Francis, Goldstein, Zurhaar

Only one player there (Goldy) is not a natural forward. All of Taylor, Mahony, and Horne-Francis are centre-forward players.
 
Broken record time: without intelligent, fit leading HFs that are in form able to lead up the centre and wing, our structure will always fall apart leaving our HBs turning it over with no one to kick to.
So you want Ford in as well?
 
This is probably a good place to dump our discussion from last year. Worryingly we haven't rectified it, although we took strides in the second half of 2021.
At the end of last season we were (allegedly) the team with the second most score launches from the defensive half since the bye. (Alot of that would be Hall and Jack working their backline stuff out too). I'm not sure where that stat came from but I have read or heard it in the lead up to this season.

Hawthorn are building their game off the same thing. Win the ball from the backline and attack. Alot easier with someone like Jiath.

Things are different to last year tho. Our percentage is 96% after two rounds. Last year it was 12 or 13% or something equally ridiculous. And we lost to the top of the ladder team by three goals or thereabouts after going with them for alot of the game, some of our better players had shockers too, McKay was injured. We won our other game after losing two of our most impostant players before half time.

We're not really in the same position we were.
 

Tiberius

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Sep 26, 2004
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Not sure where this should go, but I reckon it warrants its own thread.
We have all seen that all too often when the ball is deep in our backline, our players (either deliberately or not, suspect the former) get sucked into one half of the ground, giving us absolutely NO chance to rebound effectively. We lose all structure, and the only way to get it back is to concede a goal, or if we are lucky to engineer a stoppage on the wing, if we can get it that far before it shoots straight back into the opposition forward line.

Now, if this is deliberate coaching instruction, it's clearly not working, and our coaches can't be blind and not see that. If it's not the coaches doing, then they aren't doing a good job trying to address it. Good teams don't play that way, and we aren't going to kick reasonable score against anyone, until we can fix it. Our only avenue to goal against a decent side would be straight out of the centre bounce. Hence why we don't kick more than 2-3 per quarter.
Good sides have more than 1 structure they can play with depending on the circumstances and what the opposition are throwing at them. There are offensive structures and defensive structures. If the opposition are getting a run on, good teams are able to slow the game down and go into a defensive structure. When the momentum swings or the opposition have injuries or are off their game, good teams flick the switch into their offensive structures.
Last year we were noted in the opening rounds for taking the inside kicks and trying to attack through the centre of the ground. We scored more freely but were murdered on the turnover and had no ability to shut the game down when the opponents got a run-on. (Like Good Friday)
This year we have had the 2nd lowest "scored against" total in the first two rounds. Look at Hawthorn's score against Port Adelaide compared to us.

We are learning our defensive structures. Last year we showed that we could play with attacking structures. As yet we aren't good enough to swap between the two during games, but we will be.
 

Themanbun

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Apr 19, 2019
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Last year we were noted in the opening rounds for taking the inside kicks and trying to attack through the centre of the ground. We scored more freely but were murdered on the turnover and had no ability to shut the game down when the opponents got a run-on. (Like Good Friday)
Before the bye we had an average score somewhere in the order of 55 points per match, with quite a few in the 30s and 40s. I don't think we were scoring freely.
 

the flying ham

Cancelled
Dec 12, 2006
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Structure, for me, is also about making the most of the resources at your disposal - playing players in their best positions and to their strengths. Doing what the opposition doesn't want to happen. Exhibit 1. ,Thomas Powell. The kid's an A grade extractor and distributor. He's born for thinking his way out of heavy traffic. Twitch muscles, superior vision and hands like greased lightning. So what do we do? We play him on the wing!
Noble multiple times on record saying he wants players able to play multiple positions. It's a non issue. Petracca playing as a flanker did nothing to curb his development.
 

Tiberius

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Before the bye we had an average score somewhere in the order of 55 points per match, with quite a few in the 30s and 40s. I don't think we were scoring freely.
Fair point. So we weren't scoring very much despite playing the attacking inside corridor style. But teams were racking up massive scores against us. As Ferb pointed out, we had the lowest percentage in the entire history of percentages. (I possibly made that up, please don't bother correcting me with facts) This year we are scoring more and having significantly less scored against us. (And yes, it's a very small sample size)
 

the flying ham

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Our older players aren't as good as many other clubs and we are turning over the list, leaving us young unfit and prone to turnovers. Not rocket science, we will get better.
 

amaz199

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Apr 5, 2015
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Without Cunners in there we're really struggling because I reckon (based on the amount of times running forward teammates were burnt vs Eagles), we would've looked a lot better on the spread. We usually looked at the first option rather than the best option normally with Cunners.

Cunners also takes the extra offensive target (half tag usually) to mitigate his impact. Without him, the opposition can stay 1v1 or spread with a little more assurance. We really miss his ability to pinpoint the handball give or release a teammate into a F50 entry. If JHF gets spotted on the give by Cunners, holy s**t! The impossible amount of potential.

On the negative side of things (but also positive if we flex ourselves a bit more), with even more outs now with TT and LDU, opposition setups might be more dangerous. We may need to change the way we setup against Brissie. Then again, it gives opportunity to the young lads.

Interesting times ahead.
 

amaz199

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Apr 5, 2015
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The absence of Cunners forces us to be more contested oriented to support Greenwood as he's unfortunately not as mythical in contested situations compared to him.

Jy's output is also key. He needs to jump off the hot and cold train. Perhaps he needs to work with Greenwood for a bit and learn the structures a bit more?
 
We are learning our defensive structures. Last year we showed that we could play with attacking structures. As yet we aren't good enough to swap between the two during games, but we will be.
Seeing Zurhaar's game on the weekend we are still working on our structures forward but its good to see Noble pushing all the players to develop.
 
The part I'll never understand is why we push so many players into the backline. Yes, I get that you want to defend against your defender if he runs forward to prevent an outnumber. But that strategy just plays into the defender's hands and makes it incredibly hard for us to transition out of our defence.

As the OP alludes to, the best way to stop defenders pushing forward so much is to maintain a semblance of forward structure (i.e. two or three forwards that won't go behind centre) - so turnovers in our defence will lead to easy goals. I don't get the sense that we have this part figured out at all.
 

r_boy

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Aug 12, 2007
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Reminds me of a preseason game in Launceston I went to where the Hawks were so disciplined and we were a rabble during their flag run.

Hale even lined up from the goal square and the Hawks still drilled as if he were going to kick a point.

Hawks maintained their shape, they always had a down the line version of the Eagles Web and stoppages had plenty of players on the outside to either spread the ball or apply defensive pressure.

Win or lose the stoppage and they either spread, or tackle, or force the hack kick down the line where they had the outnumber and they were away again.

Then during the regular season, I watched as the Hawks were not invested in winning every contested ball, they were invested in maintaining a shape and wherever they got the ball, it was then easy to spread.

Even during the Collingwood sides of 2010/2011, I noticed how we would kick the ball down the line repeatedly and have 3 contest in the air whereas Collingwood had smalls where by the time the ball arrived, were set up like centre bounce contest with no opponent.

Good teams know what they are doing and everything is a set play. They play the percentages and get value from their possessions as they have a spread of players and always get the overlap.

Poor teams have 3 players go up in a marking contest or 3 players go for the same stoppage ball. Do that and you then have no defensive pressure and no spread.

Poor teams even when they win the ball, then play hot potato or have to stop when they take a mark.

I think you have summed it up best Shagga.

The players aren't on the same page what they're meant to be doing at any given moment.

Plenty of desperation but it is ill-directed. No one is looking past the immediate moment.
 

Frank Thring

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Mar 3, 2016
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As named last week in the forward line:
Taylor, Larkey, Mahony
Horne-Francis, Goldstein, Zurhaar

Only one player there (Goldy) is not a natural forward. All of Taylor, Mahony, and Horne-Francis are centre-forward players.

Nope. I will give you Zurhaar and Larkey but Taylor played wing, while JHF and Mahony cut their teeth in the midfield.
 

r_boy

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 12, 2007
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Also regarding our skills we might lack a half back flanker and a wingman but personnel is 10% of the issue.

Cognitive overload is probably the biggest factor in our poor skills. There's too much thinking to be done when our players get the ball.

With more structure, obvious receivers to kick to, and shared understanding then the skills will improve.
 
Sep 11, 2014
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I think you have summed it up best Shagga.

The players aren't on the same page what they're meant to be doing at any given moment.

Plenty of desperation but it is ill-directed. No one is looking past the immediate moment.

Agree. I still think our structure looks good when the opposition hasn’t brought the intensity.

As soon as they turn up the heat (look at last week as an example) I swear I can’t even tell what we’re doing as a spectator, I can’t imagine what they’re feeling.

It’s like “* they’re swarming us, I don’t want the ball, just kick it, get rid of it” and the set plan goes out the window because it won’t work.

Confidence maybe? But we need some players with some composure but also we need a strong plan for the players to be confident in as well.

Noble banged on about “process” which I still wholeheartedly agree on. Slow and steady. But we need some performance markers or KPI that won’t allow us to accept mediocre efforts etc
 

FootySmartSimpson

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Jun 18, 2007
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Agree. I still think our structure looks good when the opposition hasn’t brought the intensity.

As soon as they turn up the heat (look at last week as an example) I swear I can’t even tell what we’re doing as a spectator, I can’t imagine what they’re feeling.

It’s like “fu** they’re swarming us, I don’t want the ball, just kick it, get rid of it” and the set plan goes out the window because it won’t work.

Confidence maybe? But we need some players with some composure but also we need a strong plan for the players to be confident in as well.

Noble banged on about “process” which I still wholeheartedly agree on. Slow and steady. But we need some performance markers or KPI that won’t allow us to accept mediocre efforts etc
There is a young bull who has flied in the face of this fact so far this year. He wears the No.6.
 

amaz199

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Pressure is one thing but it comes when we're absolutely spent so its a double whammy. If we're fit enough, and push hard enough, pressure gets absorbed. Even with s**t skills, pressure means there are loose players, you just have to get the ball to them or release.

But the ball gets in our hands, we look up and there's no one ahead because we're jogging on the transition. We have to be able to run hard enough to get ahead of the ball and we simply don't.
 
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