Review Round 9, 2022 - Adelaide vs. Brisbane Lions

[morsie]

We are the highest scoring team.We must be doing something right. Fact of life is that Joe is useless in the ruck and more so now.McStay is a little short for backup ruck.Hipwood is tall enough to be a backup ruck but does not have the body.
We will have to play 2 rucks with one on the pine.

 

[Son of Superboot]

I say we play Berry on Langdon. You really should tag Oliver as well. Although not sure we can go two run with players.
It go against our normal game plan

Just get Mitch Robbo to lay one of his special "Dusty Martin" tackles on Oliver, and then he is out for the rest of the season

 

[knaf]

In terms of playing the Ds with three talls and one ruckman (Oscar, Dan, Eric and Joe), I note that Dan is listed as 195 cm and 98ks, while Jackson is 199cms and 100ks. I wonder if it would be worth matching Mc Stay with Jackson when he goes on the ball? Dan gives away a few cms but would be competitive and would match Jackson around the ground. Just putting it out there.

 

[martinson]

Sometimes you have no choice bu to kick it high and long though. Basically I think you have two distinct speeds you need to be able to play with:

1. Move it fast through the corridor, or through switching, and look to hit players on the lead or get it on the deck inside forward 50 - this can be either through hands or by hitting short kicks, but you have to be accurate and you have to do it quickly so they don't have time to reset their team zone.

2. If you have to, be prepared to kick long and slow down the line once you have set up the structure to even up the contest and force a stoppage. This is probably more a defensive strategy to avoid a turnover against you, and you can't allow Gawn or Leve/May to intercept. However, better that they intercept long down the line than from a short kick. We actually did this pretty well in that regular season game in the first half because Hippy had his best 40 minutes of contesed marking of his creer basically - this went away in the second half.

Both of these are bloody hard to do and you have to have both in your arsenal imo.

Beyond anything else, forward 50 entries have to be deep unless you are good enough to hit a player on the lead. If Melbourne want to run it the length of the ground they have to be doing it from within 30m of their own goal. If they turn the ball over on D50 or outside it, you do not have enough time to recover and get your defence in place. We are a bit quicker in the back half this year but the midfield still lacks the power running that the dees have.

One of the keys is getting it in there before their cavalry arrives but not giving them the high percentage intercept or half contested mark that they thrive on when you're doing it. As you say easier said than done. But doable if you execute well.