Rucking and tagging

hutchy31

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Thread starter #1
I'm more than happy for our coach to be creative in how he develops our game style - we've got a young list that's going places and some of the best coaches challenge conventional tactical wisdom.

The problem is that it looks like he eschews hard tags as well as ruck contests, which can compound the problems for our midfield. Roving to Sandilands taps might be fine in isolation, but to do it without tagging the best player in the game seems a little neglectful at best.

My view is that this is a learning year on a number of levels so I'm content to see how things develop. But the past two weeks have been difficult to watch in games where opposition players are getting off the leash almost unchallenged.

Thoughts?
 

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_Mike_

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He's experimenting IMO. Picken would normally have been that negating shut down player but with that previous style of play Picken wasn't having much influence elsewhere. With the changes that left Wallis as the other shutdown player but Wallis doesn't have the match fitness IMO.

As far as the ruck situation, it is a concern. We've developed little in between Minson and Cordy/Campbell. 3 seasons of mMinson carrying the load off his own back took its toll and this is where we are paying for that. Bev needs to work out how we're going to over come that or trade for someone like Zac Smith IMO
 

dogzrule

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#3
in regard to the tag i think if we could at least curb player like Fyfe when they get on top it would help take the pace out of the game at critical time.

The ruck is a real issue, Ayce was ok around the ground but his opponent smashed him in the ruck and beat him around the ground. Further we cannot have Goodes or Bont, or Jong going up in rhe ruck as it just means we have one less player who can get the ball on the ground ?
 

Zgope1

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#4
Last year we rucked and tagged with an all star midfield and got 7 wins.

This year we don't with the second youngest team in the game and we're 4-3 and top 8 after facing 3 of last years top 4 teams and another that sits 2nd.

Rucking and tagging can suck my butt
 

hutchy31

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The results speak for themselves I would say. Apart from the St Kilda and Hawthorn game I think it has worked relatively well. It is an exciting brand of football as well.
I'm as pleased as anyone with the exciting brand of footy and with the results overall, and it does feel a bit like nit-picking. But there's an argument we'd be 6-1 without armitage and fyfe ripping us a new one the past two weeks, at least some of which might have been mitigated by a more pragmatic approach to the ruck and hard tag.

However, as I said in the OP I'm content that this is a learning year so we'll see how things go.
 

ThirdLegUp

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#7
I'm as pleased as anyone with the exciting brand of footy and with the results overall, and it does feel a bit like nit-picking. But there's an argument we'd be 6-1 without armitage and fyfe ripping us a new one the past two weeks, at least some of which might have been mitigated by a more pragmatic approach to the ruck and hard tag.

However, as I said in the OP I'm content that this is a learning year so we'll see how things go.
i wouldn't be so sure, in order to tag a man out of the game, you pretty much sacrifice a man out of your own game. We have picken and wallis, proven tagers. Wallis didn't play in either i think, and picken was good both games... so you have to then remove picken from our highlights. Not to mention 2 less players, less congestiion, less pressure as a result. There are reasons bevo does what he does, i am sure he knows both the flaws and benefits of his own gameplan. So either, his game plan doesn't work as he wishes if he sacrifices a pressurig player to the tag (which may not work, people assuming picken will 100% stop fyfe or Armatige) or he doesn't believe our boys are ready to have one man less in the system.

As for tap work... over rated. Ive seen will demolish opponents in the tap stats, but it isn't who wins the tap more times, its who wins a tap without pressure thus pinpointing his team mates that hurts. SO long as it is a contests for the ruckman just to get his hand on it first for a stat, rather then pidgeon holing it down his team mates throat, the tap numbers don't mean much. Clearances tell a better story.
 

Zgope1

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#8
I'm as pleased as anyone with the exciting brand of footy and with the results overall, and it does feel a bit like nit-picking. But there's an argument we'd be 6-1 without armitage and fyfe ripping us a new one the past two weeks, at least some of which might have been mitigated by a more pragmatic approach to the ruck and hard tag.

However, as I said in the OP I'm content that this is a learning year so we'll see how things go.
i think Bevo will look for an athletic ruck but he's just doing the best with what he's got. He has us over performing no doubt.

I think Armo had more to do with losing two inside mids last week. Fyfe more about wallis and jong playing sleepy boys and Bonts was just outworked in the clearances tonight
 

Yojimbo

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#9
I hate tagging as far as i'm concerned you may as well by
mutual agreement sit both players in the cheer squad for
the duration of the game.

Run with and playing off players is not tagging by my
definition by the way as for rucking i think Will Minson
is joined at the hip to Tom Liberatore it would be very
interesting to see how effective Libber would be in
our current game style.

Dominant opponents 2015.
Round 1- Jeremy McGovern (win):)
Round 2- Alex Rance (win):)
Round 3- Luke Hodge (loss):cool:
Round 4- Non (win):)
Round 5- Dan Hannebery (win):)
Round 6- David Armitage (loss):mad:
Round 7- Michael Johnson/ Nat Fyfe (loss):(

As you can see a variety of sizes and types have been
the big cheese in our games this year.

Bevo is doing great making tough calls and exposing his
ball sack to the world and promoting a brand of team
football that certainly has me exited!
 
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FlyingDog

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#10
It was really funny when Ayce was deep in the forward line when there was ball up. I thought Toyd or Roughy forgot his position. It looked funny but I think it worked on our favour. It looked like they were practice during the week. I loved the idea and praised brave movement from our coach.

It didn't matter who against big Sandilands he would win it 9/10 so spare the man in more dangerous spot and used more mobile smalls against Sandilands to attack the ball after Sandy tap it out. And funnier thing was big Sandy always looked to give away a high tackle free kick to our mid ruck man.

I'm not sure that move change the game but we, specially Ayce looked more dangerous.
I don't think we are going to keep using that tactic unless forced by a dominant opposition ruck like Sandilands.
I also think Ayce's ruck work keep improving in each game.
He learns and adopts the situation very quickly. It seems he is a very smart guy.

Wish he has more physical power in the near future, I know it ain't happen but just hope.
 

Next Waiting

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#11
Fyfe is close to untaggable at the moment. You'd be playing a man down attempting it. And for all his influence, they only just got up. But for 2 or 3 errors in the last 3 mins (from 88 a piece on) they may not have got up at all even with a dominant ruckman and untagged bog superstar. Ah, missed it by that much....
 

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Doggies_13

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#12
In my opinion you either have to tag or you have to have a decent ruckman. My reasoning is that yes we can employ a third man up but we are then a man down at ground level, with a decent ruck who at least breaks even our talented young mids will influence the clearances even more resulting in more inside 50 entries more scores and more chance for our forward pressure.

Our mids are good enough to beat their opponent in the clearances but we continually start on the back foot losing the ruck, so if we are losing the ruck we need to tag to quell the oppositions influence we just have to do one or the other
 

Kelvin31

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#13
Bevo comes from the Clarko mould. No taggers and average Ruckmen at Hawks has won him three flags. We just need to adjust.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Toastman

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#15
It's like a flashback to last year.
Last year it was every thread was a bag the coach thread and this year every thread is a bag Cordy thread.
 

dogwatch

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#16
It's like a flashback to last year.
Last year it was every thread was a bag the coach thread and this year every thread is a bag Cordy thread.
Every year someone gets bagged. It's human nature.
Before Macca it was Howard. Before him it was Gia, then Eagleton, then Josh Hill, then Wight, then Rawlings, then Street, then Bandy, then ...
 

BRWB

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#17
It's like a flashback to last year.
Last year it was every thread was a bag the coach thread and this year every thread is a bag Cordy thread.
Mate I'm not bagging Cordy seriously. This goes beyond Acye its about our coach's philosophy with rucks. I'll admit I haven't been Ayce's biggest fan but I rate some of his work it isn't about Ayce or Will or whoever its trying to work out what our coach is thinking and assessing that.
 

Yojimbo

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#18
In my opinion you either have to tag or you have to have a decent ruckman. My reasoning is that yes we can employ a third man up but we are then a man down at ground level, with a decent ruck who at least breaks even our talented young mids will influence the clearances even more resulting in more inside 50 entries more scores and more chance for our forward pressure.

Our mids are good enough to beat their opponent in the clearances but we continually start on the back foot losing the ruck, so if we are losing the ruck we need to tag to quell the oppositions influence we just have to do one or the other
Third man up is a set play that focuses the tap zone so everyone
knows where the space will open up, flavor of the month very much.
 

_Mike_

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Speaking of tagging, I asked the Bonts last night how he was finding it and coping with it. He said he's learning from it and trying to adjust his game with a heavy tag but was pretty upbeat about it.

I have a pic of the Bont standing next to me.. I'm not exactly short at 6'3 but Christ these kids are getting taller/bigger by the minute
 

Doggstats

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#20
Each week every team does MANY things right and MANY things wrong, people need to get rid of this notion of a winning team can't do no wrong. Even Freo and Hawthorn at their best will admit to getting things wrong and needing improvement in certain areas. Going to repaste a post I made in another thread, sorry for the length but I think it belongs in this discussion-

-Just rewatched the game, the amount of times Fyfe got first use off Sandi leading to a uncontested centre clearance was ridiculous. There was absolutely nothing our midfielders could have done, not even a hard tag would have mattered. Freo had some well run set plays which they had obviously prepared (and so will every team we play from now on since they know they will dominate the ruck). When you have a big bodied mid charging through getting a almost uncontested tap our mids have no chance. Even Ross Lyon was bewildered by our Ruck situation stating their 10 scoring shots they got from clearances probably cost us the game. It's happened every game Cordy has rucked so far, Sandi to Fyfe (30 disposals 10 clearances), Longer to Armitage (45disposals, 8 clearances), Pyke to Hannebry/Kennedy (35/25d's, 14 clr, but thankfully the wet curbed their influence here).

Last year against Freo Minson won 24 hitouts against Sandiland's 39 (Minson also had 19 disposals, 3 tackles and 7 clearances by himself!).This is compared to Cordys 3 hitouts vs Sandis 50, but most importantly Minson competed every hitout so Sandilands didn't get any uncontested easy taps and the difference is they only had 3 centre clearances to our 12, while Fyfe only had 14 disposals and 2 clearances!

Some posters on this board need to get rid of the notion that a winning team can't do no wrong. Yes we are playing bloody good footy at the moment. Yes there are many positives. But their are also glaring problems and mistakes. Eg, even if we had won the game yesterday it doesn't excuse that playing a 1 armed Jong over a fully fit Macrae wasn't a mistake. Just like the mistake of running no real ruckman and suffocating our mids when we have a fully fit and more than capable ruck in the 2nds (who also ranked 3rd in the AFL last year for hitouts, and 5th in hitouts to advantage last year). Also Bonts taking a ruck contest against Sandi is a huge mistake no matter how you look at it, to risk arguably one of the most valuable players in the league against a 130kg monster is insanity, nevermind the fact it led to another easy uncontested Fyfe clearance to Pavlich goal.
 

stefoid

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#23
IMO the a hard tag gives you a nil-all draw at best and a flogging at the worst, and it isolates the tagging player - he cant be used for offence or any other defence except for running after his man. Those two players are locked into a mini-game of their own and the nature of that game is dictated by the opposition.

I have no problem with someone like Wally, Libba or Picken standing next to a Hodge or Fyfe at the stoppages, and then in open play defending and attacking the way we have been. Picken'15 is a revelation, and Wally'15 will be too, I expect. His first two games were very good.

Just right now we have too few hard-nosed mature players at the stoppages which is letting some players get away with things.
 
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