Smothers

[Slippery Pete]

People miss this point too often. When you handball as much as you kick then it is just as important. In fact it is more important, because usually a handball is the option to get out of trouble when about to be tackled or being tackled. If I was coaching and saw a player tackling around the waist without any regard for where the ball is then I would drop him.

It's the easier option, physically and mentally, to fire out a quick handball in traffic, because you generally avoid body contact or are able to at least stay upright and brace yourself for contact. When you embark on a kick, you're off balance and you have to be prepared to be pummelled.

This is what happened to us on Friday night. The excessive handball wasn't an instruction - it was a result of Hawthorn's insane pressure getting inside our heads.

When this happens, our players need to be instructed to risk the body contact and kick the ball. It takes courage. But what it does eventually is reduces the impact of the opposition's pressure because you are quickly getting the ball out of the danger zone to a spot where they have less numbers and less focus. All of a sudden they have too many numbers around the ball and not enough where the next contest is...All of a sudden they shift their own focus...

It's a game of cat and mouse - and you won't always win. But on Friday night we lost it badly.