Sydney Swans Game Style Thread + Video Analysis

[cptkirk]

Long time BF member/Swans supporter, short term Swans forum lurker and 1st time poster!

I've done a bunch of my own analysis of the Swans new game style this season on my website, including last weekends heart breaker, so I thought I'd post one of my clips from earlier this year (West Coast flogging) for anyone that is interested.

I'm a bit of a coaching geek so happy to discuss your thoughts.

2022 for the win!

HANDBALL OPTION FROM BEHIND

Local footy hasn't really taken as much to the new man on the mark rule as much as they could in my opinion but the Swans have used it for great positive change in their ball movement and this is a great look at the intricacies of how to go about it:



McInerney makes a short pass to Rampe who takes the mark and turns away from the Eagles goal which is important because it doesn't give away what he wants to do next which is handball off.

If he faces backwards then everyone in the world knows he can only do 1 thing and that's handball back, which we used to do a lot to Lloyd but that only forces us to start transition offense from deep in our own defensive half.

Fox is the first Swans player to run past but is ignored - why you ask?

The umpire has yet to called "stand" on Darling running in to man the mark so if that handball is given there's no real advantage as he can simply apply pressure straight away.

As stated Fox is ignored and he then simply turns off towards the boundary to re-create that option-from-behind space where we can now see McInerney re-enter the picture, with Darling stuck to the ground as he man's the mark.

The handball is given and is then received in front of the man on the mark rendering him useless - you'll also see the big pockets of space either side of the ball carrier to allow this run from behind to occur.

Also on the above image you can see an Eagles player coming into screen in the top left corner, who is now drawn to McInerney, leaving 2 Sydney players unmarked along the boundary line, who are then given a heap of more space once that underlined Eagles player commits to McInerney.

That Eagles player looks to be a part of the 2nd layer of the Eagles team defense but he has now left 2 Swans players open for the short 45 kick in Wicks and Buddy, even though they get in each other's way.

 

[caesar88]

Analysis? Without using stats? Have I died and gone to heaven?

Brilliant first post! Welcome to the Swans board

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

Welcome cptkirk . Thanks for that brilliant post.

Observing patterns of play (when they work or are disrupted) is one of the joys of the game. Personally I wish I could simultaneously watch the game from the fence and high in the Ponsford Stand.

 

[Jewelsbon]

That is one heck of a first post Cap, welcome and congrats!

 

[cptkirk]

Thanks guys.

Apart from not gunning for a GF, the Swans getting knocked out also results in a bit of "sameness" of game style from the remaining clubs even if they way they go about differ - the Swans style is so different to everyone else in regards to angles and you can tell when you watch it even if you can't quite nail down exactly what it is

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Welcome cptkirk
Observing patterns of play (when they work or are disrupted) is one of the joys of the game. Personally I wish I could simultaneously watch the game from the fence and high in the Ponsford Stand.

For the same reason, I feel I’ve never really watched a game unless I was there on the day AND watched it on telly.

 

[cptkirk]

For the same reason, I feel I’ve never really watched a game unless I was there on the day AND watched it on telly.

I'm not getting to the Ponsfird anytie soon but watching the Richmiond game this year from up high at the G, you could really see some of the new things we'd implemented and really pushed me to watch harder for all our other games to see if I could work out how to do it and possibly use it for whn I start coaching

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

I'm not getting to the Ponsfird anytie soon but watching the Richmiond game this year from up high at the G, you could really see some of the new things we'd implemented and really pushed me to watch harder for all our other games to see if I could work out how to do it and possibly use it for whn I start coaching

Yes, the problem half the time is knowing where to look!

 

[Nuggetz]

Great first post, it would be wonderful if tv networks would provide a camera angle from behind the goals which we could watch for the duration of the game. It would help fans notice game styles/patterns and give a better appreciation of how hard players work off ball. One day it'll happen!

 

[cptkirk]

Here's a clip from the weekend's game looking at how once we get a nark and can dictate play, we get our forwards deep and our wings relatively deep and wide to create space for runners from behind which then feeds our pressing ability at the ball and the next kick in play

We do this all the time now and noone else does



Hopefully Fox Footy play a bunch of replays from earlier this year as I'd love to take a closer look at the Brisbane and Richmond games knowing what I do now

 

[Voice of the G]

Have seen very little AFL footy in the last 10 years but I did watch the Melb v Swans game when AJ done his knee the last time.I think I spent a fair bit of the time watching our player movements down field when were going into attack.It seems we are now playing a more attacking game and wonderful to watch.Good to see Essendon played a similar game against us a few weeks back and was a wonderful game to watch.Next year I would be looking at Buddy playing further up the ground and young Logan goes to full foward.

 

[cptkirk]

Have seen very little AFL footy in the last 10 years but I did watch the Melb v Swans game when AJ done his knee the last time.I think I spent a fair bit of the time watching our player movements down field when were going into attack.It seems we are now playing a more attacking game and wonderful to watch.Good to see Essendon played a similar game against us a few weeks back and was a wonderful game to watch.Next year I would be looking at Buddy playing further up the ground and young Logan goes to full foward.

Yeah, far more attacking

Change #1 - We try not to defend from way back in defensive half as it's a long way back to our goal from there where turnovers and opposition pressure is higher.

Now once we get a mark we roll the forwrads deep into 50, wings/mids to half forward-ish and instead of hitting up targets coming at you/from in front of you and drawing fwds out of the forward 50 (again enabling defenders to roll back and outnumber), we use our defenders running from behind to drive the ball forward, often now outnumbering the oppo in our forward 50- which no one really does (they rely on players to surge back in there after the ball has gone in there - we want them there before then or at the same timer.)

Change #2 - With defending so far back we'd have all our players in the defensive half of the ground so once we did get it, we could only get it to half way and then there was nothing else ahead to go to enabling the oppo to just roll back.

Pegging off the back of change #1, now that we have all our fwds in the F50 we can now appy huge pressure if we don't get it and all they can do is panic kick it back out where we have our defensive lanes of mids/wings and then backs waiting to intercept mark and go again.

Change #3 - We try and move the ball forward as much as possible now, rather then backwards/lateral which we had to do before as all of our players were back there and we couldn't really go fwd straight out of defense.

Now we have players streaming back to our goal as soon as we re-possess the ball which means we have planty of options being unmarked players running fwd, these streaming players taking oppo players with them creating space for those running from behind to move into and play pretty much under zero pressure and add on the lanes and it can really confuse the oppo in transition which is when the oppo is most vulnerable.

 

[cptkirk]

This gives us a look at what our preferred formation loooks like tooeep the ball trapped in our forward 50/half

In short we want tall forwards at the back closest to goal, our small forwards 10 -15m in front of them for hit up leads if the opp defend deep and we kick long

OR

to crumb we kick long where we can crumb a spoil to the front of the pack or apply frontal pressure to any balls that go over the back

At about the 50m line we have our mids in a line to defend the dump kick caused by our great small forward pressure

15 or so m back from them is our backs who are the last line of the team defense about 70m from goal where any kick with extra purchase will go to them

We outnumber the oppo on every line as we're free to push up or out at the same time knowing there's players in front/behind us (I think that makes sense!)

Here's what it looks like:

 

[cptkirk]

A clip from the Geelong game in round 9 at the SCG showing us defending width when they switch then depth when they go forward + how our "lanes" work for us both defenisvely and offensively.



Happy to dicuss any of these clips by the way