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Analysis Tackling

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Agree. Cotchin plays to his best in a final and we win comfortably.
I thought Griff missing two shots is a bit chokish as both were easy. There were a few fumbles (no3) but otherwise just outplayed. Forwards converted inside 50 at a very high % and goal kicking was good.
Problem was more talent eg batch on waite. Goldstein. Inside mids.
 
Lsta062 said:
Good points, but my only problem is that I think we miss tackles way too often. In the EF, some Richmond players were hula-hooping around the North players while they were brushed aside and it was frustrating.

North laid more tackles than us (59-51) even though they had more disposals, and that wasn't because of some great gamestyle we were implementing, nor was it because we had more of the ball. Someone could probably go through the video and point out many occasions we missed tackles that day that would have gone a long way. Therefore, in our case, I think we should work on increasing our tackling work and sticking them when we decide to go for it.

Like I mentioned, tackling alone isn't going to get you a Premiership. But in our case, increasing our efficiency in tackling may give us that extra boost in the finals series.
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Missed tackles is a totally different kettle of fish they hurt more then no tackles
 
Lsta062 said:
Yes, you guys are right. This game is so complex nowadays that hard to take one thing in isolation. While going through the things previous Premiers did well and did average in, in all honesty, I found a range of different combinations. So it can be tough figuring out what your team should do to get that Premiership (which is why I don't envy the coaches jobs).

I just am puzzled as to why Richmond keep failing come September time no matter how well they do in the season. I don't buy into the phrase that the Richmond players are chokers. They did not look like they were choking in the EF against North Melbourne. They were simply defeated.

What are some reasons you guys think that Richmond could improve in this season? This should be a thread of its own :D
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Imo the loss in the EF had as much to do with our inability to run the ball out D50 and retain it till the F50. We did very well when we did actually do and our conversion was great. But we slaughtered so many opportunities to do better. Of course not winning the ball in the middle killed us, but we could have matched them more if we rebounded better, and faster. Nth play the type of game where speed running from defence is their weakness.
 
It's not tackling on its own. It's how you pressure the opposition when they have the ball. Tackling is one form of pressure. We tend to stand off the opposition player. I have observed we are half a metre to a metre further away than teams that do the same but exert better pressure. This leads to the ball carrier having less pressure on them allowing them to spot up players up the field and thus kicking to them with relative ease. Because of this relative ease, they hit their targets more often, which then allows them to control the next passage of play. When we are playing better, this standing back further is less apparent. We pressure the opposition better and cause them to turn the ball over.

So if you are a good tackling side you can exert good pressure, but even if you just corral the opposition you can do so with more intensity by standing a little closer and inferring more pressure that way. Some times the opposition can have a good scan around the ground and take their kick with ease because our players stand back so far.
 

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What I would like the Tigers bring into their game is tackles that hurt. Actually hurt opposition players with them, have them looking over their shoulder with perceived pressure. Have our opponents doubt themselves when they have ball in hand & bring some real mongrel to our game, as the Hawks are always walking a fine line, we also need to get nasty. Hopefully Townsend & Moore can bring that hard edge & inspire others in the same way.
 
have a RHG said:
Missed tackles is a totally different kettle of fish they hurt more then no tackles
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Yeah, missed tackles show poor execution. Since I don't think they count toward the overall tackle count, I was insinuating that we ranked 17th in tackles because of so many missed tackles
 
Tackles are a rubbish stat that Hardwick and our assistant coaches don't even use. Simply trying to tackle at all times is bad in the modern game, as unless you manage to pin the arms, the player will just get the ball out to another player and the ball will move on. It's much more important to be able to corral and hold up ball movement. Teams have much more advanced metrics these days that they follow. Both Freo and Richmond are regularly at the bottom of the ladder for simple tackles, but both have had one of the strongest defenses over the last few years because tackles don't equate to good defense.
 
Tackle ladder for 2015 total tackles
1. Syd
2. Hawks
3. North
4. Port
5. Pies
6. Dogs
7. Melbourne
8. Freo
9. Stk
10. West Coast
11. GPS
12. Dons
13. Sun's
14. Cats
15. Crows
16. Lions
17. Tigers
18. Blues

Average per game in AFL 65.7
Tigers average 57.5

Those stats are damming doesn't matter how you sugar coat it we have a problem
 
Tango67 said:
Tackle ladder for 2015 total tackles
1. Syd
2. Hawks
3. North
4. Port
5. Pies
6. Dogs
7. Melbourne
8. Freo
9. Stk
10. West Coast
11. GPS
12. Dons
13. Sun's
14. Cats
15. Crows
16. Lions
17. Tigers
18. Blues

Average per game in AFL 65.7
Tigers average 57.5

Those stats are damming doesn't matter how you sugar coat it we have a problem
Click to expand...
Would love to ask Dimma and wait for the..

'Listen. Clearly.....'
 
Spluff said:
Tackles are a rubbish stat that Hardwick and our assistant coaches don't even use. Simply trying to tackle at all times is bad in the modern game, as unless you manage to pin the arms, the player will just get the ball out to another player and the ball will move on. It's much more important to be able to corral and hold up ball movement. Teams have much more advanced metrics these days that they follow. Both Freo and Richmond are regularly at the bottom of the ladder for simple tackles, but both have had one of the strongest defenses over the last few years because tackles don't equate to good defense.
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And between both Richmond and Freo they have won 1 final in 7 cracks in two years. Something is wrong. Your/DH method works fine in home and away games , but doesn't stack up in finals
 
Spluff said:
Tackles are a rubbish stat that Hardwick and our assistant coaches don't even use. Simply trying to tackle at all times is bad in the modern game, as unless you manage to pin the arms, the player will just get the ball out to another player and the ball will move on. It's much more important to be able to corral and hold up ball movement. Teams have much more advanced metrics these days that they follow. Both Freo and Richmond are regularly at the bottom of the ladder for simple tackles, but both have had one of the strongest defenses over the last few years because tackles don't equate to good defense.
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this is why cyril rioli is in a league of his own, might only get 16 possessions but add to this his 5+ tackles and pressure acts, he will often tackle/chicken wing a bloke and shove him over sprawling creating a spillage and rendering that player useless... while cyril stays on his feet ready to swoop/block/handball receive etc... this is where this morris experiement failed as he was too clumsy, s l o w or brutal in this area often over committing, falling over, giving away free kick etc plus didnt hit the scoreboard enough. im tipping our rioli will be our version of this and playing round 1.
 
This thread comes up every year.

IMHO the basic thing going on over time is - we were a soft slack team that got smashed by bigger stronger teams. Then we got better under Dimma. And we aren't small or soft anymore. But our strategy is

  • If the opposition is coming at us to them them in and pressure them into making a poor disposal. That fundamentally requires a low tackle count as you don't want to commit to a tackle because that provides an opportunity to get the ball away. If you can maintain physical contact and pressure the opposition they are forced into a rushed disposal where they can't move it forward easily and so have the run away to get an easy kick.
  • If the opposition is going past us, or is past us, we tackle. Because once they are physically past us they have freedom to hit up a target. So you have to stop them.

Strengths: If we can get on top the opposition cannot move the ball well, and their turnovers will provide us with a great opportunity to fast break and score. If they do move the ball forward and we get it back then we have players in position to move it forward more slowly ( a strength of ours)

Weaknesses: IF the opposition can get the hard ball and set up play with us not set up in front of them then our style requires us to scramble. This is what North did. Add to that their extra KPF meant we had mismatches in their forward 50 = loss. Our game style requires us to win or nullify contests, which means we have the get bigger and deeper in the contest (Townsend and Moore + fit Conca and CEllis). And the take real advantage of our style requires us to be able to move quickly and clinically forward from a turnover. We sucked at that against good teams. Although against North when our plan worked we cut them up. Just didn't happen often enough, and North are slow anyway. So we recruited Yarran and drafted Menadue + other speedsters.

Overall I reckon Dimms et al are coming form the logic that it is the ability to move the ball that matters, not tackles. Actually forcing the opposition to take low %s is far more effective in causing turnovers and stopping scores than a focus on physical contact and tackles. It also allows a much better opportunity to fast break and score quickly. This is how we are structured an dhow we play when we win.

But our team has a few huge holes in doing this against really good teams. We rely on smallish inside mids, and only a couple of them. So we lose contests and lose our structure. Also out team is not fast and has patchy skills. Our off season recruitment fills those holes - with a nice big dose of luck.

Lastly our style is much harder to make work than physical pressure and high tackle count. It relies on discipline, fitness and great teamwork. Until now we struggle in doing it when the heat is on. Our losing finals have all featured us losing the inside contest and then being forced into a game of trying to stop a team that has space. We suck at that. So as far as tackles go. If our count is low because we are strangling the opposition then great. If it is high because we are chasing tails then BAD!! If it is high because we have added physical contact to our high pressure style then good.
 

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Disagree... if we have it first they need to get it or force a turn over if they have it we need to do the same

When the ball is in dispute it's a tackle that changes the outcome

If we tackled more in the guts and blocked or shepherded tacklers there would be more midfield ball for us
 
Under Hardwick we have been terrible at tackling - he clearly hasn't rated it as a priority(to this point)

You can be getting smashed in clearances but you might still be in the game with good pressure and tackling.

Sides like Sydney are always in the contest because of their great tackling. Sides know they are under pressure to dispose the ball. Some teams when they play Richmond know that they have time because we aren't a good tackling side.

We have shown glimpses that we can be quite good at this but we never bring it for 23 rounds.

I am hoping that Dimma is a genius, has been aware of it and has had to fix other things first. I'm hoping that we tackle and pressure like maniacs in 2016 as the other parts of our game have been sorted.
 
It's not just tackling it's physically imposing yourself on the man and the contest.
We are soft when it comes to that... I'm not saying we lack courage as all AFL players need courage I'm saying we lack mongrel and physicality.
Let's face it when teams know they are playing us they don't need to buy extra bandaging... that's what I want changed.

We were once feared and we need that ferocity back
 
Tango67 said:
Disagree... if we have it first they need to get it or force a turn over if they have it we need to do the same

When the ball is in dispute it's a tackle that changes the outcome

If we tackled more in the guts and blocked or shepherded tacklers there would be more midfield ball for us
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If it's me you are disagreeing with. That's fine. I'm really just saying what I see. My thesis on our low tackle count is below

Our focus is not on nailing the opposition. We try to corral them and pressure them into turning it over. When it is done well it causes huge problems and we get free ball with our guys running into empty territory inside their 50. My problem with that approach is that it requires huge discipline, smarts and fitness. Tackling forces contests, and thus stoppages. Teams like Sydney do that as the core of their game plan. So does North. We don't try to do that much. WHen we do it right we cause turnovers that open the opposition up. The problem with that is that you are assuming you can control eh starting point of the play. If the opposition can start it with us not set up defensively then we are chasing tail. Tackling forces a 50:50 ball. People on here prefer the simple tackling leads ot 50:50 game style. if you are better then that means you win - Simple!

Dimma etc have us playing a game style that focuses on forcing the opposition into a low % game plan, where if we do it right we have an open forward line. I personally reckon that is behind our finals losses. We had Carlton until Judd and his mates took over the contests, then we were opened up (loosing Conca didn't help). Port destroyed us inside and then outside. North took our contested ball away and so scratched out a win (we looked much more dangerous when we could play our style - they just took that away from us).

We recruited guys to fix our problems in executing the game plan. Big strong inside mids to allow us to set up our game plan. Yarran to get us moving the ball quickly to the tall forwards (+ Dusty). Everything I see is that they are trying to be more clever than other teams, except Hawthorn. What we are trying to do is a modification, or evolution, of the Hawks game plan.

It's essentially a typical game style for an invasion game.
http://tgfu.wikifoundry.com/page/Invasion+Games
http://www.thephysicaleducator.com/resources/games/invasion/

In basketball a zone defense tries to stop ball movement and open up your attack. In soccer many game plans focus on stopping space opening up and then allowing you to break into open space. IN AFL it is harder to do. Firstly because the game has no off side, and is played in such a huge space. Secondly, we have no tradition of such am approach of avoiding contact, but implying pressure to win. Lastly, it requires such fitness and discipline that most AFL players and teams have only recently been able to do it. The Hawks learnt from sports like lacrosse how to defend and create scoring chances.

The problem in AFL is that you are ceding open space if you don't tackle and the opposition can get free control over the ball. That is what kills us. It's not the tackling itself (IMHO), it's that we don't control where the ball is in relation to the players on both sides. If you can force the ball to be on the defensive side then the opposition has huge problems in moving it - if you apply physical pressure but don't commit to the tackle. Committing to the tackle as your first choice requires you to stop the player and ball completely. If the player can get their arms out they can move the ball on past the point of the tackle. that then opens up the game - which is what you don't want. However, if you can tackle well enough to stop the opposition, and you can win contested ball, then focusing on tackling is a winning strategy.

This is all my own understanding and analysis, based on watching the team and what Dimma and the coaches say. To me we are deliberately a low tackling team because that is the plan. It is not because we can't. We are trying to force the opposition to play back and sideways. That then causes turnovers as you can't win doing that. But, like I said, our team has weaknesses in structure for this game plan. And we are only now trying to fix them. If the recruits work then we could really cause some damage this year. We control that contested ball, and get movement into JR/TV/Griff/Dusty/Lids/McBean(?)/whoever then we will destroy teams. It's all intellectually fabulous. But reality is that the idea requires more than what we have been able to deliver at times. We'll see.

Anyway, this has made me put into words things I have thought of, but never worked through until now. I suppose I should do some actual paid work now.
 
The stat which kills you is "missed-tackles"(mis-tackles?? not sure of spelling). I don't for the life of me know why it isn't recorded but IMO it is far more important. There isn't a stat which shows perfect body positioning which prevents an opponent from either gaining or disposing of the ball...so in this a tackle number can be useless.

But whenever there is a mistackle a player usually breaks the lines or creates some sort of overlap. If our number of mistackles is high then i'm with you OP. Otherwise....meh.
 
Ancient Tiger said:
It's not tackling on its own. It's how you pressure the opposition when they have the ball. Tackling is one form of pressure. We tend to stand off the opposition player. I have observed we are half a metre to a metre further away than teams that do the same but exert better pressure. This leads to the ball carrier having less pressure on them allowing them to spot up players up the field and thus kicking to them with relative ease. Because of this relative ease, they hit their targets more often, which then allows them to control the next passage of play. When we are playing better, this standing back further is less apparent. We pressure the opposition better and cause them to turn the ball over.

So if you are a good tackling side you can exert good pressure, but even if you just corral the opposition you can do so with more intensity by standing a little closer and inferring more pressure that way. Some times the opposition can have a good scan around the ground and take their kick with ease because our players stand back so far.
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I think we corral a lot but then that comes unstuck because the time and space created for us to acquire the ball in the next play doesn't come off. Are we out of position or don't understand the moment to corral verses having to get the ball and move it forward? Seems we leave it to the last line of defence too much. Should have been dealt with earlier.
 

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Tango67 said:
Tackle ladder for 2015 total tackles
1. Syd
2. Hawks
3. North
4. Port
5. Pies
6. Dogs
7. Melbourne
8. Freo
9. Stk
10. West Coast
11. GPS
12. Dons
13. Sun's
14. Cats
15. Crows
16. Lions
17. Tigers
18. Blues

Average per game in AFL 65.7
Tigers average 57.5

Those stats are damming doesn't matter how you sugar coat it we have a problem
Click to expand...

Yet last year our defense ie points against was the best it has been in 50 years. IMO tackling alone is the least of our issues, what is killing us is our transition from defense to offence. To often we get caught out of position due to a silly error ( so the players cant even lay a tackle) and get scored against. We are also one of the worst offensive sides.

IMO that is why not having jake king hurt us badly last year. We are screaming for someone to lay a crunching tackle or cause a turn over in our forward 50 so we can score. IMO we need to fix our forward 50 pressure on the ball carrier, do that and lift our goals per game by 2 and statistically, even with tackles being low, we match the top 3 sides in offence ( scoring) and defense ( score conceded).
 
For Home and Away games our method works great, but in the finals it's an absolute must to apply tackling pressure. Hawthorn do it better than anyone when it matters, they are manic and cause turnover after turnover.
 
Tiger71 said:
Yet last year our defense ie points against was the best it has been in 50 years. IMO tackling alone is the least of our issues, what is killing us is our transition from defense to offence. To often we get caught out of position due to a silly error ( so the players cant even lay a tackle) and get scored against. We are also one of the worst offensive sides.

IMO that is why not having jake king hurt us badly last year. We are screaming for someone to lay a crunching tackle or cause a turn over in our forward 50 so we can score. IMO we need to fix our forward 50 pressure on the ball carrier, do that and lift our goals per game by 2 and statistically, even with tackles being low, we match the top 3 sides in offence ( scoring) and defense ( score conceded).
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Couldn't agree more. Well said.
To compound the issue when we play 3 talls the tackle pressure drops right off. TV, Griff, and Jack are not quick so the plus one usually gets loose.
We need a speedy little prick to cause some panic.
 
CotchyCrew said:
For Home and Away games our method works great, but in the finals it's an absolute must to apply tackling pressure. Hawthorn do it better than anyone when it matters, they are manic and cause turnover after turnover.
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100% agree with this but also half expected it with hindsight. Now not excusing Hardwick here but when he took over he mentioned his game plan coming in stages. In his first three years, our team was for two of them really shit, he then flooded it with kids. In his 4th year he now had talent though young and got them winning home and away games consistently, something we have not done since the 70's.

IMO most of our 22 now have the body to play finals footy. Finals footy is unique in the sense its old school tackle and close your man, if you do that you win. It's a taxing way to play hence normally only done in finals as it can be maintained and if you are winning you get a rest for a week. We have yet to perform that way, i look forward to us doing that this time round, if we dont and still persist with the same game style as in the home and away season, well Hardwick would then need to be seriously questioned as to why.
 

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