Remove this Banner Ad

Roast Tackling

  • Thread starter Thread starter freezer
  • Start date Start date
  • Tagged users Tagged users None

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

freezer

freezer

Team Captain
Veteran
Joined
Oct 25, 2007
Posts
560
Reaction score
574
Location
Melbourne
AFL Club
Richmond
2-0 and 6th on the ladder is a great place to be, but there is one crucial area game that we're ranked stone cold last.....

You guessed it, tackling.

We are averaging 40.5 tackles per game, 4 behind the Demons with rest of the comp pretty evenly spread between St Kilda on 52 and the Swans on 71. GWS and the Suns are 53 and 58.5.

That's a disgrace, and it's shown in our inability to stop big momentum shifts over the last 2 weeks, and I reckon goes a fair way to explaining why we were belted in the clearances last week.

When we have the ball we are a very dangerous side, but our inability to win it back or stop the opposition from taking it from a contest has meant that all of our good work is undone very quickly, and I dare say we would've got beaten pretty handily by any of last year's top eight sides with that kind of insipid display of pressure football.

Buckley made an interesting point in saying he'd select a player with application, with an ability to play a role and put his head over the ball, instead of a player with far superior skill. Maybe we need to have a good look at that now with some outstanding performances at Coburg, rather than reacting when we get beaten.

Main offenders (tackle stats for players who played two games):

Newman 2
Chaplin 2
Grigg 2
Morris 2
Ellis 1
Tuck 1
Houli 0

Pretty ordinary reading, especially when they're mainly senior mids and defenders. I reckon Houli should go very close to getting dropped on the back of this, zero tackles is simply not good enough for a defender in two close games.

Dimma has always talked about getting the fundamentals right, it'll be very interesting to see how we respond to this against the Doggies.
 
Yes it's something we need to urgently address before it catches up on us - and it will catch up on us, sooner or later. Not the finals standard footy we'll need to play to be a truly finals standard side.
 
We ranked about 9th in 2012 for tackling so think we can say we've gone backwards in this area to a degree. I think its one of the areas we (and probably every other club) seem to say they pride themselves on so is maybe an area Dimma thinks we can improve on.

I think it should be noted though that our game plan is focused on ball retention so there will be a lot of uncontested possessions - if we have the ball, we don't need to tackle. Everyone wants to have high tackling numbers but Ross Smith's style seems to be more focused on defending the space rather than directly manning up. I think it isn't a huge cause for concern just yet (remember, we've won 2 games from 2 with this relatively low tackling indicator - all that really matters is we are ahead on the scoreboard at the final siren).

I'll be interested to see how we go against a heavy contested focus team as there will be times when we need to go head to head with our opponents and need to match their intensity and defensive work.
 
NUFC Tiger said:
We ranked about 9th in 2012 for tackling so think we can say we've gone backwards in this area to a degree. I think its one of the areas we (and probably every other club) seem to say they pride themselves on so is maybe an area Dimma thinks we can improve on.

I think it should be noted though that our game plan is focused on ball retention so there will be a lot of uncontested possessions - if we have the ball, we don't need to tackle. Everyone wants to have high tackling numbers but Ross Smith's style seems to be more focused on defending the space rather than directly manning up. I think it isn't a huge cause for concern just yet (remember, we've won 2 games from 2 with this relatively low tackling indicator - all that really matters is we are ahead on the scoreboard at the final siren).

I'll be interested to see how we go against a heavy contested focus team as there will be times when we need to go head to head with our opponents and need to match their intensity and defensive work.
Click to expand...

Bloody lucky to beat the blues in the end, and the saints I reckon will finish bottom 6. Bottom line though is a HBF should have laid at least one tackle in two games, there's no way you can spin that as anything less than unacceptable.
 

Log in to remove this Banner Ad

I've never been able to understand how, as a team, you can just turn the effort in making more tackles on or off.
As a footballer, one of the basic skills is, when the other guy has the ball and you are close enough, TO MAKE A TACKLE!
It really sould be in the DNA of all AFL players.

I guess the technique thing comes into it.... come guys are much better of effecting a tackle whilst others seem unable to stick em.

Agree with the thread though.... we need to get better at this soon.
(Dogs are a good tackling side and will hunt us down on Sunday)
 
Tackling is one aspect of the game we MUST improve dramatically, otherwise we will be exposed like lambs to the slaughter in Rounds 4, 5 & 6 against the Scum, Freo and the Cats.
If there isn't an instant improvement in this area, I can see us being 3-3 with a sh!t percentage at best!
Massive problem being I cannot see an overnight improvement in this gaping deficiency of ours.
 
McGuane showed perfect tackling technique on Bootsma - brought him to ground, no free against, pinned the arm.

I vaguely recall an article where it said we were putting a focus on tackling tecnique, and I guess if you don't do it properly it either breaks or you give a way the free....and you don't get the stat.

Something's going wrong for it to be this low.....
 
Just as an adjunct, we are also the lowest 'frees against' side in the comp so far.

I guess if you are not trying to lay tackles then you will also not give away as many frees.:cool:
 
Roachy8 said:
Just as an adjunct, we are also the lowest 'frees against' side in the comp so far.

I guess if you are not trying to lay tackles then you will also not give away as many frees.:cool:
Click to expand...
Even with Kingy playing two games?! Yikes.....

Good stat, shows we're either not sticking em or not getting anywhere near em in the first place. Not good.
 
I have noticed a concerning rate of broken tackles by our boys in the first couple of Rounds.
Perhaps we struggle that little bit more against the older and more mature clubs?
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Houli is good at corralling though, he's more effective when he's pushing his opponent back 30 metres than when he steps forward to tackle. I wouldn't be judging his defensive efforts purely off one stat. Plus, we may be utilising his high fitness levels and we might be asking him to be guarding more ground than other players.

Ultimately, we've got a coaching group with a strong defensive background and I'm pretty confident they know how to judge and instruct our players on defensive issues.

One area I don't have as much confidence in is our forward 50 setups and intelligent goal creating.

Who on our coaching panel was an expert at creating goals? I reckon Riewoldt is already the smartest creator in our entire club, or perhaps Wayne Campbell (but he doesn't have enough influence over F50 entries).
 
freezer said:
Bloody lucky to beat the blues in the end, and the saints I reckon will finish bottom 6. Bottom line though is a HBF should have laid at least one tackle in two games, there's no way you can spin that as anything less than unacceptable.
Click to expand...

To be fair, if we had kicked/converted better against Carlton, they wouldn't have got as close they did and the Saints still retain a pretty formidable senior group of players (though I agree they will slide down once the older legs start getting fatigued later in the year).

It does need to improve that's for sure but as it's been pointed out by the players and Dimma himself, there is still a lot of improvement yet to come. If anything, doesn't the fact we won 2 games against 2 other top 8 hopefuls while having a pretty bad tackle count show how much the team has improved? Yes they weren't the greatest wins we've had but they were fought out, close games and we came out on top in both.

I should point out Carlton, St Kilda and Melbourne all finished above us last year for average tackles but we finished above finalists North, West Coast and Adelaide. Looking at tackling in isolation doesn't really reveal the whole picture. As I said, we play a ball retention style meaning we only need to tackle when we don't have the ball - maybe we've had a large majority of the ball and subsequently there was less time for our players to chase and apply tackles as we normally had possession.

Not sure why we need to be playing our best stuff in the opening few rounds. If we show all our cards too early, other teams may wise up once they know what the team can do. Happy for us to be flying under the radar as much as we can. We should be building up to our best stuff and looking to improve every week.
 
I was looking at that stat during the breaks against St Kilda and was very concerned. Not sure about the first quarter but it wasn't too many, it was definitely single figures in the 2nd and 3rd, and when the game was on the line in the last I think we laid 23. If we don't address that immediately we'll be in deep shit come the business end of the season...
 
I think this might have something to do with why the opposition can creep back into the game, and a few of the teams we are coming up against really get going in the last quarter which is what we need to look out for.
 

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

yes our tackling is not up to scratch but its due to certain factors as well. our game plan is not conjusive to high tackle numbers plus add in less stoppages will affect this. the add the amount missed tackles(tackles numbers are effective tackles) is also a big problem.

Still, we should be having at least around 60 per game absolute minimum.
 
theflea said:
yes our tackling is not up to scratch but its due to certain factors as well. our game plan is not conjusive to high tackle numbers plus add in less stoppages will affect this. the add the amount missed tackles(tackles numbers are effective tackles) is also a big problem.

Still, we should be having at least around 60 per game absolute minimum.
Click to expand...
If we were at about 50-55 and near or at the bottom of the rankings I'd be a little worried but happy to see where it went....but averaging 40, 4 less than the Demons and 12 less than the 3rd worst team has to be a massive cause for concern regardless of what kind of game plan we're playing.
 
mcuzzy said:
should get some rugby players to come down and teach the lads how to stick a tackle (assuming it's above knee and below neck)
Click to expand...

I think we did last year.
 
Don't give a flying about the so called tackling count. It's a myth. Get back to me when you find the "missed tackles" count. Melbourne don't have an excuse because they don't have the ball....we do. Fair to say it would be stupid for our guys to start tackling Cotch/Lids. We have the ball and thus don't need to tackle. Carrats had a fair few tackles round one (6), Jones had a few last week (6) and Pickin will have a few this week....because those guys mentioned are poo and play reactive footy and chase guys like Cotch.

PS partly joking but this is a stat that gets blown out of proportion. Tackling could use some work but not an issue for mine.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Remove this Banner Ad

🥰 Love BigFooty? Join now for free.

Back
Top Bottom