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Themanbun's Midfield Minute

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Sneak peak of what's in store for this week, bit of something different on top of the usual. Our first quarter match up at stoppages (I will get to the whole game). It's crude but given I saw a lot of one on one wins this week I thought it would be a useful exercise. Includes centre bounces and stoppages. The 'other+other' are mostly all around the ground stoppages where wings and flankers get involved.

What's interesting is that when LDU went off, Dunkley went straight to Parker.

Matchups.png
 
!!!Post vs Brisbane!!!

I'm going to depart from the usual stoppage structure analysis today. You may ask "why?" and I hope it becomes clear after this post.

Put simply, I think this week's midfield battle was won on basics. No fancy structures I could observe. We simply went man on man and used our leaders to identify the best match ups that we thought favoured us, and Brisbane seemed content to do the same. And it worked, for us at least. While I think this game was 'won' (we performed better than expected) because our transition defence allowed us to restrict their scoring, our midfield did pave the way for that through getting on top of theirs. So this post will focus on those two things.

Here's how that played out across the course of the match (disclaimer - it's not perfect - as Rick18 can attest to, camera angles are rough and one stoppage we completely missed because they decided to play a Big Bash highlight?).

Matchups
Matchups - Total.png


Here's how we went at all stoppages and centre bounces across the match. They were considered a 'line up' if they were within a metre or so, or engaged in any jostling as the ball went up.

As you can see, there was a relatively even spread with a few outliers.

The 'other/other' is usually around the ground where the skinny winger gets involved, or in the inside 50s where you see small backs/small forwards lined up. I wanted to home in on the midfield battle. Brisbane did use their experience to manufacture a loose 'other' inside 50 a fair bit more than us, which should be a focus area for improvement. Too many times they had a loose when there was a stoppage in our D50, which is the opposite of what you want.

General notes: Parker and Simpkin's 'other' and 'zorko' weighting reflects their half forward starting position rolling up to the stoppage, which they play more than others.

Josh Dunkley vs LDU

Brisbane wanted this match up desperately. Every opportunity they got, until the dying moments of the game (which I'll highlight), they used Dunkley on LDU. Nothing hugely 'taggy' in terms of around the ground stuff, but Dunkley is a very physical midfielder and he engaged LDU physically whenever he could.

LDU's clearance influence was down, but the laxity across the ground is where he won the battle.

How did we compensate? X recognised this battle going down against our best clearance player, so he just cleared the ****ing thing himself. Which is an incredibly effective ace to have up your sleeve.

Wardlaw and Parker (ft. Powell and LDU) vs Neale

We liked this one a lot. And they completely pushed Lachie Neale out of the game. Which is an incredible feat. It got so bad that they released Dunkley briefly from LDU and tried to force an LDU vs Neale head to head. Which he also lost. As it became evident that he was either having an off day, or did not match up well against our blokes, they shifted him to Bailey Scott on the wing for a bit, and then tried to manufacture him as a loose as well. The latter did work and it probably saved them the game.

But what these two - one at the start of his career and the other at the other end - were able to do to Neale while having influence themselves, was incredible.

The Value of the Generals

The rest of this post is going to be an homage to Parker and Simpkin, with a few features from Colby and Powell, because, realistically, they were crucial to getting the matchups we wanted and calling when to try to break one. This improved communication and selflessness is really great to see.

Instance 1: Parker (ft. Colby) organise the Neale match up.

It's a little difficult to see here, since Parker is obscured by Ashcroft, but Colby gets his attention (kudos). Powell, who was just on Neale at a stoppage 4 seconds prior (X wrapped Neale up), just jumped to the nearest bloke he could find (McLuggage). However, McLuggage had actually rolled in from the wing (FOS is his man, just behind him here). Colby points out that Neale got up from the tackle opponent-less, and Parker directs Powell to push to him and FOS to push to Hugh. As the ball reaches its downward arc, they manage to equalise the stoppage.

To appreciate this - this all takes place in about 2-3 seconds real time.

The result of the stoppage was a ruck free kick, so it ended up pointless, but this is an example of how switched on, consistently, players have to be all game to stack the odds in their favour of winning.

Parker Colby Organise Powell.png

Parker Colby 2.png


Parker Colby 3.png

Instance 2: Parker organises - but a bit too much going on

So at this stoppage - Jy is asking who's on Neale and goes to get him himself. Parker points him out, tells Jy to roll back, and Parker will take him.

Unfortunately TP didn't quite hear it for whatever reason, and he also rolls to Neale.

No time to say anything - Parker uses a physical cue to make it as obvious as possible to Tommy that he needs to turn around and focus on the stoppage. He physically engages Neale early, just before TP gets to him, with a massive shove and hold. TP gets the message, and while I can't isolate it with my poverty snip tool, you can see TP mouth "[potential expletive, sorry" as he rolls back into the stoppage and manages to track with Ashcroft.

Again, this all taking place across 3-5 seconds.

X, potentially seeing all this, grabs it out of the ruck. I am kind of noticing a pattern here and maybe his ruck grabs are smarter than we think from the outside - but yet to confirm my theory.

Parker Powell Neale 1.png
Parker Powell Neale 2.png
Parker Powell Neale 3.png

Instance 3 - Parker breaks Dunkley's rhythm

In the first quarter, in all 9 stoppages LDU attended, Dunkley minded him at every single one. In a stoppage 4 seconds prior, he did the same.

With the extra time given for a boundary throw in, Parker makes a bee line for LDU, says a few words, and then runs straight to engage Josh Dunkley, while LDU goes direct to Neale with intent.

Dunkley is confused, looks to Neale to confirm if he's okay with it (looks like he was), but then goes to rush LDU's running lane when the ball comes in. Parker physically restrains him from doing so.

Parker break LDU tag 1.png
Parker break LDU tag 2.png
Parker break LDU tag 3.png
Parker break LDU tag 4.png

Instance 4 - Jy breaks Dunkley's rhythm

Jy does exactly the same thing twice here as well (one shortly before this, but with even worse resolution). He organises the outside of the stoppage - setting the FOS in position. Then he grabs Dunkley. By now, Dunkley is onto what we're doing, so he pretends to stand next to Jy but rushes LDU (who has targeted Ashcroft) at the first opportunity. Jy anticipates this, gets around the back of him, and runs through to block Dunkley engaging LDU.

Jy Dunkley 1.png
Jy Dunkley 2.png

Instance 5 - Parker corrects stoppage imbalance by splitting the difference

At this point in the game, Brisbane had temporarily abandoned the Dunkley/LDU match up to try and force Neale into the game. They ran McLuggage on LDU, and then tried to sneak Neale up to the stoppage as a loose from somewhere outside of the midfield rotating with one of their non-recognisable players.

Wardlaw doesn't pick up on it and goes to collect McLuggage, who is already heading for LDU, meaning Neale was on his lonesome.

Parker is the only one of our midfielders to notice this, and shows some really great craft in splitting the difference between Dunkley and Neale (to the right of the umpire) to prevent them both from being an option. He happily took himself out of this contest to do so.

Parker Splits Difference 1.png

Parker Splits Difference 2.png


Instance 6 - Powell is learning

Look, throughout this match, TP was probably the main culprit at being out of position/sync in the stoppages. But this one shows he is learning.

TP recognises that there's an unmanned Lion to the left of the stoppage. He shouts to Jy (who importantly, listens), who shouts to LDU (who importantly, listens), and they all roll one player to their right to man them up.

Talk and man up 1.png
Talk and man up 2.png


Last little bonus - one contest to win it all - Wardlaw is our biggest threat

18 seconds left in the match. Stoppage in our forward 50. Josh Dunkley does something he has refused to do for the vast majority of the match.

He abandons LDU and seeks out Wardlaw. He goes straight to the kid and literally bear hugs him, facing away from the play (it takes some squinting, but the bottom right of the screen just captures it). He was willing to risk the umpires calling that, than let Wardlaw have a run at that footy.

That's all you need to know about the threat this kid poses when one contest has it all on the line. Take it as a compliment, George.

Dunkley to Wardlaw 1.png
Dunkley to Wardlaw 2.png
Dunkley to Wardlaw 3.png


-----

Hoped you enjoyed it, folks! Something a little different focusing on some of the nuances of the craft.
 

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Its a grouse post. Nothing further. Thanks for doing it.
 
Side notes:

• Dunkley is an animal and Brisbane are blessed to have him
• I was mostly wrong in my in game assessment: LDU did get attention around the stoppages. Given that's the way Dunkley plays it probably falls short of a hard tag but they definitely wanted that match up.
• Powell did not play a defensive role on Neale.
 

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Themanbun said:
!!!Post vs Brisbane!!!

I'm going to depart from the usual stoppage structure analysis today. You may ask "why?" and I hope it becomes clear after this post.

Put simply, I think this week's midfield battle was won on basics. No fancy structures I could observe. We simply went man on man and used our leaders to identify the best match ups that we thought favoured us, and Brisbane seemed content to do the same. And it worked, for us at least. While I think this game was 'won' (we performed better than expected) because our transition defence allowed us to restrict their scoring, our midfield did pave the way for that through getting on top of theirs. So this post will focus on those two things.

Here's how that played out across the course of the match (disclaimer - it's not perfect - as Rick18 can attest to, camera angles are rough and one stoppage we completely missed because they decided to play a Big Bash highlight?).

Matchups
View attachment 2313409


Here's how we went at all stoppages and centre bounces across the match. They were considered a 'line up' if they were within a metre or so, or engaged in any jostling as the ball went up.

As you can see, there was a relatively even spread with a few outliers.

The 'other/other' is usually around the ground where the skinny winger gets involved, or in the inside 50s where you see small backs/small forwards lined up. I wanted to home in on the midfield battle. Brisbane did use their experience to manufacture a loose 'other' inside 50 a fair bit more than us, which should be a focus area for improvement. Too many times they had a loose when there was a stoppage in our D50, which is the opposite of what you want.

General notes: Parker and Simpkin's 'other' and 'zorko' weighting reflects their half forward starting position rolling up to the stoppage, which they play more than others.

Josh Dunkley vs LDU

Brisbane wanted this match up desperately. Every opportunity they got, until the dying moments of the game (which I'll highlight), they used Dunkley on LDU. Nothing hugely 'taggy' in terms of around the ground stuff, but Dunkley is a very physical midfielder and he engaged LDU physically whenever he could.

LDU's clearance influence was down, but the laxity across the ground is where he won the battle.

How did we compensate? X recognised this battle going down against our best clearance player, so he just cleared the ****ing thing himself. Which is an incredibly effective ace to have up your sleeve.

Wardlaw and Parker (ft. Powell and LDU) vs Neale

We liked this one a lot. And they completely pushed Lachie Neale out of the game. Which is an incredible feat. It got so bad that they released Dunkley briefly from LDU and tried to force an LDU vs Neale head to head. Which he also lost. As it became evident that he was either having an off day, or did not match up well against our blokes, they shifted him to Bailey Scott on the wing for a bit, and then tried to manufacture him as a loose as well. The latter did work and it probably saved them the game.

But what these two - one at the start of his career and the other at the other end - were able to do to Neale while having influence themselves, was incredible.

The Value of the Generals

The rest of this post is going to be an homage to Parker and Simpkin, with a few features from Colby and Powell, because, realistically, they were crucial to getting the matchups we wanted and calling when to try to break one. This improved communication and selflessness is really great to see.

Instance 1: Parker (ft. Colby) organise the Neale match up.

It's a little difficult to see here, since Parker is obscured by Ashcroft, but Colby gets his attention (kudos). Powell, who was just on Neale at a stoppage 4 seconds prior (X wrapped Neale up), just jumped to the nearest bloke he could find (McLuggage). However, McLuggage had actually rolled in from the wing (FOS is his man, just behind him here). Colby points out that Neale got up from the tackle opponent-less, and Parker directs Powell to push to him and FOS to push to Hugh. As the ball reaches its downward arc, they manage to equalise the stoppage.

To appreciate this - this all takes place in about 2-3 seconds real time.

The result of the stoppage was a ruck free kick, so it ended up pointless, but this is an example of how switched on, consistently, players have to be all game to stack the odds in their favour of winning.

View attachment 2313435

View attachment 2313438


View attachment 2313444

Instance 2: Parker organises - but a bit too much going on

So at this stoppage - Jy is asking who's on Neale and goes to get him himself. Parker points him out, tells Jy to roll back, and Parker will take him.

Unfortunately TP didn't quite hear it for whatever reason, and he also rolls to Neale.

No time to say anything - Parker uses a physical cue to make it as obvious as possible to Tommy that he needs to turn around and focus on the stoppage. He physically engages Neale early, just before TP gets to him, with a massive shove and hold. TP gets the message, and while I can't isolate it with my poverty snip tool, you can see TP mouth "[potential expletive, sorry" as he rolls back into the stoppage and manages to track with Ashcroft.

Again, this all taking place across 3-5 seconds.

X, potentially seeing all this, grabs it out of the ruck. I am kind of noticing a pattern here and maybe his ruck grabs are smarter than we think from the outside - but yet to confirm my theory.

View attachment 2313450
View attachment 2313456
View attachment 2313458

Instance 3 - Parker breaks Dunkley's rhythm

In the first quarter, in all 9 stoppages LDU attended, Dunkley minded him at every single one. In a stoppage 4 seconds prior, he did the same.

With the extra time given for a boundary throw in, Parker makes a bee line for LDU, says a few words, and then runs straight to engage Josh Dunkley, while LDU goes direct to Neale with intent.

Dunkley is confused, looks to Neale to confirm if he's okay with it (looks like he was), but then goes to rush LDU's running lane when the ball comes in. Parker physically restrains him from doing so.

View attachment 2313465
View attachment 2313466
View attachment 2313468
View attachment 2313469

Instance 4 - Jy breaks Dunkley's rhythm

Jy does exactly the same thing twice here as well (one shortly before this, but with even worse resolution). He organises the outside of the stoppage - setting the FOS in position. Then he grabs Dunkley. By now, Dunkley is onto what we're doing, so he pretends to stand next to Jy but rushes LDU (who has targeted Ashcroft) at the first opportunity. Jy anticipates this, gets around the back of him, and runs through to block Dunkley engaging LDU.

View attachment 2313473
View attachment 2313474

Instance 5 - Parker corrects stoppage imbalance by splitting the difference

At this point in the game, Brisbane had temporarily abandoned the Dunkley/LDU match up to try and force Neale into the game. They ran McLuggage on LDU, and then tried to sneak Neale up to the stoppage as a loose from somewhere outside of the midfield rotating with one of their non-recognisable players.

Wardlaw doesn't pick up on it and goes to collect McLuggage, who is already heading for LDU, meaning Neale was on his lonesome.

Parker is the only one of our midfielders to notice this, and shows some really great craft in splitting the difference between Dunkley and Neale (to the right of the umpire) to prevent them both from being an option. He happily took himself out of this contest to do so.

View attachment 2313479

View attachment 2313482


Instance 6 - Powell is learning

Look, throughout this match, TP was probably the main culprit at being out of position/sync in the stoppages. But this one shows he is learning.

TP recognises that there's an unmanned Lion to the left of the stoppage. He shouts to Jy (who importantly, listens), who shouts to LDU (who importantly, listens), and they all roll one player to their right to man them up.

View attachment 2313492
View attachment 2313494


Last little bonus - one contest to win it all - Wardlaw is our biggest threat

18 seconds left in the match. Stoppage in our forward 50. Josh Dunkley does something he has refused to do for the vast majority of the match.

He abandons LDU and seeks out Wardlaw. He goes straight to the kid and literally bear hugs him, facing away from the play (it takes some squinting, but the bottom right of the screen just captures it). He was willing to risk the umpires calling that, than let Wardlaw have a run at that footy.

That's all you need to know about the threat this kid poses when one contest has it all on the line. Take it as a compliment, George.

View attachment 2313503
View attachment 2313504
View attachment 2313505


-----

Hoped you enjoyed it, folks! Something a little different focusing on some of the nuances of the craft.
Click to expand...
Rick18 hes coming for your job mate
 
Themanbun said:
!!!Post vs Brisbane!!!

I'm going to depart from the usual stoppage structure analysis today. You may ask "why?" and I hope it becomes clear after this post.

Put simply, I think this week's midfield battle was won on basics. No fancy structures I could observe. We simply went man on man and used our leaders to identify the best match ups that we thought favoured us, and Brisbane seemed content to do the same. And it worked, for us at least. While I think this game was 'won' (we performed better than expected) because our transition defence allowed us to restrict their scoring, our midfield did pave the way for that through getting on top of theirs. So this post will focus on those two things.

Here's how that played out across the course of the match (disclaimer - it's not perfect - as Rick18 can attest to, camera angles are rough and one stoppage we completely missed because they decided to play a Big Bash highlight?).

Matchups
View attachment 2313409


Here's how we went at all stoppages and centre bounces across the match. They were considered a 'line up' if they were within a metre or so, or engaged in any jostling as the ball went up.

As you can see, there was a relatively even spread with a few outliers.

The 'other/other' is usually around the ground where the skinny winger gets involved, or in the inside 50s where you see small backs/small forwards lined up. I wanted to home in on the midfield battle. Brisbane did use their experience to manufacture a loose 'other' inside 50 a fair bit more than us, which should be a focus area for improvement. Too many times they had a loose when there was a stoppage in our D50, which is the opposite of what you want.

General notes: Parker and Simpkin's 'other' and 'zorko' weighting reflects their half forward starting position rolling up to the stoppage, which they play more than others.

Josh Dunkley vs LDU

Brisbane wanted this match up desperately. Every opportunity they got, until the dying moments of the game (which I'll highlight), they used Dunkley on LDU. Nothing hugely 'taggy' in terms of around the ground stuff, but Dunkley is a very physical midfielder and he engaged LDU physically whenever he could.

LDU's clearance influence was down, but the laxity across the ground is where he won the battle.

How did we compensate? X recognised this battle going down against our best clearance player, so he just cleared the ****ing thing himself. Which is an incredibly effective ace to have up your sleeve.

Wardlaw and Parker (ft. Powell and LDU) vs Neale

We liked this one a lot. And they completely pushed Lachie Neale out of the game. Which is an incredible feat. It got so bad that they released Dunkley briefly from LDU and tried to force an LDU vs Neale head to head. Which he also lost. As it became evident that he was either having an off day, or did not match up well against our blokes, they shifted him to Bailey Scott on the wing for a bit, and then tried to manufacture him as a loose as well. The latter did work and it probably saved them the game.

But what these two - one at the start of his career and the other at the other end - were able to do to Neale while having influence themselves, was incredible.

The Value of the Generals

The rest of this post is going to be an homage to Parker and Simpkin, with a few features from Colby and Powell, because, realistically, they were crucial to getting the matchups we wanted and calling when to try to break one. This improved communication and selflessness is really great to see.

Instance 1: Parker (ft. Colby) organise the Neale match up.

It's a little difficult to see here, since Parker is obscured by Ashcroft, but Colby gets his attention (kudos). Powell, who was just on Neale at a stoppage 4 seconds prior (X wrapped Neale up), just jumped to the nearest bloke he could find (McLuggage). However, McLuggage had actually rolled in from the wing (FOS is his man, just behind him here). Colby points out that Neale got up from the tackle opponent-less, and Parker directs Powell to push to him and FOS to push to Hugh. As the ball reaches its downward arc, they manage to equalise the stoppage.

To appreciate this - this all takes place in about 2-3 seconds real time.

The result of the stoppage was a ruck free kick, so it ended up pointless, but this is an example of how switched on, consistently, players have to be all game to stack the odds in their favour of winning.

View attachment 2313435

View attachment 2313438


View attachment 2313444

Instance 2: Parker organises - but a bit too much going on

So at this stoppage - Jy is asking who's on Neale and goes to get him himself. Parker points him out, tells Jy to roll back, and Parker will take him.

Unfortunately TP didn't quite hear it for whatever reason, and he also rolls to Neale.

No time to say anything - Parker uses a physical cue to make it as obvious as possible to Tommy that he needs to turn around and focus on the stoppage. He physically engages Neale early, just before TP gets to him, with a massive shove and hold. TP gets the message, and while I can't isolate it with my poverty snip tool, you can see TP mouth "[potential expletive, sorry" as he rolls back into the stoppage and manages to track with Ashcroft.

Again, this all taking place across 3-5 seconds.

X, potentially seeing all this, grabs it out of the ruck. I am kind of noticing a pattern here and maybe his ruck grabs are smarter than we think from the outside - but yet to confirm my theory.

View attachment 2313450
View attachment 2313456
View attachment 2313458

Instance 3 - Parker breaks Dunkley's rhythm

In the first quarter, in all 9 stoppages LDU attended, Dunkley minded him at every single one. In a stoppage 4 seconds prior, he did the same.

With the extra time given for a boundary throw in, Parker makes a bee line for LDU, says a few words, and then runs straight to engage Josh Dunkley, while LDU goes direct to Neale with intent.

Dunkley is confused, looks to Neale to confirm if he's okay with it (looks like he was), but then goes to rush LDU's running lane when the ball comes in. Parker physically restrains him from doing so.

View attachment 2313465
View attachment 2313466
View attachment 2313468
View attachment 2313469

Instance 4 - Jy breaks Dunkley's rhythm

Jy does exactly the same thing twice here as well (one shortly before this, but with even worse resolution). He organises the outside of the stoppage - setting the FOS in position. Then he grabs Dunkley. By now, Dunkley is onto what we're doing, so he pretends to stand next to Jy but rushes LDU (who has targeted Ashcroft) at the first opportunity. Jy anticipates this, gets around the back of him, and runs through to block Dunkley engaging LDU.

View attachment 2313473
View attachment 2313474

Instance 5 - Parker corrects stoppage imbalance by splitting the difference

At this point in the game, Brisbane had temporarily abandoned the Dunkley/LDU match up to try and force Neale into the game. They ran McLuggage on LDU, and then tried to sneak Neale up to the stoppage as a loose from somewhere outside of the midfield rotating with one of their non-recognisable players.

Wardlaw doesn't pick up on it and goes to collect McLuggage, who is already heading for LDU, meaning Neale was on his lonesome.

Parker is the only one of our midfielders to notice this, and shows some really great craft in splitting the difference between Dunkley and Neale (to the right of the umpire) to prevent them both from being an option. He happily took himself out of this contest to do so.

View attachment 2313479

View attachment 2313482


Instance 6 - Powell is learning

Look, throughout this match, TP was probably the main culprit at being out of position/sync in the stoppages. But this one shows he is learning.

TP recognises that there's an unmanned Lion to the left of the stoppage. He shouts to Jy (who importantly, listens), who shouts to LDU (who importantly, listens), and they all roll one player to their right to man them up.

View attachment 2313492
View attachment 2313494


Last little bonus - one contest to win it all - Wardlaw is our biggest threat

18 seconds left in the match. Stoppage in our forward 50. Josh Dunkley does something he has refused to do for the vast majority of the match.

He abandons LDU and seeks out Wardlaw. He goes straight to the kid and literally bear hugs him, facing away from the play (it takes some squinting, but the bottom right of the screen just captures it). He was willing to risk the umpires calling that, than let Wardlaw have a run at that footy.

That's all you need to know about the threat this kid poses when one contest has it all on the line. Take it as a compliment, George.

View attachment 2313503
View attachment 2313504
View attachment 2313505


-----

Hoped you enjoyed it, folks! Something a little different focusing on some of the nuances of the craft.
Click to expand...

Really interesting, great observations as usual.

My biggest revelation was based on the comment regarding Powell stuffing up. He admitted it, which tells me we have a plan that can be stuffed up. Been hard to see for the past 6 years so that is great!
 
Moti said:
Really interesting, great observations as usual.

My biggest revelation was based on the comment regarding Powell stuffing up. He admitted it, which tells me we have a plan that can be stuffed up. Been hard to see for the past 6 years so that is great!
Click to expand...

I did have this post on my bingo card.
 
Luke Parker, what a pick up by Clarko, exactly what we needed, in spades
 

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Been very evident in recent weeks that the team defensive running and cutting off opposition running lanes has noticeably improved.

Without breaking down the game play by play it seemed to me that the biggest improvers in this space were LDU, Powell and Kerch (who I’ve been really critical of this year). Themanbun
Im happy that your posts support the little team things that I’m noticing when watching the game live! Also further supports my views that Parker will be worth his weight in gold for his ability to provide onfield direction and leadership.
 
muttley45 said:
Luke Parker, what a pick up by Clarko, exactly what we needed, in spades
Click to expand...

100%

All of the instances I posted, and there were many more, none of it gets him a stat.

To do that, and then to have the influence with the ball that he did, while working with a 20yo ball hunting mid to nullify a Brownlow medallist, across a whole 2.5 hour game, is incredible.

The mental energy and focus that takes to do what he did is phenomenal.
 
Themanbun said:
!!!Post vs Brisbane!!!

I'm going to depart from the usual stoppage structure analysis today. You may ask "why?" and I hope it becomes clear after this post.

Put simply, I think this week's midfield battle was won on basics. No fancy structures I could observe. We simply went man on man and used our leaders to identify the best match ups that we thought favoured us, and Brisbane seemed content to do the same. And it worked, for us at least. While I think this game was 'won' (we performed better than expected) because our transition defence allowed us to restrict their scoring, our midfield did pave the way for that through getting on top of theirs. So this post will focus on those two things.

Here's how that played out across the course of the match (disclaimer - it's not perfect - as Rick18 can attest to, camera angles are rough and one stoppage we completely missed because they decided to play a Big Bash highlight?).

Matchups
View attachment 2313409


Here's how we went at all stoppages and centre bounces across the match. They were considered a 'line up' if they were within a metre or so, or engaged in any jostling as the ball went up.

As you can see, there was a relatively even spread with a few outliers.

The 'other/other' is usually around the ground where the skinny winger gets involved, or in the inside 50s where you see small backs/small forwards lined up. I wanted to home in on the midfield battle. Brisbane did use their experience to manufacture a loose 'other' inside 50 a fair bit more than us, which should be a focus area for improvement. Too many times they had a loose when there was a stoppage in our D50, which is the opposite of what you want.

General notes: Parker and Simpkin's 'other' and 'zorko' weighting reflects their half forward starting position rolling up to the stoppage, which they play more than others.

Josh Dunkley vs LDU

Brisbane wanted this match up desperately. Every opportunity they got, until the dying moments of the game (which I'll highlight), they used Dunkley on LDU. Nothing hugely 'taggy' in terms of around the ground stuff, but Dunkley is a very physical midfielder and he engaged LDU physically whenever he could.

LDU's clearance influence was down, but the laxity across the ground is where he won the battle.

How did we compensate? X recognised this battle going down against our best clearance player, so he just cleared the ****ing thing himself. Which is an incredibly effective ace to have up your sleeve.

Wardlaw and Parker (ft. Powell and LDU) vs Neale

We liked this one a lot. And they completely pushed Lachie Neale out of the game. Which is an incredible feat. It got so bad that they released Dunkley briefly from LDU and tried to force an LDU vs Neale head to head. Which he also lost. As it became evident that he was either having an off day, or did not match up well against our blokes, they shifted him to Bailey Scott on the wing for a bit, and then tried to manufacture him as a loose as well. The latter did work and it probably saved them the game.

But what these two - one at the start of his career and the other at the other end - were able to do to Neale while having influence themselves, was incredible.

The Value of the Generals

The rest of this post is going to be an homage to Parker and Simpkin, with a few features from Colby and Powell, because, realistically, they were crucial to getting the matchups we wanted and calling when to try to break one. This improved communication and selflessness is really great to see.

Instance 1: Parker (ft. Colby) organise the Neale match up.

It's a little difficult to see here, since Parker is obscured by Ashcroft, but Colby gets his attention (kudos). Powell, who was just on Neale at a stoppage 4 seconds prior (X wrapped Neale up), just jumped to the nearest bloke he could find (McLuggage). However, McLuggage had actually rolled in from the wing (FOS is his man, just behind him here). Colby points out that Neale got up from the tackle opponent-less, and Parker directs Powell to push to him and FOS to push to Hugh. As the ball reaches its downward arc, they manage to equalise the stoppage.

To appreciate this - this all takes place in about 2-3 seconds real time.

The result of the stoppage was a ruck free kick, so it ended up pointless, but this is an example of how switched on, consistently, players have to be all game to stack the odds in their favour of winning.

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Instance 2: Parker organises - but a bit too much going on

So at this stoppage - Jy is asking who's on Neale and goes to get him himself. Parker points him out, tells Jy to roll back, and Parker will take him.

Unfortunately TP didn't quite hear it for whatever reason, and he also rolls to Neale.

No time to say anything - Parker uses a physical cue to make it as obvious as possible to Tommy that he needs to turn around and focus on the stoppage. He physically engages Neale early, just before TP gets to him, with a massive shove and hold. TP gets the message, and while I can't isolate it with my poverty snip tool, you can see TP mouth "[potential expletive, sorry" as he rolls back into the stoppage and manages to track with Ashcroft.

Again, this all taking place across 3-5 seconds.

X, potentially seeing all this, grabs it out of the ruck. I am kind of noticing a pattern here and maybe his ruck grabs are smarter than we think from the outside - but yet to confirm my theory.

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Instance 3 - Parker breaks Dunkley's rhythm

In the first quarter, in all 9 stoppages LDU attended, Dunkley minded him at every single one. In a stoppage 4 seconds prior, he did the same.

With the extra time given for a boundary throw in, Parker makes a bee line for LDU, says a few words, and then runs straight to engage Josh Dunkley, while LDU goes direct to Neale with intent.

Dunkley is confused, looks to Neale to confirm if he's okay with it (looks like he was), but then goes to rush LDU's running lane when the ball comes in. Parker physically restrains him from doing so.

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Instance 4 - Jy breaks Dunkley's rhythm

Jy does exactly the same thing twice here as well (one shortly before this, but with even worse resolution). He organises the outside of the stoppage - setting the FOS in position. Then he grabs Dunkley. By now, Dunkley is onto what we're doing, so he pretends to stand next to Jy but rushes LDU (who has targeted Ashcroft) at the first opportunity. Jy anticipates this, gets around the back of him, and runs through to block Dunkley engaging LDU.

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Instance 5 - Parker corrects stoppage imbalance by splitting the difference

At this point in the game, Brisbane had temporarily abandoned the Dunkley/LDU match up to try and force Neale into the game. They ran McLuggage on LDU, and then tried to sneak Neale up to the stoppage as a loose from somewhere outside of the midfield rotating with one of their non-recognisable players.

Wardlaw doesn't pick up on it and goes to collect McLuggage, who is already heading for LDU, meaning Neale was on his lonesome.

Parker is the only one of our midfielders to notice this, and shows some really great craft in splitting the difference between Dunkley and Neale (to the right of the umpire) to prevent them both from being an option. He happily took himself out of this contest to do so.

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Instance 6 - Powell is learning

Look, throughout this match, TP was probably the main culprit at being out of position/sync in the stoppages. But this one shows he is learning.

TP recognises that there's an unmanned Lion to the left of the stoppage. He shouts to Jy (who importantly, listens), who shouts to LDU (who importantly, listens), and they all roll one player to their right to man them up.

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Last little bonus - one contest to win it all - Wardlaw is our biggest threat

18 seconds left in the match. Stoppage in our forward 50. Josh Dunkley does something he has refused to do for the vast majority of the match.

He abandons LDU and seeks out Wardlaw. He goes straight to the kid and literally bear hugs him, facing away from the play (it takes some squinting, but the bottom right of the screen just captures it). He was willing to risk the umpires calling that, than let Wardlaw have a run at that footy.

That's all you need to know about the threat this kid poses when one contest has it all on the line. Take it as a compliment, George.

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-----

Hoped you enjoyed it, folks! Something a little different focusing on some of the nuances of the craft.
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Good stuff Mr Bun
 
roos_fanatic08 said:
Been very evident in recent weeks that the team defensive running and cutting off opposition running lanes has noticeably improved.

Without breaking down the game play by play it seemed to me that the biggest improvers in this space were LDU, Powell and Kerch (who I’ve been really critical of this year). Themanbun
Im happy that your posts support the little team things that I’m noticing when watching the game live! Also further supports my views that Parker will be worth his weight in gold for his ability to provide onfield direction and leadership.
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I think it's an interesting point tmb makes about Kerch. We want him to be this free wheeling attacking HBF mid and yet we are rolling him into stoppages and off a HFF as well, and at 20yo or whatever he is, he's pointing out midfield setups to his more experienced teammates. Maybe we need to be mindful of the mental load it's taking on him to learn how to play at senior level, observe and adapt and respond to all the stimuli at a centre bounce or stoppage around the ground, while also trying to implement everything he's done up until this point in his career (the run and carry and bounce and line breaking). It can't be easy for anyone to learn and be an expert at, let alone a 19-20 year old. I'm willing to - off the back of the tmb post - cut Kerch some slack because he's clearly trying very hard, I think the development is coming.
 

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King Corey said:
Themanbun do you think there's enough evidence there to say LDU is playing more roles at stoppages than he was a few weeks ago?
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This week we kinda went man on man, so it's hard to tell how he executed certain stoppage roles. Man on man does suit him as well.

But he was definitely listening to the change ups and set plays, e.g. going defensive on Neale when Parker told him to as part of their ruse to break the Dunkley attention.

I don't think he'll ever be a midfield organiser let alone a general, but so long as he's willing to not just do whatever he wants at the stoppage and to perform the role asked of him at any given setup, that's a win for everyone, including him IMO.
 
Themanbun said:
This week we kinda went man on man, so it's hard to tell how he executed certain stoppage roles. Man on man does suit him as well.

But he was definitely listening to the change ups and set plays, e.g. going defensive on Neale when Parker told him to as part of their ruse to break the Dunkley attention.

I don't think he'll ever be a midfield organiser let alone a general, but so long as he's willing to not just do whatever he wants at the stoppage and to perform the role asked of him at any given setup, that's a win for everyone, including him IMO.
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Buckley (I think, tho it may have been another ex coach) said recently that midfield set ups were more about man on man contests at the moment and structures were becoming less important.

I think with a side like ours man on man is definitely something we should be trying.
 
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Themanbun
 

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