This Handball Rubbish

[Mr T]

I am sick of all this handball rubbish we play week in week out, because every time we start fiddling around with it wee seem to turn it over. We need to kick it long and give our forwards the best opportunity.
What do everyone else think?

 

[Rayzorwire]

The Cats are handballing more than any other club in history Mr T, so it's not handball per se which is the problem.

The difference in the way the Cats do it is that they are fast, slick, and if they make a blue along the way their players have the body strength to shrug off would-be tacklers. They also kick long once they've got a player in enough space to do it - and a leading target who is one on one. Their fast ball movement followed by long and/or precise kicking is what gives them such an advantage in attack - even average blokes like Mooney are made to look like a superstar.

We're trying to emulate them - everybody is, but ATM we're a fair way short on the body strength, the skills, and perhaps most importantly, the endurance to keep offering a free target to receive all game long.

I honestly can't see the game changing in another direction because the Cats' game is damn near bullet proof and slaughters everything we've seen before. I'm sure people have said that in every era, but it's hard to see where the game can evolve any further down a different line.

 

[Eat em alive]

Sunday's game exposed our lack of size against a seasoned finals campaigner. The heavy ground also made it difficult for us to get our running game in motion. Adelaide have one of the best defences in the league. They cover the entry to the forward 50 really well. When our onballers looked up they seemed to have no-one to kick to. Adelaide are also a very well drilled team and I suspect they practiced a number of game simulations all week. They did their homework and it was like we never turned up. I also think that our young bodies are starting to struggle with the tempo at this time of year. To make matters worse, we couldn't even implement our game plan. The bottom line is we were shown up really badly.