Roast Why do people keep saying choking a lead will be a good lesson for the losing team?

[Jake98]

Lost count of how many times I've heard this. "Yeah it sucks to give up such a big lead, but this will be a great lesson for the boys".

North Melbourne dropped a 19 point lead 22 minutes into the 4th quarter against West Coast. They also dropped a 51 point lead to lose to Collingwood earlier in the year, and that was after nearly coughing up a 30 point lead they had over West Coast at 3QTR time. Don't forget all the close losses they had last year to Essendon x2, Melbourne, West Coast, St Kilda, Sydney, or dropping a 26 point 3QTR time lead to Collingwood in 2022. How many more "good learning experiences" is it going to take until they learn not to choke?

Here's the reality: losing a close game isn't a good learning experience at all. In fact, it's a really bad, detrimental experience, especially for a young group. Any time they are in a situation where they have a big lead but the opposing team starts mounting a comeback, they will inevitably start thinking "oh no, it's happening again...". They will try to halt the other teams momentum, but keep getting nervous, keep fumbling, keep making bad decisions and ultimately, keep losing the unlosable.

You only learn to win if you win these games. Continuing to bottle it just puts you in an endless loop of bottling big leads.

 

[SC_Power]

i think what they are referring to is the chance to actually put in place strategies like tempo football, and last-2-minute tactics, in a game rather than in training scenarios.

It’s really valuable footage for the match review each week to see which players took the right option, which players defended the right zone in defence, tapped to the right area in a ball up, provided the right option coming out of defence.

You’re right if it keeps happening, but if the players keep making the wrong decisions in such situations they have to be shown to learn, and hopefully get the chance to execute again. So they can go to execute process rather than think too much and hence fumble, panic kicks, take wrong options, etc

It certainly is one area that my club has worked hard in after a run of poor seasons in close games. Last two years we are something like 13-2 in games less than 2 goals.

 

[Mr Cheese]

Freo has elite match review footage in this area.

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