Have a look at Nathan Buckley's article on the game plans of the AFL clubs: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,%255E20864,00.html

Obviously it doesn't attempt to be very detailed, but there are some interesting things in it.




The observations about the Eagles are particularly relevant for us.

There was a lot of criticism when we manned up the loose defenders against the Saints resulting in our F50 being clogged. But as Buckley notes, this is the way that the Eagles play it too. That resulted in a lot of criticism when Worsfold persisted with that plan against the Swans in the first final in Perth last year. The Swans were able to leave their forward-line open as a result. During the GF, there was an increased use of handball to break up the flooding.

Though this aspect of our game plan is identical to the Eagles, that doesn't mean that we model ourselves on them in all respects of course. Their strength is in their midfield - they have a dominant ruckman, and a few elite midfielders with support from experienced midfielders who can run all day. We are weak in the ruck and have few elite to good midfielders. On the other hand, our strength is in our key positions and running talls, especially up forward. Naturally enough, a direct game into the forward line suits us better than sharing the ball around by hand and foot. And of course the Eagles are a much better team than we are - that's obvious but needs to be said to avoid someone making this observation as if it invalidates any comparison between our game plans (which in my opinion it doesn't).

But just as the Eagles' preparedness to pick up loose defenders faced a test against the Swans, we will face our Waterloo against the Bulldogs. As Buckley points out, the Bulldogs will be happy if we do, as it will result in less congestion in the middle. That will give them greater latitude to run and their skills by foot will enable them to pick out leading targets in the forward line.

The standard tactic against the Bulldogs now seems to be to allow them numbers inside 50, but corral them as they come out of defence with the ball and man up their teammates running beside and ahead of them. Congesting the room ahead of them results in their ball-carriers being unable to run far into the midfield, and they are confronted by contests ahead of them. That results in confusion and hesitation, and they turn it over.

It'll be interesting to see whether we play to our game plan or adjust to attack the Bulldogs' gameplan.

auditioning for a coach's gig are we Bucks??

Hammy must be worse that we thought






Well that doesn't make sense Bucks...

If we go man on man against the Doggies (as everyone has worked out this year) they crumble under the pressure and make stupid turnovers. (especially away from TD where wind, sun etc come into it)
I watched the game against the Swans last night and the WB looked terrible. Interesting to raed this morning Eade saying that they just didn't run with it....durrr... Swans were all over them NOT letting them run with it.

We can learn from this, play to our strength (M on M) and win on Sunday at the G

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“Every single element of the Club has to be the best in the league, meticulously and methodically, and only by doing this will we be elite and challenge for number 17.”
Greg Lee

If he is lucky he will put in an appearance in one last game - just for a fan send-off - that's about all he has left.

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Hey Rocky; there are too many rabbits ... in China.

Nathan lost me a bit....everyone is playing man on man according to him....

Dont need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that West Coast play man on man cos their men are better than everyone elses and they back themselves in....

Kangaroos are playing a long kicking style of game and more attacking which he didnt comment on......

What i would like to hear from Nathan is what game plans he would adopt for the poorer performing teams.

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"When you have the attitude of a champion, you see adversity as your
training partner."
- Conor Gillen

Didn't he say basically the same thing about each team?
Obviously auditioning for any job!

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I see you watching me watching you.

buckley had his cvhance to come to carlton win a premiership but he selected the filth instead. i think he can go jump off a cliff.

Ah Mav , do you really think people give a @#$%&! about your endless support of Pagan?? I think they should open up a new forum for those who want to stick up for Dennis , it will have about 5 members.

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You want the flame? Give us the marbles!!

Who are those 5 people?

Your pushing your luck...there will only be 3...including DP's mum!

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They coud'nt.....could they?

I've only been following Carlton for 5 years - what's "adjust" mean?

Sorry...double post.

Carlton would ordinarily play man-on-man footy, which means that a Carlton player would pick up each Doggie who goes inside 50 to be a loose defender. That would crowd our F50 and give the Doggies space through the midfield and in their forwardline.

The plan the Crows used was to retain the tall marking forwards rather than go small to match their defenders, and let the Doggies have loose men in the Crows F50. Instead, the Crows had their loose men in the midfield and ensured that every Doggie ahead of and running alongside the rebounding defender was manned up. That corralled the rebounding defender and forced the Doggies to kick to contests.

So there's a choice that we have. Go with our usual plan which is easy for the youngsters as they know they have a job on a particular opponent. Or concentrate on killing their game plan. Last year, we did use the tactic of setting up loose men outside the 50 metre arc to trap the ball in our F50, and we relied on pressuring the defenders inside 50 to turn the ball over. But we haven't used the tactic much this year, and we have a number of young and inexperienced players who may not implement it well.

Already, we've seen a poor return when we've dropped back players (usually Lance) into defence late in quarters to try to prevent our opponents scoring late as is common. Unfortunately, our opponents often seem to enjoy being released from the one-on-one pressure, and they utilise the loose man to launch successful attacks. So although it may be tempting to allow our players to drop back from our F50 and allow them loose men in defence, we aren't well-equipped at this stage to make that strategy work for us.

So, we either play one-on-one (our usual game plan) or adjust it to allow some of the Doggies to escape the leash by going inside 50.