Much was commented on early in the season about St Kilda fanatical manning of the mark. The stand right on it, sometimes even creep over it. I realised last night that this does more than put preceived pressure on the player with the ball. What it also does is makes the ball carrier have to go backwards, in order to have space to kick or handball over the player on the mark. The ball carrier thus has to go backwards, then stop, then get some forward momentum before he can kick it. All this takes time, and slows the movement right down, the team in possession becomes static.

Last night, we were stifled in a run a number of times from St K's manning of the mark. Conversely, we gave them space each time, they were under no pressure whatsoever, and were free to run on and move the ball quickly (there was one exception, when one of our guys (can't remember who) once, put strong pressure on the mark. It slowed them down and they became static).

This is a 'skill' that any player can do, there is no excuse not to. We need to make this a mandatory action. It completely stifles the run of the opposition.

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Mens sana in corpore sano.

Bring back the laurel wreath logo!!!

A pet peeve of mine that players don't man the mark and allow the opposition a good 10 to 15 metres in some instances.

Should be drilled into them, like breathing.

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“It is a state of mind, a system of belief, a way of seeing the world, a deep faith that, because you are Carlton, you belong to something great.” - Mike Fitzpatrick articulating what Out of the Blue means.

If you look back to the Dawks game, they are experts at it. They come with in an inch of their lives of running over the mark.

But as Spud says "We'll learn from that"

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Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

Nope. Flat out wrong. You're isolating something and comparing it in two different structures.

We attempt to corral the kicker into going wide with how we stand the mark, or we opt to zone back into the immediate hole.

They do this with their hyper-active zone, then push right up in the kicker's face by standing right on the mark.

There's about two teams in the league who have the tank and the attributes to play a competitive, true zone defence. We operate a little differently and opt to keep three or four forwards ahead of the play. The man on the mark strategy reflects this.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Reiwoldts last goal was a direct result of a failure to stand the mark. Instead of kicking from 55m he was able to build momentum and kick from about 50m. No one incident costs you a game but some hurt more than others.

Murphy did the same thing in the first quarter last night.

This is also a pet peeve of mine - it allows teams also extra time to flood back whilst the man on the mark piss farts around with the umpire sorting out where the man on the mark is - it should be 50m penalty as its as bad a time waster as grabbing/holding after the mark is taken. Hawthorn and St. Kilda have made it an art form.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill