robertbb wrote:
Sidefx wrote:
AGRO wrote:
There are times when a deft tap to a player in the clear - rather than taking possession and taking the tackle is the best option.
Yep.
I've watched a few games this round and I really hoped in the off season we would've worked on tapping the ball to players when under pressure and running hard to block for them when players take possession or are about to.
The better teams do this all the time and is one of our major weaknesses IMO.It's a whole team problem and if we want to become a running defending/attacking team, these are the two basics we need to master.
You already know this but there are three modes of play: you've got the ball, your opponent has the ball, the ball is in dispute.
Tapping is a skill that can only be done when ball is in dispute (clearly).
It's not as simple as "practice tapping the ball to advantage". Tapping is easy. But if your whole team isn't in on the play and is structured to support it right around the ground, it's easy to tap to dis-advantage and turn the ball over while your own teammates are out of position.
So what you appear to be saying is, you hoped we would play another "brand" of chaos/surge football a-la Bitchmond and C**wood.
Sadly we simply aren't fast enough on the ground. We're not set up for that kind of football. It's been a problem for years - too slow right around the ground. Who is our around-the-ball, super nimble, super quick player with exquisite skills? Who's our pickett, who's our bolton, who's our tyson stengle, top clubs have a few of these types on their list.... do we have one? Name one???
If we win the contested ball (ball is in dispute) as Voss keeps harping on about and if we maintain possession with effective patterns and delivery then the affects of all of this chaos, running off half back schtick can be nullified. If we can't win the footy, and if we can't keep possession and maintain connection - we'll get beat.Two diametrically opposed basic principles of football I suppose. We'll soon see if the School of Voss or the School of Hardwick/McRae wins out...
In that instance with 15 sec to go, the ball was in dispute and a tap forward was of absolutely zero risk other than giving away a 50m penalty somehow.
But you can't blame LOB for holding it up either, it's most likely been drilled into him all off season.
I believe that has been our brand of footy up until RD1 game, we just haven't been good at it like Bitchmond, CWood, Melbourne, Geelong...........
It was definitely how we were playing last season and the first half of the year paid off, we just couldn't/didn't develop it with heavy injuries being a key factor.
And if we have now changed to a stop start, hold the ball up, controlled possession game, why draft/trade in 3 elite running players?
I agree we don't have the speed or skill around the ball (as you know I've been banging on about it since the draft) of a Pickett or a Bolton but tapping to players in space or a better position doesn't really require that speed, it's a skill that creates space and time to help that deficiency in the list.
Oliver and Petracca aren't really blessed with Pickett or Bolton speed either.
Also tapping to a player then immediately proceeding to block for them doesn't require speed and neither does blocking for them if an opposition player looks like they are about to take possession of the ball in dispute. You have to admit, a lot of our players tend to move the ball along then spectate and their second and third efforts are usually pretty lacklustre, if they even have them.
None of this is chaos footy IMO, it's mostly basic footy and a well drilled game plan.
I agree also, player awareness and under pressure decision making is hard to train, but then again the military can somehow make people act without thinking under life and death situations, so I'm sure we can do it with footballers.
In the highlighted part I agree and in reality we probably should've been flogged in that game, it was luck IMO that we weren't.
So if we are going to continue to play this nullifying possession game plan then our forwards need better leading patterns and our mids need better, faster delivery to them.
We were picked off time and time again with 2 and 3 on 1 situations. We were just lucky our defence was so solid.
And my personal opinion of a nullifying possession game plan is it's too outdated to play a whole 4 quarters or even a full quarter, yes we need to be able to control tempo and slow or stop an opposition's run just as much as we need to be able to attack at full speed, create space and hit leads lace out.
And I feel tapping and blocking are a necessity to do this to give our forwards the best chance to take marks in the F50.
So I hope Voss is just getting whole team practice in before we go back to taking the game on again like last season.
Maybe I'm missing something or I'm getting too old to see the new way of football, who knows.
But I'm still glad we didn't get flogged.