Blue Vain wrote:
As you said, this is a discussion, not an attack, so please take the responses in the right spirit.
CC1961 wrote:
well naturally if your plan is to use the corridor then you would make sure you weren't 'outnumbered' wouldn't you?
This comment indicates a lack of understanding IMHO. Success relies on retaining possessions and breaking the opposition chains of retention.
The key is to create a match up or outnumber in your favour and to take advantage of it. All teams defend the corridor because they know scores are more likely when the opposition have possession through the corridor.
That's why they'll defend the corridor with excess numbers which in turn allows the opposition an opportunity to get a match up in their favour out wide.
And rightly so.
About 60 per cent of scores come from turnovers and twelve of the past 13 premiers have ranked in the top three for points differential from turnovers. We would be lucky to win a game if we stacked the corridor and kicked the ball to one on one contests all day.
To highlight the value of forcing turnovers and how costly they are, the best 4 sides at points differential from turnovers this year are Port, Brisbane, Richmond, Geelong. The fact that they were the top 4 sides isn't a lucky coincidence.
Blue Vain wrote:
It's bemusing that the same posters who often criticise us for not playing a back half game are the same ones who demand we keep our forwards inside the front 50."]
Your response-
Quote:
not particularly relevant to the discussion at hand about using the corridor efficiently.
It's absolutely relevant because if you want to play a corridor game, you have to win the ball in defence and have the numbers to run it out. The opportunity its to use the corridor comes from fast ball movement, overlap run from defence and preventing the opposition the time to set up their defensive mechanism or relying on the opposition to have a mental lapse. I wouldn't want to be relying on the last option as a tactic to win games of footy.
Our game style is based around stretching the opposition structures by keeping our forwards inside 50 and using the space to chip the ball out. Unfortunately that doesn't afford us the chance to push sufficient players back to create the required run and give options.
So game style not only lends relevance to our corridor efficiency, it actually controls it.
I commented on this elsewhere, BV.
On TV it looks for all the world like our forwards are playing well outside fifty when we don't have the footy.
I have commented on maybe a dozen occasions in the game threads how there is a line of three defenders on or about our F50 and our FF is meanwhile marking the footy on the HBF from the kickout or the release.
Often those comments co-incide with the commentators saying something like:
"Cunningham takes the mark on the wing but there is nobody forward of the ball."
And I disagree we defend the corridor well. We are one of the teams most vulnerable to attacks down the corridor and once again, I have been saying t for years. A few years ago we just let teams run and gun us week after week, not that that has any bearing on the Teague game plan, I admit. Also, as I have commented before, I only get the TV view of the ground so it is hard for me to see the whole setup, but when teams get their famous five-goal runs against us, you can bet your life they are often on the back of an overlap running through a poorly zoned-off square with nobody paying attention to the trends. Meanwhile, the defenders have pushed up and their forwards go out the back for a goal.
Our absolute best footy is played from the back half when the mindset is to use the corridor. When we do that and the forwards are deeper, it is as good as anybody's. Is that because when we do it, it takes the opposition by surprise because we do it so infrequently? I put it to you we outgunned Geelong and the Bullies because neither coach was ready for us to run the footy and we 'went at them from the jump' to quote the Banjo. Geelong almost ran us down because we reverted in the last to the chippy chippy stuff instead of putting our foot on their necks and the Dogs weren't up to it.