Hence my carefully placed emphasis on the "local" spare man. At the contest, Geelong had spare men, all drawn to the contest because the Cats knew we would bomb it in long - some Carlton forwards, stayed away - because our mids should have seen them unmarked. The spare Cats midfielder - usually Enright or Wojcinski would stay on the ground and be the spare man that the Cats looked to run it out of defence.

Lack of forward pressure is one thing but our forwards should be the ones who are towards the ball and having the ball rather than chasing Cats' tails. You can talk defensive pressure in the forward line all you want but until you get the structure right and stop the defence setting up a local loose man at the contest and then then running it out at will, it's worth nothing.

You practise against the spare man at the contest in order to know what to do when you inevitably end up with those situations. If we kick to those contests, the situation where we have loose men at the area of the contest will happen. Why not practise against it?

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

Because it doesn't achieve anything. It would in a match simulation, but as with tackling practice you have to pull your punches a bit. You don't particularly want to create the sort of contests in practice that could take out your forwards in the way we lost Fish or your zone-off or loose defenders who are crunched by big boys like Fev.

You can have a 6 on 6 drill with vocal instructions about where loose men are and how to avoid them. The leading players can then practice their leads without fear of injuries from collisions.

If you have the extras in there and tell the players they can't make physical contact in marking contests whether as a defender coming back or across into the path of the leading forward or as a forward approaching a loose man ... well, it would be just like dancing with your sister, wouldn't it?

Sorry, but that's the most illogical thing I've heard on this site.

Are you against full field match simulations?

When the heat is on, you go back to your instincts and your instincts are drilled into you from practice. So I guess we shouldn't have goal kicking practice, because players might pull a hamstring trying to kick the ball 50m. I guess they shouldn't have handball drills, they might do a finger tendon like Kouta. I guess they shouldn't run out onto the field, they might slip and do a wrist tendon whilst breaking their fall.

Indie, you only need to have 7 defenders and 6 forwards - if you're concerned about injuries, then play no tackling but the fact is, the young guys need to see 7 guys on 6 guys in order to see what they should do on the field. Football is something that you play purely in your head. Your head controls your body - if you don't do the drill, how do you process it in your head and muscles if you haven't come across the situation before.

With your line of thinking, it's all theory and no practice.

Unbelievable.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

We'll agree to disagree CC.

Full match practice would be fine, as I've said. But the danger with full match practice is that you'll get injuries if you are simulting loose players trying to cut off passes. And if you pull them back to avoid physical contact, there's not much point.

And the other thing about full match practice is that you'd have players flooding back. So if a midfielder had the opportunity to get it in quickly to a good lead or one-on-one contest, he'd soon see how quickly the chance evaporates. Midfielders would continue to press back until his options dry up. Then he'd be barrelled by the coaching staff who'd stop the simulation and point out the error.

What I don't like is the idea of a 7 on 6 drill which would take place in an artificial environment where no one else drops back. The punishment for hesitation isn't there. In fact, that sort of drill trains players to overlook the first best option and wait for the forwards to cycle around until a better one comes up.

If you've had the opportunity to get to training, you'd have seen various drills involving tackling or trying to run with the ball through a congested area. The players who simulate the tackler often have padding on or have cushions which they use to belt the players coming through. Actual contact is too risky. Just look at Kouta who lost 5 weeks when his finger got caught in a jumper when he was training.

Full match simulations don't occur very often for this reason.

For the same reason, you don't get players doing kick to kick drills between packs. The risk of injuries if players fly in packs is unacceptable. The marking drills are usually one-on-one to minimise the risk of injuries. And when you have 6 on 6, you have pairs of defenders and forwards which reduces the chance of injuries. And you can still have the defenders dropping off to become "Local loose men" if you want.

In terms of risk of injury, 7-6 and 6-6 is about the same...to think otherwise is fanciful.

The point is there needs to be 7 bodies playing on 6 otherwise it's not realistic enough to what the boys face in the match situation.

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"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

But that's the point CC. As yet, BV hasn't described how that drill would work.

Would the loose defender be in a Michelin suit so that the players could jump into him? Would he just be a static player holding an arm up but otherwise have no active role? Or would he just be there to receive a handball and rebound? Or would he be expected to run alongside a leading player to double-team him or hinder him? If any of those is the case, I don't see the point.

Or would he be expected to try to jump and spoil from the front or side of one or more oncoming forwards as would be expected of him in a match? If that's the idea, then it is worthwhile but it gets dangerous.

Remember that in a 6 on 6 drill you can still have defenders zoning off to compete in marking contests as extra men up, but I think you'll find that this doesn't happen in a full-blooded way.

I don't think anyone's contending that the players don't need time to practise kicking into a f50 where there is at least a single defender zoning off. The 6-on-6 drill does achieve that.

The point being made is that running the same drill - but stacking more defenders on the forwards - adds nothing to the development of the midfielder disposing. I think that's a fair point.

I'm with Indie on this, mainly because I brought these very points up in a previous thread. In that instance I was about to bring BV into line with my simple - yet somehow perplexing (for him at least) - argument that if you look across the globe at high-level team sports, for all the drills they do the best practise for match day comes from full match sim.

NFL, soccer, volleyball, basketball, whatever the hell else you want to think of (with maybe the exception of cricket due to feasibility) they all do it.

But tiny lists and affiliate teams, along with the fierce nature of our game prevent us from doing the best we can do.

That's the real difference; everything else is window dressing so BV can be smug.

If you don't believe me, look no further than Adelaide; the pre-eminent sports science team of the league. They've got radio headsets so the coach can continually run match sims and watch from a vantage point.

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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.

I'm sure Indie is feeling all warm and fuzzy with your support Jim.
Perhaps you could give him your "fat side" theory?

Good luck to Indie, he is welcome to his opinion. I just choose to disagree.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Interested observer Gerry and no I'm not Mitch. I'm far too tall!

BTW, you dont need to be a coach to attend.

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Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

Perhaps if you'd actually read what I was saying you wouldn't refer to it as my theory, or even a theory. But that wouldn't be complex enough.

Kindest regards from us here down on planet Earth oh mighty one.



^
^

Look familiar?

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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.

Thanks BV, be great for TCers to hear more of your impressions of the conference and positive impressions of coaches there if you have time to post them at some stage

CC & BV are right on the money.

We lost against Brisbane because we were simply out-coached.

Pagan is same old same old. I have been watching the Blues for 50+ years and I have seen some pretty average performances over the years, (1964 ) but I am sick to death of the beltings we have had. I can never recall such a run since he has been at the helm. And what makes me want to vomit is that he is getting paid $600k p.a

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Cheats never prosper (except in the AFL)

Just stirring ddddd.

For me, all i want is an apology for whoever thought Troy Longmuir was a good idea.

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

He was the bait for Justin.

Justin, however, is one smart fish. He smelt the scam from three waves over and headed in the other direction.

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Writer for SuperCoach Paige www.scpaige.com.au
Twitter - @johnfeeney24

Troy was better value that paying excessive money to Justin to sit on the pine for 5 years with [REDACTED] knees...

Troy may not have worked out for us, but at the time we gave up pick 70 odd for a bloke who was more talented than most of our list at the time ...

Talent is an overused word.

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Formerly: Ackland the Wonderkid / Army the Wonderkid / quivering mess / molsey / Tony Lynn Fan Club

As much as I had a soft spot for Troy while he was at the club, I would have rather used Pick 70 on a kid.

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Writer for SuperCoach Paige www.scpaige.com.au
Twitter - @johnfeeney24

yeah in hindsight a kid would have been the way to go, but at pick 70 Troy had some pretty good skills and wasn't too bad a gamble to take - it had the potential for plenty of upside.

Unfortunately for Troy injuries didn't help his cause...

Oh really?!

I know which of the three I'd prefer...

Denis should have just opened a $2 shop....

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