Blue Vain wrote:
Essendon* are front runners and wont achieve anything under Knights.
They are 16th for blocks in the AFL and their playing philosophy is based on running ahead of the contest. In fact, Knights instructs his players to avoid blocking and to run hard to create an option for the recieve!
When the game is nice and open and they're controlling the uncontested ball, they're world beaters but when the opposition dominate the tempo of the game, they are garbage.
The key is to make them accountable for their actions. Our players need to spread from the contest when we win possession and control the uncontested ball as well. Teams too often take them on and focus on the contested possession but taking advantage of their "looseness" is the key.
Have a look at their effort against Geelong. 78 points down at 3/4 time before Geelong rested all their stars.
Teams need to have a gamestyle that is sustainable in September as well. Theirs wont come close.
A very astute post BV
Most of the great coaches of any team sport advocate getting the defensive side right first. That is where I see our improvement, whereas others seem to think we are stagnating or going backwards as a team. Ratts is trying to teach our players to play defensive football. Sometimes we don't get the balance right and that causes confusion in the ranks especially for those who aren't defensively minded.
We had the best defensive unit in 2001, just a year later we had the worst. Since then we have been in the top four for points conceded, generally top two.
2001- 16
2002- 1
2003- 2
2004- 4
2005- 1
2006- 2
2007- 1
2008- 4
To date we are lying 8th in the points against table. I think we can possibly improve that a spot or two and at the very least stay there. It has never just been about the back six as to why we have been so poor defensively. We have been poor as team.
We showed in 2007 that we know how to run forward of the ball and thus were ranked 6th for points for, but what is the point if you have conceded just under 400 more points than the second worst defence and a staggering just under 1300 more than the best. That was awful defensively
Even with the stats indicating improvement I think we are a better team team defensively and we value possession (which is not something the long kicking style under Pagan did). As we are still learning we can look stilted and uncertain, but I think as we gain confidence and become more comfortable with our defensive responsibilities we will be much better at two way football.
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. He sure as hell couldnt do it for us and from what I saw went backwards in this department at Port Melbourne so please how about you give us a tip on who we should recruit.
