Hands Down

[dawson]

When we are bad we are awful and we are awful we handball way too much.

The thing is that overuse of the handball only gets us into further trouble - especially coming out of defence.

[bigdaz]

Couldn't agree more. Noticable particularly last night, excessive handballing in defense caused more problems than it fixed.

[Dpw]

I don't like the whole handball thing and I would rather play a more direct style, however the current style is what we play and though its dangerous at times we seem to suit it and the boys obviously love playing it. So prepare to tear your hair out because I believe its here to stay.

[JF_Bay22_SCG]

Originally posted by Dpw
I don't like the whole handball thing and I would rather play a more direct style, however the current style is what we play and though its dangerous at times we seem to suit it and the boys obviously love playing it. So prepare to tear your hair out because I believe its here to stay.

We play a high possession, high risk game. Especially when guys like Barry are taking it out of defence. When it looks good, we look a million $$$$. When we are not on song, as we were for much of the night last night, it not only looks very ugly, but frustrates all hell out of us fans.

But we still "won ugly", to quote the cliche book. A good sign, I guess.

JF

[Schneidergirl]

Not that this is something to be proud of but I think it's the mark of a good team when you can still play crappy football and come away with a win.
Geelong came out last night to play some serious football. The Swans did some mistakes, there were some bad decisions from the canaries but the Swans pulled their socks up at 3/4 time and played hard.

[taurus]

Originally posted by Schneidergirl
Not that this is something to be proud of but I think it's the mark of a good team when you can still play crappy football and come away with a win.
Geelong came out last night to play some serious football. The Swans did some mistakes, there were some bad decisions from the canaries but the Swans pulled their socks up at 3/4 time and played hard.

Totally agree with this. I mentioned how this swans team seems better than that of 96-98 around last year's finals, and IMO the current team has improved further (I know it's early in the season!).

Nevertheless it is a worrying trend to see excessive handballs. I would like to see a more direct style, as in 4th Quarter. Another concern is how cats neutralised our defensive drive especially Leo Barry for most of the game. Hope Kangaroos don't emulate this.

An interesting thought occured after seeing the long Schneider pass to Hall. Schneider will eventually be uitilised as a long-kicking midfielder in the mould of Maxfield (pre 2000). This would negate the self or opposition imposed trap of excessive indirect football.

[liz]

Get rid of the handballing out of defence and you get rid of a cornerstone of our game plan.

Our strengths are:

a) lots of fleet footed players who can carry the ball well in a little bit of space

b) a midfield that works quite hard (usually) to put pressure on the opposition midfield, thus limiting their ability to kick pinpoint passes to the opposition

c) a good "crumbing" backline

d) a multi-stringed forward line that is decent one on one, ordinary at taking pack marks but very creative and skilled once they have the ball

Our weaknesses include

a) a lack of defenders tall enough to stop the opposition taking forward marks when the ball is delivered to them without pressure

b) a midfield that consistently wins the ball from stoppages

The game plan that Roos has crafted from this situation is for the midfield to pressure the opposition when they are delivering the ball forward to give our backline crumbers a good chance. Then to work the ball out of defence using a swarm of runners, each working into more space until someone has enough space to carry the ball and then deliver forward. The handballing is a critical part of this.

What are the alternatives coming out of defence? Either to

a) chip kick our way out, which isn't a very direct style itself and doesn't move the ball quickly. Our relative weakness in taking pack marks anywhere on the ground means that we have to rely on the opposition to drop of their player or we just bomb it to a contest eventually and probably turn it over. Because the opposition will probably then have possession through a mark it is much harder to put pressure on them; or

b) just to get it on the foot as soon as possible and kick blindly up field - see a) above

I'm not sure either of these would be more effective in playing to our strengths.

I agree the handballing can be heart-in-mouth stuff at times, and when it doesn't work it can look ugly. But the team is actually pretty good at it - go and watch a training session or two and you will see how many drills they do to hone exactly these skills. And, as I said above, it is a core component of the whole game plan.

[Nico]

This is a really interesting thread. I too thought we overdid it, particularly given that it was a greasy surface not conducive to handball.

Unbelievably we had 48 more handballs and I am sure we are all trying to find one that hit its target.

But the stats make a huge lie out of what we saw.

The quarter by quarter stats were, 18, 23, 29, 39. So went more handball happy as the game wore on, but our best quarter was our last and we had 10 more handballs that the 3rd.

What does it all mean. Simple, if our disposal is clean and on target we can beat most sides. We finally got on song at the right end of proceedings and won the game. So if we can just get our delivery into the forward line 100% better then hang on to your hats folks.

But hold on there. We won the first quarter with only 18 handballs!!! Confusing eh. And Geelong won the second with only 9 handballs.

[TheHood]

I tend to agree with Lizz here for the Swans transferance and running game is the key to the 2003 success.

It's frustrating at times and at times we have to conceed goals to the odd usage error. That frustrates and hurts proud supporters, however it sets up defensive to offensive plays often.

I used to get scared each time Leo got the nut, now I am confident that he does know what he's doing and maintaining posession waiting for the running man to whizz past is our best option from HB.

It's ok for us to yell at the back 6 "KICK THE FU#KING THING" but we have to remember that they know each other and can locate targets better than we can.

Keep yelling it! It helps reduce the BP, but have faith when they don't.

[The Boot]

Handballing is a fundamental aspect of the game. Sometimes you just gotta use it. And when there is no-one to kick it to .. then what - bomb it in long and hope for the best?

I don't think so.

Geelong played a Brizzie on us, and when things are that "tight", you got to get creative, and that may mean .. you guessed it ... H-A-N-D-B-A-L-L .... sheesh!

[taurus]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by lizz
[B]Get rid of the handballing out of defence and you get rid of a cornerstone of our game plan.

I agree with you Lizz. I don't think anyone is advocating 'just kick long and pray' approach as it would be detrimental to our strength. Rather, I think some of us prefer a MORE direct and less EXCESSIVE handballing approach.

The vexing question for me is how to define this approach (kick50%/handball50%???). Even if we all agree with what this approach means, the question of when to apply this approach also needs to be analysed.

As Nico observed the number of handballs per quarter is not directly correlated with winning that quarter. I am not saying that this supports my view. I am merely stating that we need to have a more balanced and flexible approach especially if opposition stop our defensive drive. Again, I confess that I can't pin down what this approach exactly means.

[DST]

There was an interesting comment from Chris Connolly on "on the couch" tonight who put down all the hanballing in the Dockers v Crows clash due to the pressure being applied by both teams.

He seemed to indicate that the bigger the pressure at the contest the more players tend to handball and handball short to players in worse a position.

While I have not seen the game (on the plane at the time from Bali) reports suggest Geelong got numbers behind the ball and really applied alot of pressure around the contest.

It goes to say when you are playing attractive footy (ie less handballing more running with the ball and kicking long) that the pressure around the contest may not be at it's highest.

DST

[Steve]

As has been said, it isn't the number of handballs that is the variable, but the pressure being applied.

Teams that shut down our run from defence do so by either:

a) applying direct physical (eg. tackling) pressure to guys like Barry, C.Bolton, Mathews etc who set up play

b) clamping down on the running options further up the ground

C.Bolton and Leo in particular look creative and composed when they have an open team-mate to chip a pass to - they look panicky and disoriented when they look up and everyone's covered.

Although I would say we need to consider what we're doing when Jason Ball is getting as many handball receives as he did against Geelong.

I actually think playing at the SCG helps sides do what Geelong did - the only space is wide and it just doesn't really suit a running game.

[chammond]

Originally posted by Steve
Although I would say we need to consider what we're doing when Jason Ball is getting as many handball receives as he did against Geelong.

Yeah, that was really scary.

Handballing to a stationary ruckman is the ultimate in desperation!

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Steve
Although I would say we need to consider what we're doing when Jason Ball is getting as many handball receives as he did against Geelong.

I understand your point, but it was only 5. Not optimal and a bit too high, but not huge.

I think we fumbled a lot during the game and seemed unsure and hesitant. We missed the run off half back from Kennelly and Barry, and we seemed a bit lost without it. Goodes was also fairly well covered by Mooney. Our kicking at goal has also been rather ordinary so far this year.