A Thought...

[TheMase]

Now it would appear that Sydney went back to their old ways of flooding again.
And there has been a lot of discussion about the Swans and flooding again on Bigfooty....

Or did we ...

The Eagles spoke of a plan to not allow us to run off half back in free space and create opportunities.

Would it be that hard to believe that West Coast actually flooded forward to not allow us that space and deny our forward line of potential opportunities because they were up the ground?

Obviously if their defenders ran up the ground our forwards would be forced to follow as that number of Eagles players up the ground would be very dangerous...

Thoughts?

[Frog]

Re: A Thought...

Originally posted by TheMase
Now it would appear that Sydney went back to their old ways of flooding again.
And there has been a lot of discussion about the Swans and flooding again on Bigfooty....

Or did we ...

No ...

Go back to the start of the year when we played Adelaide and Melbourne in successive weeks in Sydney ... We all remember the outburst from Demitriou about Sydney playing un-attractive footy ... Now go to the weekend after the outburst ... Check the Crows - Demons game, score and articles ...

I believe Roos and the team when they say "nothing much has changed to their game plan before or after the Demitriou comments" ... We have just been able to absorb the negative play from our opposition better ... except perhaps yesterday ...

[punter257]

i'm sick of people talking about sydneys flooding. sure we did last night but who doesnt these days? we are simply playing to our strengths and trying to limit the eagles strengths. we played tight footy all night and had our chances

geez we lost by 4 points to the team that dominated the comp all year on their home turf so i reckon that roosy shouldnt be bagged at all.

and yeah i would love to see us play attacking footy with our forward line but i'd take a flooding win over an attacking loss any day. if last night was a "shootout" we would have got killed as cousins, judd, kerr etc....... would have run riot

[liz]

My only real slight disappointment about the way they went about the game yesterday is that many of the midfield seemed to be a little too worried about their man, rather than attacking the ball. With Judd, Cousins and Kerr having such explosive pace, once they had their hands on the ball, they were able to break away far too often.

A major reason for the improvement in form over the second half of the season this year has been, I believe, the midfield backing themselves more to get first hands on the ball, resulting in more quick clearances to us, rather than sweating on the opposition to cough the ball up after taking initial possession. I wish they'd backed themselves a little more in the centre last night.

[Newbie]

They were flooding our defence to stop our run out of it. They were playing with three key talls who are not very good of taking contested marks. Their plan was clearly bombing it long and hopefully crumb a goal or two once the ball hits the ground. At worst, they would hope to hold up the ball in our defensive 50's so that we cant hurt them on the rebounce.

On several occasions, Walls commented that they were playing 8 men in their forward line, go and figure that out.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by liz
My only real slight disappointment about the way they went about the game yesterday is that many of the midfield seemed to be a little too worried about their man, rather than attacking the ball. With Judd, Cousins and Kerr having such explosive pace, once they had their hands on the ball, they were able to break away far too often.

A major reason for the improvement in form over the second half of the season this year has been, I believe, the midfield backing themselves more to get first hands on the ball, resulting in more quick clearances to us, rather than sweating on the opposition to cough the ball up after taking initial possession. I wish they'd backed themselves a little more in the centre last night.

Yep - the midfield seemed a bit overawed and went back to their defensive mindset.

[ROK Lobster]

Originally posted by liz
My only real slight disappointment about the way they went about the game yesterday is that many of the midfield seemed to be a little too worried about their man, rather than attacking the ball. With Judd, Cousins and Kerr having such explosive pace, once they had their hands on the ball, they were able to break away far too often.

A major reason for the improvement in form over the second half of the season this year has been, I believe, the midfield backing themselves more to get first hands on the ball, resulting in more quick clearances to us, rather than sweating on the opposition to cough the ball up after taking initial possession. I wish they'd backed themselves a little more in the centre last night.

Yep. We were very conservative last night in the middle. The times we weren't we looked quite good. I'm with Bloods on the "get Kennelly somewhere near the middle" bandwagon. He's quick, delivers the ball well, and seems to find room. And plus, his value is not in his defensive work so much, as the attack he gives from defence.

[Chubby Muffler]

We flooded IMO and it almost worked.

[liz]

Originally posted by ROK Lobster
I'm with Bloods on the "get Kennelly somewhere near the middle" bandwagon. He's quick, delivers the ball well, and seems to find room. And plus, his value is not in his defensive work so much, as the attack he gives from defence.

Not sure about that. I reckon pace in the backline is more important than pace in the centre. He actually gets to use it a bit more, because after the initial burst when the ball is cleared out of the defensive zone, there is a little more room to run into space, carrying the ball, then settle and spot a target.

He might learn to become a pretty good midfielder, but I think our rebound from defence would suffer greatly.

[BAM_BAM]

The fact that Barry Hall was playing in the defensive 50 sort indicates a forward flood on their part.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by liz
Not sure about that. I reckon pace in the backline is more important than pace in the centre. He actually gets to use it a bit more, because after the initial burst when the ball is cleared out of the defensive zone, there is a little more room to run into space, carrying the ball, then settle and spot a target.

He might learn to become a pretty good midfielder, but I think our rebound from defence would suffer greatly.

No doubt this is a key consideration and is something I guess sways Roos. However, in the midfield role he can still wander down just inside the defensive 50m arc and run out of defence, exactly as our other midfielders do, but he won't be dragged back too far.

[liz]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
No doubt this is a key consideration and is something I guess sways Roos. However, in the midfield role he can still wander down just inside the defensive 50m arc and run out of defence, exactly as our other midfielders do, but he won't be dragged back too far.

Wandering down occasionally is one thing, but I reckon a large part of the success of our defence in clearing from defence is stability and familiarity. Bolton (C), Leo and Tiger all seem to know where each other is and they back each other up well, even when it looks as if they are going to run out of room. Getting the ball into Kennelly's hands seems to be the objective much of the time. It wouldn't work the same if he were just drifting down there occasionally.

[NMWBloods]

Yes, but if it was part of the drill they would find him better. Some of our other midfielders are there very frequently, so it's not a case of 'occasionally'.

More importantly though, when Kennelly's man goes to the last line of defence, which is what any half decent coach does against us, we get little from Kennelly.