Blight on modern football

[NMWBloods]

Blight made some interesting comments on After the Game tonight.

Because there are so many interchanges by both sides, assessing responsibilty of any of your players for the opposition players is becoming more difficult and getting close to impossible overall (and Leigh Matthews also made comments during his after match press conference to a similar effect).

Therefore, Blight believes the way to go is to focus on your own team, not the opposition, ensuring they focus on getting the ball and using it well.

This actually seems to fit in with a number of other trends in football, such as that used by Geelong and Collingwood, to play on quickly and move the ball forward rapidly into the foward line.

The Swans' style of stoppage, tagging play looks passe now. Will it change?

[Zlatorog]

... snip ...

The Swans' style of stoppage, tagging play looks passe now. Will it change?

We'll find out about that very soon, won't we?

[swantastic]

I heard him mention that today during the game,and i think he also said that what ever player picks you up no matter who it is you have to try and beat them.So you have to alter your game all the time.

So virtually every few minutes you could have a different opponent,where as years ago you had the same opponent for the entire game.

[NMWBloods]

That's a good observation and it's something that a number of our players really struggle with, ignoring other players (and the ball) and focussing on their own man only.

[BSA5]

So it would seem that the Swans' dual tactics of tagging and a high interchange rate would be working against each other. Perhaps that's why we seem to be on the slide.

[bedford]

So it would seem that the Swans' dual tactics of tagging and a high interchange rate would be working against each other. Perhaps that's why we seem to be on the slide.

it's only one game in but i agree,we need to look at the way we played in 2003

[Chow-Chicker]

So it would seem that the Swans' dual tactics of tagging and a high interchange rate would be working against each other. Perhaps that's why we seem to be on the slide.

Ridiculous statement. No evidence at all that it has any effect on our game style.

[BSA5]

Ridiculous statement. No evidence at all that it has any effect on our game style.

Err, what? There's no evidence WHAT has any effect on our game style? I'm not sure what you are referring to there.

Anyway, I wasn't saying that was the case; I was just saying that it would SEEM to be the case that these two tactics don't work well together, if what Blight was saying was correct. Blighty could be completely wrong, for all I could possibly know.

[Legs Akimbo]

Was just watching the Sunday Footy Panel on 9 and they showed highlights of the various free kicks over the last few games. Oh dear, what have they done to AFL. It is trully disturbing to see. I said to my wife 'its becoming like basketball' and she said 'no, more like netball'. Constistently, players touching other players attempting to mark are being called as infringing. I am not exagerating.

This profound AFL management driven alteration to the essence of what football is, has been introduced by people who never played the game, or when they did were soft and scared of physical contant (e.g. Barlett, Demetriou, Anderson) etc. It has never been subjected to any public, member or club scrutiny. The current AFL hierarchy has made these changes by fiat and by stealth under misguided assumptions.

For the Swans, the effect of removing man on man (or perhaps AD would prefer 'person on person') physical contests, has been telling. It is this which is causing us most problems, I believe. Just look at the free kick count last week.

It doens't just cost us frees, I think players like Leo Barry, Barry Hall, Brett Kirk, Craig Bolton have all lost confidence because they do not know what the hell they are allowed to do.

For right or wrong (I think it goes further than wrong), we'd better adapt our methods or we're going to struggle. Roos may have won the 2005 'ugly game style' battle with AD, but he'AD's sure as @@@@ not winning the war.

[NMWBloods]

Yep - there are some very strange interpretations, particularly in marking.

[connolly]

Was just watching the Sunday Footy Panel on 9 and they showed highlights of the various free kicks over the last few games. Oh dear, what have they done to AFL. It is trully disturbing to see. I said to my wife 'its becoming like basketball' and she said 'no, more like netball'. Constistently, players touching other players attempting to mark are being called as infringing. I am not exagerating.

This profound AFL management driven alteration to the essence of what football is, has been introduced by people who never played the game, or when they did were soft and scared of physical contant (e.g. Barlett, Demetriou, Anderson) etc. It has never been subjected to any public, member or club scrutiny. The current AFL hierarchy has made these changes by fiat and by stealth under misguided assumptions.

For the Swans, the effect of removing man on man (or perhaps AD would prefer 'person on person') physical contests, has been telling. It is this which is causing us most problems, I believe. Just look at the free kick count last week.

It doens't just cost us frees, I think players like Leo Barry, Barry Hall, Brett Kirk, Craig Bolton have all lost confidence because they do not know what the hell they are allowed to do.

For right or wrong (I think it goes further than wrong), we'd better adapt our methods or we're going to struggle. Roos may have won the 2005 'ugly game style' battle with AD, but he'AD's sure as @@@@ not winning the war.

Good points.

[Xie Shan]

Therefore, Blight believes the way to go is to focus on your own team, not the opposition, ensuring they focus on getting the ball and using it well.

I think Roos seems to be awake to this -- past two weeks he's commented on ball use being the main factor in our performances during his press conferences. Yes, he is fallible, and I don't agree with everything he does, and can understand why some on here don't really like the guy, but he's not an idiot and I reckon he's got a pretty good understanding of the game.