It has been mentioned before, but 21 rounds and I still can't work it out, Luke. The rest of the team can't either. Looking on the bright side, at least you had two hands on the ball, but for a salty chicken smiley-proclaimed superstar in the making http://www.dockerlan...s/re-who-were-those-guys/view-33.html#266573, please let me in on the secret. Let somebody in on the secret. Anybody.

What does it mean?
If it means what I think it means, why do you do it?
If you are going to do it, how does it help?
Do you take it upon yourself or have the coaches asked you to do it?

Lordy, Lordy! In the second quarter you had the ball at centre half back with 1:45 on the clock. There is only one ball on the ground but you held it aloft to show everyone where it was, then you proceeded to not even get it past the centre circle, let alone get a shot at goal. In fact it momentarily turned-over and you were lucky not to be scored against.

I thought this game was about outscoring the opposition by as much as possible. My interpretation of the tactic is that it says you are not confident in your own abilty to do this.

I think you are missing the biggest point.

The tactic is to slow the game down, or hold up play, I believe he was asking someone to make a lead, offer themselves to the ball.

If richmond dont want to man up, then thats not our problem, they ran the flood a kick and a bit forward of the ball. Therefore the whole holding the ball up, and kicking back and forth is not something that is planned at 1.45 to go.

Everyone has seen Freo play better when they run and attack, but when the players 30m in front of you are manned, and then a further 30-40m upfield are flooded with opposition players, then why turn the ball over?? (eventually, we tried to move the ball up the field along the MCC wing, and it went out of bounds, so Richmonds tactics on that occasion worked).

Although with .55 to go on the clock in the last quarter when richmond held the ball up and did the same in our forward line, that was a deliberate attempt of "icing" the clock.

But seriously, what does it matter, it is round 21, we just need to get through the next week without any injuries, and concentrate of next season. Let richmond cry over the fact they tried to deliberatly slow the game down so we didnt over run them in the last minute or 2 and wreck their chances of making the 8, when StKilda did that for them anyway.

Being at the game it was a great game to watch, because for 95% of the match it gave us a good chance to really let richmond know they nearly lost to the third worse team in the comp!

I believe its a similar tactic to basketball when its near the break, they are slowing down play to run time off the clock to give themselves one last crack at a goal. The other team has to man up, which in theory should open your forward line up a little.

That being said I'm not a big fan of theory.

What do you mean 'what does it matter, it is round 21...' - I am one of the 43000+ reasons that should make it matter. If it doesn't, then someone's missed the point of a 22 round season.

Somewhere recently, I read a stat that had us in the top performing teams over the first 15-20 minutes of quarters played... but in the lowest group over the last 5 minutes.

Shouldn't come as a surprise to any of us... so, umm, yeah, like, how was your weekend?