How should we have set up our forward line with Griffin Pavlich Taberner and Mayne Walters and Ballantyne?
(Rhetorical answer) You want the talls to bring the smalls into the game. Taberner is not a contested mark, so his best role would be to try and run his opponent around and come up through the middle winning uncontested possession and then be a conduit for bringing the ball into Pavlich and Griffin, who would you hope have separation from each other, with the smalls quick and instictive enough to be gathering at their feet.
Against Hawthorn, one of the best defensive teams - good luck with that.
Selecting three slowish tall forwards together was always going to be sludge with defensive pressure, and Hawthorn had a lot of control of play where they maintained their 3-4 goal lead just by criss-cross keepings off uncontested possession that didn't make much inroad into our forward 50. The overall forward 50 entries at the end of the game were 42/41 Hawthorns way.
The only other times we have played that combination of Taberner, Pavlich and Griffin was in Rounds 15 and 16 - against Carlton and Richmond.
The first of those games against Carlton, Griffin spent more time on the ground than Sandilands, and Sandilands had some lengthier than usual time up forward. The other game against a decent defensive side in Richmond, Taberner was subbed early in the 2nd half (52% game time) - so that didn't work.
Hardly a blueprint for what was going to work in finals.
Griffin is a goer, but as a forward, the best he can do is stand under a ball and try and compete and occassionally take a grab. He doesn't have a bag of forward tricks, he's there because its folly to play only one ruckman in a final and have Sandilands go down - which has happened before.
I thought Walters was really the only dangerous effective forward last night. Griffin was only average. Ballas, Pav, Mayne well below their best. Taberner was a superfluous pick.
Last night we didn't have enough players to maintain possession when we got hold of the ball to send it forward to maintain clean possession all the way to a scoring position.
I'm not sure if we played it too safe with disposal when we had possession under coaching instructions not to turn over, or out of fear, or whether we're limited because we rely too much on getting the ball into those handful of players who can create.
Mundy had more handballs than kicks (10,17), same with Fyfe (7,17) Neale (7,15 - BTW 17 of those 22 possessions in the 1st half) Barlow (7,10). Hill who you want to kick the ball (12, 7 but disposal efficiency 58%). Pearce (16, 5 but 57% efficiency).
Disposal inside 50: DeBoer 5, Taberner 3, Fyfe 3, Pavlich 3, Griffin 3, Ballantyne 3, Hill 3, D Pearce 3
Goal assists: Sandilands 2, Taberner 1, Mayne 1, Ballantyne 1, Suban 1, Pavlich 1, Ibbotson 1
You can talk about not playing a forward structure, but its not evident when the play sets up at centre bounces. Sometimes it could be the opposite that occurs. A lot of teams drop spares back against Fremantle. Sydney dropped one back at the beginning of the last quarter in the qualifying final. That can be a way of attacking from defence too. Listening to a pre-game audio podcast from 3aw, one of the thoughts of the coach when interviewed about beating Hawthorn was to plan to stop Hawthorns tactic of using their spare defensive numbers to run the ball out (mostly Birchall).
Contrary to Agarns assertion above, unless I was receiving a rare hacked transmission from Channel 7 where players jumpers were tampered with, I saw a shot from behind the goals in the first half of tonights premil where the ball was just forward of centre favouring North Melbourne at a boundary throw in, and the deepest Eagles forwards sat alongside their opponents outside the 50m arc, on the edge of the centre 50m square. I reckon that would be standard for a lot of teams when the ball is in dispute. I think most teams tactically bring their forwards up outside 50 and try to get goals on turnover running back inside 50 to catch the defenders out. I guess its also to match defenders pressing up their territory advantage.
Hawthorn scored more goals from opposition errors than we did.
But this is about Suma, right?
