People talk about game plans like they are the concoction of football geniuses executed perfectly by footballers, able to be changed like settings on a TV. I don't think they are nearly as complicated as people make out, and to my mind coaches get way too much credit for them when a team plays well, and way to much scorn when a team plays poorly.
There are a few things coaches can control:
- Who they pick the play (selection).
- Where, roughly, those players spend most of their time on the field, and on which players (positioning); and
- Instructions on how those players are to play (instructions).
O
f those, the only thing coaches have complete control is selection. The rest is up to the players to use their skills and decision-making to execute.
Take forward positioning. Forwards have to figure out where to be and when. A coach can say things like ‘get up the ground’, or ‘stay closer to goal’, but generally players need to go where the game takes them. Getting 5 interchangeable players to get that balance correct is pretty difficult.
Even if you give the instruction ‘play-on whenever you can’, or ‘look inside when we win the ball of half-back’, whether that is executed depends on the ability of the players to actually win the all off half-back, whether they have the courage, skill and quick wits to swing the ball inside, whether Freo has players there, and whether the other team is set up to stop that. You’ve got 18 moving parts with human agency and varying abilities. Mess it up a few times (like against Port), and it’s amazing how quickly players will start going back down the safety of the line. Hit the scoreboard a few times (like against Footscray), and you’ll start to get a bit of momentum.
The best coaches can do is try to instil behaviours that mean players instinctively work together, and try and correct imbalances in the 18-part system. Instinct and balance are what make a good game plan, and they don’t change from week-to-week.
I reckon the players just did a better job of playing footy.
