Blakely, and a few others, take on 3 tacklers because they know they have to buy time, they can't put the ball to a vacant part of the ground between half back and the centre line. Why? Because all or most of our forwards and most of the opposition defenders are there. This takes away the advantage of Sandi's height (opponents can double/triple team him, scrag and chop at him), the pace of our mids (nowhere to lead to use that pace), and the result is to be tackled deep in defense, or put it on the head of a teammate standing still. Recipes for failure.
Look at the good sides. They have space for players to lead into, and players with the confidence to back teammates 1 on 1. While I believe we don't get a fair deal from the umps, we make it a lot harder by giving the opposition the chance to lock us deep in defense for long periods, because of the above, they let us swing the ball across goals inside the 50, knowing that the ball will eventually be coughed up by our or umps mistakes.
How many times, AGAIN, yesterday did we see a player get the footy in space across the middle, look to go forward, see nothing and have to go back into the pursuing pack. That 1 problem is what has taken away the skills that S Hill brings to the game, the ability to break the lines with his pace and deception. He is playing like a man who has realized that until the game plan changes, he is going to be just another slogger. As someone else stated, having players running into the forward line with the attack as your only options up front is not attack 101. The player running with the flight of the footy into the 50 is the surprise option, used rarely. He usually only gets the ball when all the forwards have led up the ground without the lead being honored, so is running, alone, into vacant spaces inside 50. At the moment all our forwards are leading into the 50, covered by opponents, not out from the10 yard square or it's vicinity.
Opposition defensive coaches are probably all taking their mid season breaks the week their team plays Freo, because they know they don't hsave any work to do, it is just "do what you did last time (and for the last 5 years ) against them, see you in 10 days.
