On average, a team scores roughly 32 points a game from possession chains starting in their defensive half.
On Saturday, Adelaide doubled that against North Melbourne in Hobart. 64 points – 10.4 – provided the foundation for their comfortable 57-point win.
For North, that issue – conceding from their own forward half – has been a constant in recent memory. It’ll be the subject of today’s post before a couple of odds and ends down the bottom.
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By and large, there are two reasons for a team to struggle keeping the ball in their forward half:
1) Initial positioning allowing space and causing a domino effect: The obvious one that goes without saying. An example:
2) The inability to track in the second phase: EG. What happens after the first possession as opponents try to create overlaps with their movement.
Chronologically, we’ll go through a handful of examples from Saturday which toggle between these two reasons.
The first clip comes late in the opening term from an Adelaide kick-in. It’s a slow play and Reilly O’Brien out marks Tristan Xerri. It’s not ideal, but given it didn’t happen with any speed, North should still be set up to force either another slow disposal or maybe even an attempted switch.
But because no-one tracks Luke Nankervis running from behind, it’s a simple handball receive and overlap, then a second possession in the chain to send it inside 50.
It’s a basic mistake, although the initial reasoning for it is understandable. It looks like it comes from a focus on owning the initial space around the contest, and then not being quick enough to switch mindset into the second phase of play.
The second clip is actually a mix of both reasons explained, earlier and a demonstration of why knowing the right time to stand on the mark v dropping outside five is so important.
As Jordan Dawson chips to Rory Laird in the back pocket, Charlie Lazzaro opts to stand on the mark.
Dawson is then able to roll around the outside and take an easy handball and pump an uncontested kick long to what ends up being a two-on-one because Tristan Xerri makes the wrong read.
If Lazzaro opted to drop outside five instead of stand, Dawson either doesn’t complete the one-two with Laird, or his best-case scenario is a rushed kick under pressure. And it covers for Paul Curtis not sticking close enough to Dawson to smell what deodorant he put on in the morning.
It’s Jordan Dawson we’re talking about. It’s not any old handball merchant.
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Speaking of the Adelaide captain, he again features prominently in the third clip. In this example it’s the initial positioning that comes into question.
As a collective, the team is a half-step slow to snap into position while Brayden Cook goes sideways to Will Hamill, meaning no one is able to stop the follow up kick to Mitch Hinge.
That kick to Hinge basically leaves a string of Roos in no man’s land between Hinge and Dawson, making it easy pickings for the latter to be next man up. It’s the key mistake, and then once someone of his calibre has a step it’s too tough to catch him.
There’s a very valid argument to be made that more should have been done to stop Dawson’s second possession in the chain – much like Nankervis earlier – but personal preference is to be quicker to snap into place initially so there doesn’t have to be as much scrambling later on.
Then sometimes it’s just a combination of individual errors and opponents working at a physical level North’s can’t go with.
Here Aidan Corr comes across to intercept – the correct decision – but fails to impact, leaving Adelaide with a chance to sweep it forward.
At the same time, Rory Laird has worked across from the opposite wing. He continues to run and impact all the way down the field and no Roo can go with him.
(Note: It’s tricky from the broadcast vision to figure out who was responsible for Laird. It could be any of a half dozen Roos)
After all the above, hopefully these clips – and today’s piece as a whole – don’t give the impression this issue can be fixed in a matter of a couple of weeks.
Something as nuanced as front half team defence takes time to bed down. A lot of time. It’s not as simple as getting a good small forward or two. I mean, it’d help, to be sure, but it wouldn’t be the magic potion to fix all ills.
Think of all the things the forward half is working on. In addition to finding the right offensive mix between talls, smalls, and the plethora of medium/general forwards, there’s also a bunch of inexperienced players figuring out their own games at the same time.
Then on top of that, the ask is of those individuals to figure out their roles in a team defence while playing in what’s probably a historically inexperienced team in North Melbourne’s history. It’s an ask that takes plenty of time even in the best of situations, let alone the current one.
To place it in the context of a normal workplace: Imagine if your boss slapped a dozen things on your desk and asked you to learn them all as soon as possible, all while maintaining your day-to-day tasks and keeping other departments happy at the same time.
It’s why it isn’t a quick or even medium-term fix when it comes to front half defence. Some weeks will be better than others, and at times it’ll look like a corner has been turned only to reveal a dead end.
The key is to get the foundation in place and work off a solid base. The clips above don’t show a team that are clueless, it shows a team mostly knowing what they’ve been told to do but a step or three slow in implementing it. At this level, against any team, that manifests in the margins on the scoreboard.
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For those who have missed previous match analyses, given we’ll probably see similar themes and progression updates start to pop up from here on out, here are links to the last five weeks:
Trust on a football field: Round 6 v Hawthorn
Minimising strengths, maximising weaknesses: Round 5 v Geelong
Midfield movement lessons: Round 4 v Brisbane
Going too quick: Round 3 v Carlton
The study of a quarter: Round 2 v Fremantle
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Odds & Ends
– After the Brisbane game I mentioned the possibility of a key defensive mix potentially developing and that I’d check back on it in a month. At that stage I wasn’t expecting Kallan Dawson to hurt his ankle a few days later and still be listed as two-three weeks away as of a few days ago.
So with that in mind, and because I can’t delay it forever, what intrigued me was the possibility of a Griffin Logue/Charlie Comben/Dawson defensive trio once Logue returns from his ACL injury, if the latter two can string a solid block of games together before then, and if the trio can all be fit at the same time. A lot of conditions there.
Still, the trio’s skill sets feel complementary in theory, especially with how quickly Comben is improving with every minute he plays as a key defender, Dawson as the highest and most mobile of the three, and Logue doing a bit of everything while leading the unit.
There’ll be perfectly understandable calls for Comben to move forward as that line struggles with a lack of aerial support for Nick Larkey. Personal opinion is I’d rather focus on one line at a time and do it properly when there’s an opportunity to.*
The potential in Comben as a key defender is much higher than his potential as a key forward – which isn’t to say he was subpar as the latter, but more the flashes he’s shown at the former are of a better level. Even though in the short term it’d undoubtedly help the team if Comben went forward.
Will this trio work? Who knows for sure. But on paper and a little bit of individual exposed form there seems enough there to test out.
*Which isn’t necessarily the right or wrong way to think! It’s just how my brain works. When it works, at least.
– A rejigged midfield rotation saw extra minutes for Will Phillips and more minutes for Jy Simpkin, with Tom Powell and Charlie Lazzaro relegated to the half forward line as a result. It … didn’t work.
I felt sorry for Phillips in particular; one of those days where the harder you try, the more goes wrong. Everyone has those days, it’s just when we have one it’s not on an AFL field with hundreds of thousands of people watching across the country. And even watching in Tasmania too.
Cheap jokes about Tasmania aside, with Phillips a one-dimensional midfielder at this stage of his game, it’s hard to see where he fits in the current mix. It relegated Powell to half forward – not a position he plays that well, but still one he plays much better than Phillips, who can only be a mid. And Phillips provided no point of difference alongside Luke Davies-Uniacke and George Wardlaw.
The VFL side has a block of four consecutive games before their next bye. It’d probably be best for Phillips to go back there and play those matches with the carrot of an AFL spot at the end of it if he dominates on both sides of the ball. Until then it’s not doing anyone’s confidence any good to have Phillips on the fringe, in and out, potentially a sub one week and out the next.