What it looks like when teams ‘play safe’: From The Notebook, Round 16 2024

“In reality, we probably went a little bit safe. It’s a big occasion for our group, we’ve got a lot of young players playing at the moment. And we probably just went into our shells a little bit.”

“The week before (against St Kilda), we went goalless in the last quarter after having the lead in that game as well. We got away with that one, and we didn’t on the weekend (v Port Adelaide). We need to continue to learn how to handle close-game scenarios.”

The first quote is from Simon Goodwin after Melbourne saw their lead steadily evaporate against Brisbane last week.

The second quote is from Sam Mitchell after Hawthorn blew a 28-point three quarter time lead against Port Adelaide in Round 10.

But more broadly than just those two examples, it speaks to what feels like a noticeable trend this season, the balance between protecting a lead and killing the game off trending more towards the former than the latter.

Sometimes it works just fine on the scoreboard, or the lead is so great either approach doesn’t really matter. Yet at other times it gifts the trailing team a chance where they never deserved to have one.

But what does ‘playing safe’ actually look like? And what effect does it have on the game flow? Let’s dig into it.

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The first example to look at isn’t from either of those two games, but instead one with a relatively low stakes finish from the weekend.

When the Western Bulldogs kicked the first goal of the last quarter against North Melbourne, they had a 38-point lead with about 15 minutes of game time remaining. They didn’t score again – or really look like scoring again, truth be told – for the match.

While the Bulldogs were never seriously threatened and eventually won by 17 points, the general pattern of play is instructive for what to look out for in cases like these.

The key to watch is obvious: has the team in front changed the way they play? In the Bulldogs’ case they absolutely did, scaling both their run and overlap play down a few gears and instead looking to control the game through uncontested possession:

Contested Possession Rate
(% of total disposals that are contested possessions)

Q1: 39.6%
Q2: 41.4%
Q3: 34.3%
Q4: 22.6%

From those extra uncontested possessions (relative to the contested), it was a more static style of ball movement:

Mark Play On %
(manually tracked so could be off a percent here or there)

Q1: 20.8%
Q2: 33.3%
Q3: 30%
Q4: 11.8%

Teams in front don’t always go to this one-two punch of more uncontested possession and static play to run the clock down. Sometimes it’s about looking for territory and then saturating the area with players to force somewhere between 200-300 stoppages. Other times it’s about avoiding the corridor at all costs. It might even be a long kicking game and marching from contest to contest in a methodical manner.

But the overall point is something changes in the team with a lead, and they play differently compared to what earned the initial advantage.

The team chasing the game recognises this as well. It gives them an added boost, as Zak Butters explained to Triple M after Port’s comeback v Hawthorn…

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“When you sort of sense some teams are conceding a little bit, they (Hawks) were sort of going wide … then I feel like once we kicked two or three (goals) I thought we could keep them in that space, keep trying to attack the game and get them to go wide and then try to win the contest and play front half footy.”

Translate that from football speak to normal words and it essentially means, ‘they weren’t trying to attack so we knew we could attack even more’.

Those telltale signs are simple to spot. Take this passage for instance, where a rushed long kick forward is intercepted by Ethan Phillips.

In the first two and a half to three quarters, Hawthorn would instantly have looked to either move it back up the field or change the angles to stress test Port’s scrambling defence. Instead the team switches to save the game mode, it’s a short, wide kick and Port can reset:

In Melbourne’s case against Brisbane, they already had a lower margin for error given their inconsistent (at best) forward line and five starting 22 players with 15 games or less. It makes movement even more important.

Instead their sign comes from this kick-in when there’s no movement of any note. Not even a half-hearted lead anywhere. Steven May is basically forced to kick to the least threatening area knowing the ball is nearly guaranteed to come straight back at him.

It allows the chasing team to keep players in more attacking positions. They know if the team in safe mode gets possession, they’re less likely to be punished.

A few minutes after that May kick-in, it looks like Brisbane magically have free players everywhere as they sweep forward. But it’s not about Lions being ‘out the back’, or ‘cheating forward’, so to speak. It’s about consciously committing to attack over defence and knowing the risk-reward factor is in their favour because of the opposition mindset.

(We’ll cut this clip just before the Charlie Cameron dropped mark and pretend that part never happened)

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For those who have missed previous Notebook entries, here are links to the last five editions:

Carlton’s next step, Port’s system faults: FTN, R15
Brisbane’s movement shift, Bulldogs midfield rotations: FTN, R14
A mid-season stocktake of win predictions:FTN, R11
The unique part of Jordon’s role on Walsh: FTN, R10
Port’s ball movement, Essendon’s floor: FTN, R9

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When a team is protecting a lead – like Hawthorn against Port Adelaide, Melbourne against Brisbane, even Carlton* against Melbourne earlier this year – crucial moments come when there’s the awkward ‘in-between’ lead and the game could easily swing between dead and buried or very much alive.

(*Carlton have had a habit of sitting on a lead under Michael Voss over the last couple of seasons. It’s made their last two wins against Geelong and Richmond really promising, seeing them put the foot down and kill the game off)

It’s where the mental aspect comes into play. The team with a lead has already committed to protecting but is under threat. The situation might call for that mindset to change, but in the moment it’s so hard to do at the click of a finger.

Once the margin gets to within a couple of goals it’s game on and everything should reset. In reality it often looks like the team holding a lead is frozen to the spot and near powerless to stop what’s coming. What’s happening above the shoulders is impossible to measure by any metric but undoubtedly a key to this trend.

Collingwood are the masters at chasing a game, their systems turning play into controlled chaos as covered post their comeback v North.

But even the Pies haven’t been great at holding onto a lead this season, getting a little lucky v North and Adelaide, drawing against Fremantle, almost blowing a large advantage v Hawthorn and gifting the lead straight back v Gold Coast.

Perhaps we’re in the middle of the next evolution: teams getting better and better at knowing which levers to pull when chasing a game but not quite getting the balance right when in front.

Across all ball sports, it’s historically been offence that innovates and then defence catches up. The latter hasn’t quite got there yet in this situation, and it makes for fascinating finishes.