Rolling stoppages and fast-tracked rookies: The Notebook, Round 9

A two-topic Notebook this week covers an in-game change up, and an individual player focus.

We start with a look at the third quarter of St Kilda v Carlton, and how the Saints’ change up after half time inadvertently played right into the Blues’ hands.

Then we move onto Harvey Langford and his dual roles fast tracking his progression.

Let’s get into it.

—

The Patreon is up and running once again for 2025, which you can find right here. The three tiers are much the same as previous years, with refined features for the top two.

Patreon subscribers get early access to the Notebook each week as part of their benefits for signing up.

In addition to Patreon, you can find me on Twitter – and also Bluesky, where vibes are much more pleasant and there’s much less hate. It’s nice.

—

‘Dead’ games and rolling stoppages

“We were sort of pretty happy for the game to go dead, to be honest, during the third quarter. I felt like we needed that to just get our legs for the last quarter and run the game out well.

“When the game presented that way we were quite happy just to live in it and fill up the stoppages and make it a rolling maul and defend our end if we needed to … if we made that game a shootout we wouldn’t have won.”

Those were the words of Michael Voss post-game on Channel 7’s coverage. Filtered through a coach speak lens, it’s about as close as a coach will ever come to saying they were gifted the type of game (second half) they needed to win. Especially after the injuries that left Carlton walking wounded, even though the likes of Nick Haynes and Blake Acres were able to finish the match.

Following an open first half, the ball regularly pinging out and about in space, St Kilda opted to close it up after the break. The first half had a total of 44 stoppages. The third quarter alone almost matched that, clocking in at 38. In many ways the Saints looked to replicate what worked the previous week against Fremantle, clogging up space around the ball, slowing the pace down, and shrinking the ground.

The point of this Notebook entry is to illustrate what that looks like in action, and the obvious place to start is with team possession heat maps.

This is each team’s possession heat map in the second and third quarter; top half St Kilda, bottom half Carlton:

Carlton getting nearly completely shut out of the corridor shows the areas St Kilda wanted to play in, because make no mistake the third quarter was played at a tempo set up by the Saints.

Then in the narrower space around the outside, there were bulk numbers sent up around contests and stoppages as well.

It’s not always an equation where ‘bulk numbers = slow game’. Depending on each team’s aim, those numbers can be used as a way to aggressively chain out of congestion or quickly release into extra open space.

St Kilda’s goal was to use their extra numbers, often outnumbering Carlton at stoppage, to keep the game in conservative areas – even if they won possession.

For example, this Brad Hill clearance is never going anywhere but the pocket. It’s a defensive mindset, looking to put the ball in an area hard for the opposition to rebound first, and then any offensive benefit is secondary:

When it’s a game confined to the outer areas of the field, with plenty of numbers in a defensive mindset – one team driving it, the other happy to play along – it’s no wonder the third quarter essentially ground to a halt.

St Kilda’s ploy would have worked in breaking other teams (Fremantle) down. The issue for the Saints was coming up against a Carlton team comfortable to ‘live in it’ at any time, let alone in a stage where their personnel issues were pressing.

—

For those who have missed it, the last five posts on The Shinboner, plus…

2025’s Team Structures Page
North Melbourne’s Round 9 analysis v Brisbane
A centre bounce setup: Round 8’s Notebook
North Melbourne’s Round 8 analysis v Essendon
Midfielders in tandem, midfielders progressing: Round 7’s Notebook
North Melbourne’s Round 7 analysis v Port Adelaide

—

Harvey Langford, fast tracked

Technically this is breaking the rules a bit, because it’s supposed to be the Round 9 Notebook but there’ll be clips here from the last two weeks.

Nevertheless, as Langford fluctuates between wing and on-ball, he’s improving seemingly by the minute.

When he’s playing on the wing, he’s comfortable flying for marks (this one from a slight Christian Petracca miskick, but still)…

…his teammates are also comfortable using him as an outlet…

…and his understanding of when he can get deep into the attacking zone is advanced…

…along with when he has to follow up his own work:

Then when Langford is on-ball, he’s already recognising when to get from inside to outside…

…and when it’s his time to provide an option to make the key disposal in a passage.

The mix of wing and on-ball reps is fast tracking his positional requirements. For instance in this play he switches up a couple of times in the blink of an eye before gathering and dishing a key handball to Petracca:

Even allowing for Langford as a number six, ready to play draft pick, the type of situational understanding required in the above clips are high level and he’s executing it already, just a handful of games into his career.

—

The Create Your Own Depth Chart feature is now part of the List Management suite, all on the $5 tier for Patreon subscribers:

You can subscribe to the Patreon for 2025 right here. The three tiers are much the same as previous years, with refined features for the top two.

—