The original title for today’s piece was going to be something along the lines of ‘single issue game’. Then I realised that’d lead to everyone expecting 1400 words about umpiring decisions, lack of them, the general lottery on what to expect, and whatever happened in the ARC when they forgot Griffin Logue had two hands capable of touching the football.
So take the above as the only time spent going over the umpiring. From here out it’ll all be about the on-field product from the players and how the game flow swung based on North Melbourne’s ability to force forward half turnovers v GWS’ ability to transition from their defensive half.
It’s been a recurring theme for North this year, but the quality of opposition has meant it didn’t have a large impact on results. There was no such luck against the Giants, who kicked 10.8 of their 15.15 from possession chains beginning in their defensive half. North actually had more time in forward half, an area which hadn’t been a strong suit so far this year.
The game essentially became ‘can North score from their forward half work’ or ‘will the Giants go over/around/through them to waltz it coast to coast’. It’ll be the focus of today’s post.
To set the table we’ll once again go back to words from the pre-season match sim at Casey Fields. Those who have already read this can skip it, but for those who haven’t:
The two paragraphs most relevant to Sunday:
All these new rule tweaks – stand, stoppages, etc – promote a little more run, carry, and flowing ball movement. It means if the North first layer of defence can’t hold things up, suddenly opponents have more room than normal streaming forward to work in.
It basically comes down to a large amount of pressure on North’s on-ball defence to do the heavy lifting. This current setup behind the ball won’t be able to cover up many mistakes around the ball, regardless of personnel.
In this case the ‘on-ball defence’ means North’s work in their forward half without the ball, of which there are plenty of different phases. For example it could mean defending a kick in, general setup from a forward 50 stoppage, or even snapping into shape after turning it over deep forward. It’s not always the exact same thing.
Sometimes it was genuinely high quality, and the rewards came off the back of it. Other times it wasn’t, and they were punished.
Disclaimer before we continue: I’ll only use clips where we can see everything that happened. Despite there being more than enough passages where we could clearly see something had gone right or wrong, there was often a crucial scene missing, eliminating the needed context
Let’s start with a positive example, where Lachie Whitfield was caught from a kick in by Charlie Spargo. While it’s Spargo who rightfully gets the headline reward, watch how it’s made possible by the work behind him. Giants spread in each direction but there is little clear advantage in any of the options, so Whitfield waits, and waits … and waits, hoping for something to open up and avoid going long to a contest.
It doesn’t happen so Spargo swoops and wins the free kick:
Contrast it with this work from a kick in where the Giants run a similar initial set up, but North are caught too close in to the huddle, leaving no blockers on the outside.
It allows the outlet kick and then once Callaghan uses his pace to burn off O’Sullivan while Powell has been dragged away by Whitfield, North are stuck chasing tail the rest of the chain. It just takes a split second to cause a domino effect.
Flipping back to the positive, we see this clip from early in the second quarter, stopping the Giants from their slight change of angle when they’re looking to handball chain through the middle. Right from the outset we can see their numbers loading up just outside the North pressure, but said pressure forces rushed handballs and an eventual turnover.
It’s not perfect from North but it doesn’t have to be and expecting that all game round is unrealistic, even for the very best teams. Come up to the ball carrier, block as many outlets as possible, just be good enough and results will come more often than not.
Sometimes the forward half defence can just be about a really good chase to make up for a little structural misstep, like our next clip.
Even when the Giants have found a way out, Lachie Ash dropping Tom Powell with acceleration and pace, it’s Paul Curtis to the rescue and chasing the Giant down. It’s also a classic in the genre of ‘Lachie Ash runs far longer than he should have’, but either way here’s the clip:
Arguably the trickiest part of forward half defence is getting your positioning just right. In an ideal world it’s high enough to create pressure on the ball handler, but while avoiding getting caught either too high, or stuck in no man’s land where it’s easy to get caught over your head.
It sounds like a tough needle to thread, because it is a tough needle to thread, and the consequences for getting it wrong are severe.
When the forward half defence gets caught up too high and close to the ball carrier without being able to apply pressure, invariably it opens up the corridor for the team in possession. We get a prime example of it here from behind the goals vision.
Whitfield has Daniels available and waiting, and all it takes is a kick he could hit in a sleep. From there it’s curtains for North.
Hopefully the above paints the picture of North creating good things from their forward half work, balanced out by times where it was slightly off and punished by a very good ball movement team.
The constant through most of the above was largely how disconnected the back half defence was. It’s partially by design, all the work done over the summer settling on a simplified approach to cut out what we saw last year, defenders scrambling and caught nowhere, either after mistakes further up the field or, to be harsh, even after there weren’t mistakes.
Through seven rounds, it’s left a North outfit boom or bust when it comes to forward half defence. Consider the following:
– Points scored from forward half turnovers: 5th
– Defensive 50 to inside 50 transitions conceded: 17th
In layman’s terms: North can force turnovers in their forward half and score well from them. If they don’t, opponents are taking it coast to coast too often. It’s likely a necessary short-term adjustment period, given North’s scoring power from forward half turnovers in previous years…
– 2025: 18th
– 2024: 16th
– 2023: 15th
– 2022: 18th
(usual caveats about opponent strength in first six weeks this year apply, but from my end it’s significant enough an improvement to overpower those)
…because once the second layer of defence comes up behind the front layer of forward half defence – a sentence approximately 100,000 times easier to type at a laptop screen than execute in-game – the whole game changes for North.
To reiterate how important this area of the game is for them – this is it. Right here. Improvement in this space is the last major hurdle for North to clear and become a normal, league average team with upside still to tap.
The rest – forward synergy offensively, natural growth from younger players, moves around the margins, and the like – is still vital, no doubt. But the biggest step comes from consistently nailing these moments and having a full ground defence working in lockstep.
We can see the improvements in patches and certain areas of the ground, as illustrated above. Once all 18 on-field players have synergy is when the proper rise begins. It feels close. How close differs depending on who you ask and the mood you’re in.
Maybe next week won’t be the best judge, because the game is in Geelong, and those afternoons live in a different universe. But in general though…
This was great. I find it hard to follow tactics on TV and can see there’s an issue but can’t really see exactly why. Hopefully you’re right and we can sort out the second layer. By second layer do you mean in the defensive 50 or high half back or what?
Thank god for you Ricky
Thank you kind stranger