scottopee wrote:
Why do we kick long to forwards who are at their best when leading for the ball not taking pack marks?
Why do we kick long into our forward line when the opposition flood or play loose men in defence?
Why do we play the corridor when every side against us runs it back around the wings where there is heaps of space?
Maybe we could go back to good old fashioned first option football.
Agree with previous comments that the emphasis is on quick delivery via long kicks rather than a direction to kick to space in the F50 without selecting a target.
"Best Option" football is a fine concept as long as you have a team of skilled players with good judgment and vision.
Ideally, if you could program players like computers, you would ensure that the selection between options:
* favours longer/direct over shorter/indirect, where the relevant teammates can take uncontested possession or where the risks of a turnover is similar;
* allows for a loading in favour of longer and more direct options so that even if it is somewhat more risky than a short option it will be preferred;
* prefers handball to a free teammate rather than handballing to a player under pressure in or behind the contest;
* prefers kicks to handballs unless the kick may be smothered or go astray with pressure, or unless a handball to a free player is a better option than a long, direct kick;
* allows running and bouncing where that player can goal, or draw an opponent to create a free man, but not if long-kicking can achieve the same more quickly.
This is all obvious stuff, isn't it? But the problem comes with how players implement these obvious preferences.
Some players will not have the skills to do so. Those who have no confidence in their kicking may decide to pick out a player with a short, chip kick to allow the teammate to compensate for a wayward kick (even if that means holding the play up by going backwards or sideways). Or the footskill-challenged player may decide not to kick at all by handballing to a player in no better (or maybe in worse) position than himself.
Or an inexperienced player or one with poor decision-making skills or vision may prefer shorter options because the teammate is louder or closer and therefore more obvious (moreso if the senior players are selfish and demand the ball contrary to the team's interests).
Or players might give into the temptation when under pressure to become involved with a counterproductive chain of handpassing within a radius of 10 metres to players under similar pressure because it is easier and they can hear their teammates call for the ball. Murphy did some good stuff for us, and was at his best when he used his long-kicking abilities to good effect. But who wasn't irritated by his tendency to have multiple possessions when he, Bradley and others handballed up and down a line of 3 or 4 players before one of them kicked aimlessly into the flood that developed?
Soon enough, indirect and pointless possession becomes the order of the day. This is reinforced by losing streaks. The will to take risks by direct and fluid play dries up.
If you are a coach, you can tell the players off for doing this. And at training, maybe they respond. But when the pressure is reapplied on match-days, these bad habits, patterns of comfort, re-emerge irresistably.
Pagan's gameplan assumes that he does not have a team of 22 players with the decision-making, disposal and visionary skills of Diesel or Hird. He understands that he has a handful of A grade players, a number of B grade players and the rest are C grade players because of limited ability or inexperience. He acknowledges that some players, who might be skilled, are selfish, or perhaps don't have the insight to see what is good for the team and the will to play accordingly. So he enforces a style of play which strongly features physical play in contests and direct and long disposals. But it is not a system which mandates a long kick on every occasion.
Pagan may well ban players generally from running with the ball where targets are on. But he will let certain players who have the necessary ability and discipline do so. Players like David King and Harvey at the Roos were allowed and even encouraged to do what he frowns on from others. Houlihan appears to have this permission - and he has not been benched or axed even where he has run across the backline and turned the ball over by passes which didn't hit their mark.
Players generally are not allowed to do U-turns rather than feed it out by hand to those running towards goals. But again, Houlihan is allowed to do this in defence and Betts in the forward line, and Lappin wherever he is.
Players like Stevens are allowed to go short, or run out of the goalsquare at kickoffs, because he can trust them to use good judgment. But players like Prenda are encouraged to avoid short kicks because they can't be trusted.
The truth is that some players just don't have the discipline, intelligence, disposal skills, vision, decision-making skills, team-orientation or composure to be trusted to make their own free choices. That must upset a lot of players. Because even the worst of the 650 odd AFL footballers was a star in the lower grades of football. It must be disappointing for a player to see that his role is not as big as his ego and past junior performances suggest it should be. Those players become the robots of the AFL - constrained by team-rules and the coach's orders to play a fairly basic role. And while these "grunts" do the spade work, the glory goes to the elite players who are the real stars.
Pagan has players at his disposal (or has axed players) who:
* turn up stoned to training;
* allow themselves to become unfit;
* miss training;
* commit stupid mistakes away from the club;
* play selfishly rather than for their club and teammates;
* refuse to play the role set or in the manner required.
Until Pagan has a team capable of self-discipline, he is entitled to impose discipline on the team.
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) about the penaltiues now choose to ignore their effect - that's why we all hated those penalties because they would hurt!!! Well its hurting, its not Denis, its not Collo, nor the more to TD 
