Ok so I'm a tactics nerd ;D
How good was it to see us hit the corridor and either lay it out to a leading target in space or send it to the hot spot?
I honestly cannot recall an entry to the boundary line. It was refreshing to see.
There are clearly two things that have changed over the summer.
1) The creation of space through hard running. The emphasis on strong runners (McIntosh, Houli, Hunt, Gordon, Edwards) is critical. It is too easy now to lock down the team in possession if they predictably go down the line on the skinny side or try and slice through with short passing. You need at least one guy to present into space. That's where these guys come in and they essentially won us the game last night. Clearances were abysmal. Against a side not exactly famous for hard ball gets.
I believe Dimma has looked at our list and realized we cannot replace Jackson and Tuck easily. These guys took serious heat in the packs and allowed us to at least break even in CP. Yes we have Miles and Cotchin, but not much else in the way of crazy ball winning power. So like a good coach Dimma is maximising what he has in spades - endurance runners.
It's all about the uncontested possessions, baby. All you have to do is make sure you pressure the opp. clearance and hoover the stray pill from half back. Loose ball gets, a chain of handpasses and we're away. This is a huge shift from Dimma's previous focus, which was obsessive ball winning and ball security going forward.
2) Did anyone notice we are keeping our forward structures in transition?
If Houli hits KMac on the chest at half back and he's coralled back over the mark, Jack WILL NOT LEAD TO THE WING as our key forwards have in the past. All this did was leave nothing to kick to and we'd wait for options to sprint forward. You cannot do this in 2015 - ball movement would be way too slow and the opp. would have time to cover.
What happened last night was the endurance runners would run FORWARD into space in the middle, creating overlap and allowing Jack and the support forwards to structure up in the F50 arc.
A huge, huge change from last year.
And all to do with endurance running. Not so much outright speed. For this reason we may see more first quarters like last night, but better second halves.
That's my tl;dr anyway :hihi
ps - Dimma and the brains trust need huge pats on the back. They set us up to win by 60+ points last night and we should have.
How good was it to see us hit the corridor and either lay it out to a leading target in space or send it to the hot spot?
I honestly cannot recall an entry to the boundary line. It was refreshing to see.
There are clearly two things that have changed over the summer.
1) The creation of space through hard running. The emphasis on strong runners (McIntosh, Houli, Hunt, Gordon, Edwards) is critical. It is too easy now to lock down the team in possession if they predictably go down the line on the skinny side or try and slice through with short passing. You need at least one guy to present into space. That's where these guys come in and they essentially won us the game last night. Clearances were abysmal. Against a side not exactly famous for hard ball gets.
I believe Dimma has looked at our list and realized we cannot replace Jackson and Tuck easily. These guys took serious heat in the packs and allowed us to at least break even in CP. Yes we have Miles and Cotchin, but not much else in the way of crazy ball winning power. So like a good coach Dimma is maximising what he has in spades - endurance runners.
It's all about the uncontested possessions, baby. All you have to do is make sure you pressure the opp. clearance and hoover the stray pill from half back. Loose ball gets, a chain of handpasses and we're away. This is a huge shift from Dimma's previous focus, which was obsessive ball winning and ball security going forward.
2) Did anyone notice we are keeping our forward structures in transition?
If Houli hits KMac on the chest at half back and he's coralled back over the mark, Jack WILL NOT LEAD TO THE WING as our key forwards have in the past. All this did was leave nothing to kick to and we'd wait for options to sprint forward. You cannot do this in 2015 - ball movement would be way too slow and the opp. would have time to cover.
What happened last night was the endurance runners would run FORWARD into space in the middle, creating overlap and allowing Jack and the support forwards to structure up in the F50 arc.
A huge, huge change from last year.
And all to do with endurance running. Not so much outright speed. For this reason we may see more first quarters like last night, but better second halves.
That's my tl;dr anyway :hihi
ps - Dimma and the brains trust need huge pats on the back. They set us up to win by 60+ points last night and we should have.
