What direction do you think AFL strategies will take?

Question

Years ago the pies dominated with a scrounging handball game, then we went to the big kicking approaches of the tigers and roos (for example) in the 70's, then the fast through the centre bombers, cats and hawks of the eighties. I loved watching the eagles strategies in the 90's with the spreading to the wing.

There was "Pagan's paddock" (which lives on to some degree), flooding worked for a few years (bears/lions and swans)

It seems that's been beaten with approaches of patience (pies/eagles/port) or the ball moving faster than the flood (a la pies and cats this year)

What will teams do now to beat the fast moving hawks, cats, pies, etc? Is it just tackle harder and spoil, or is there a strategy that can unwind it?

Answer 1

I want the 80's style to come back.

Hard, Fast & Brutal

The Essendon/Hawthorn rivalry

Collingwood/Richmond/Carlton, etc

Stop the pi$$ing around & playing keepings off.

Kick the F****** thing long & kick it HARD

Answer 2

Run, carry and tackle

Answer 3

I honestly think the only was to stop the fast moving teams is to tackle and spoil harder.

Players need to be fearless in the way they tackle the ball a-la Dale Thomas - literally throwing themselves out there and running fast and running FAST!

I much prefer the fast paced game than the flooding tactic.

And I might just add that I really hope Richmond STOP the kicking/handballing backwards all the time...it slows everything down and gets so boring to watch.

Answer 4

Since the umpires are so gullible I think it will involve milking. There is no such thing as a free kick for deliberate out of bounds it is only paid for not acting well enough to disguise it.

"OOhh help! I fell over after I marked the ball can I have a 50". Soccer players used to get trained to dive in the penalty area before it was a yellow card offence, AFL will go down that path unless the umps wise up.

Answer 5

Teams may end up doing what Hawthorn did when they had Peter Hudson playing at full forward................Put their best player at that position & have no-one else within 80 metres of goal. Then boot the ball down & it would revert to a one-on-one.

If the opposing teams put other players back it would leave loose players to run havock. I've been waiting for a team to use those tactics again.

I wonder if they'd work today......probably not, but I can't think of anything else.

Answer 6

Aussie rules could end up being 18 midfielder type players to a side.

Run like blazes and forget about the speckies.Heaven forbid.

Personally, I am not a big supporter of the most athletic player running all over the field under the voting eyes of the green maggots.

I prefer to see the skills that each position player has to display and offer. After all, it is a display of talent isn't it. ?

Without advocating that the game should be slowed down, there must be a better way of opening up the scrambling passages of all jumping on each others backs, when a player has been ridden into the turf.Some of the present day footy looks like under 12s local football at a dud club.

Answer 7

Get some knuckle men in the teams, like they used to have a few years ago.

If I was coach I'd have 3 or 4 on my list & rotate them in game time. If one got rubbed out he'd be looked after and one of the others would take his place.

Just like Batman....Biff.....whack......bam......

Answer 8

I see Mulga Bob's point, but his comment about Peter Hudson would lead to a resumption of flooding, wouldn't it?

The only way you slow a team down is grab and hold, hope 6 sets of eyes (the field umpires) don't see it.

Answer 9

Tackle hard!!!!

Answer 10

to be honest it will probably turn out like japenese football feeding off over 30 players from English Premire league or in japenese league brazilian