Round 22: Box and One, or, Save Us, Brad Ottens

First of all, thanks for all the well wishes (and language advice) for my upcoming trip. I have found a bar that, while being at cringe inducing “Aussie” levels, should be showing the Grand Final. Hopefully there’ll be a reason for me to watch it.

As for the status of Big League, my last blog will probably be after the first final, but from there on out, Mrs Watson will be taking over as caretaker coach! Great news! Let’s get behind Mrs W and hope his scathing, completely baseless and slanderous opinions of Brett Burton and Dale Thomas are enough to get us over the line.

As for the Cats, well, despite a reasonably good 3rd quarter fight back it was, unfortunately, more of the same; they looked slow, tired, sloppy and the defence looked about as solid as Shane Watson’s batting technique. (Even though his opening the batting did surpass my meagre expectations, surely Phil Hughes was worth persevering with. But I digress; no cricket talk until September is behind us, I promise.)

As Mrs Watson and I watched the game from my pad (and sampled a selection of his growing beer collection) it became glaring clear that there was one major issue with Geelong’s game-plan or structure or zone or set-up or whatever; the Cats gave up waaaaaaaaay too many easy goals on the turn over.

Granted, due to the way The Cats style of play (or are the style they are to remember how to play), they will occasionally cough up an easy one going the other way. This happened even at the height of their powers in ’07 and ’08. However, against the Dogs it was out of control. It seemed like every Bulldogs goal was the same; Geelong turnover at half-forward, run and carry, long kick over stranded ‘zoning’ defenders, easy shot on goal. Rinse and repeat.

And it must be terribly deflating for the team. Working so far through the middle and then one little mistake (or a large one, thank you Mark Blake) and you’re watching the ball sail back over your head like you’re Nathan Hauritz. It was classic Pagan’s paddock stuff, and it was allowed to work because Geelong’s defenders were getting sucked up the ground.

This happens for two reasons; the first, which I don’t believe was the case, is that defenders, in one-on-one mode, simply follow their opponents out of the forward line as teams try to clear out some space. The second reason is defenders pressing up to the centre, attempting a full, 18-man Hawthorn style zone.

The “cluster” works thusly: When the ball is deep in the forward line all the defenders push up the ground and set up a zone, each guarding space, not a specific man, in one half of the ground only: 18 men in 75-odd metres of oval. The mass numbers that are available to any particular contest means intense defensive pressure can be applied, resulting in, best case scenario, a turnover, and if not, restricting quick ball movement and allowing defenders time to push back if necessary. Following me so far?

It’s a gamble. The downside is (and Geelong exposed this somewhat in ‘08) that if you move quickly and decisively enough through the zone it can be easy to score against. The upside is that you should force enough turnovers in dangerous positions and apply enough scoreboard pressure that you can withstand the odd cheapie.

Here lies Geelong’s problem (at least against the Bulldogs): They’re getting all the downside of the 18-man rolling zone and none of the upside.

At the moment our backs are finding themselves very quickly out of position because our forward line does not have the physical capabilities to put enough pressure on rebounding defenders. The answer? Geelong’s defence needs to return to a more traditional positional structure.

Geelong’s defenders need to hold their ground a little more, like they did in 2007. A zone can still be employed further up the ground, but leave at least one man out, if not two or three, guarding the most dangerous part of the ground, 20-45m out, directly in front of goal; roughly the spot Luke Hodge parked his Colac mullet for the entire 2008 Grand Final.

As well as that, here are six more things we need to be successful, not only this week, but for the finals series:

1) Geelong needs to find another small defender to fill Josh Hunt’s spot. James Kelly was doing beautifully, and is back this week, but has missed seven weeks (a seven week hammy!!) of football. DJ was given a shot and has now, correctly, been given the ass. Can Wojack find some form in his 150th? Will Simon Hogan be given a chance down there? Either way, someone needs to step up to allow the following three things to happen.

2) Joel Corey needs to spend more time in at centre bounces. He’s our clearance specialist and, while he’s done admirably, I don’t really trust him at full-back, do you?

3) Andrew Mackie needs to push forward as much as possible, even if it means playing him on the wing. As we’ve seen in the past few weeks, Muscles gives the best delivery to our forwards on this team bar maybe a fit Steve Johnson. He has good vision, makes good choices and no-one else is capable of that low, hard accurate kick over 50+ metres.

4) Darren Milburn should spend some time forward. He reads the play extremely well, has great hands, is an accurate kick and would provide a contest and a bit more malice up there. Probably more of a pinch hitter still, but, if match-ups allow, I’d be interested to see how he went if he was given a full game there. He certainly couldn’t be any worse than Ryan Gamble.

5) Matthew Stokes to play that true small forward role. The defensive assignments Bomber has been giving him may have been punishment more than anything. Chapman will come back in for someone, so Stokes needs to get back to basics; crumb for the big guys, chase and tackle, sneak into dangerous spots when appropriate and make us all remember a time when Shannon Byrnes was the most despised 5’6” forward pocket on the team.

6) Brad Ottens (and everybody else for that matter) to get through an entire AFL match unscathed just in time to save us. Do it, sex-fingers. Give us a Clark Keating-type September and we’ll gladly sacrifice another 50 teenage Geelong groupies to you.

Over to you, Lips.


Captain: WC, Geel, Ess, Adel, Bris, PA, StK, WB.
Season Tally: 120-48

Mrs Watson: Will be here soon enough.