Negative Tigers Almost Steal It

Round 2
Richmond 11.6 (72) def by Sydney 13.10 (88)
Melbourne Cricket Ground

A lot of AFL supporters would say that Sydney is the most negative team with the possession type of football they play. What most people won’t tell you is that most of the time it is the opposition that forces Sydney to show some patience and chip the ball around to free options instead of the bombing away into the forward 50. This usually results in a turnover and also gives the opposition a good chance to drive on a counter attack from their half back line.

Strong negative tactics from the opposition force possession footy, such as:

• The Flood – where at times you will find the whole team in their defensive 50m
• Heavy tags – where the sole objective of a player is to make sure their opposing player doesn’t get possession of the ball and execute effective disposals. Usually tagging players don’t get a touch themselves, as they are so pre occupied with the player and not the ball
• Loose men in the backline – this is sacrificing one of your forwards and having him camp in front of the opposition’s key leading forward and also provides drive from halfback because he essentially has no opponent.

Richmond performed all these negative tactics against Sydney in the first half. It almost worked as it chokes the opposition from playing the way they would normally play. Teams react differently to this course of action. Some change how they play to regain the upper hand. Other teams might panic and make rash decisions as the pressure on the ball carrier becomes too intense. This happened to Adelaide last season when they were the in form team competition. They had their wings clipped by the negating tactics of Richmond who went on to have one of their very few wins of the season. It looked dangerously like history would repeat itself, especially considering Sydney are perennial slow starters to the season. This time class was to prevail, but the Swans let Richmond have a sniff in the last only to kick the last three goals of the match to take it out by 16 points.

It is frustrating as a viewer as you want the ball to keep moving but you also want your team to have possession and to ultimately win at the end of the day. Inevitably you might hear Swans fans shout out, “Just kick it!” These people probably don’t understand what I have just outlined. Yet their frustration is understandable.

Injury concerns for Barry Hall. Reports are that he has a partial tear to the medial ligament of his knee. It’s minor in comparison to what can happen to knees. Adam Goodes played most of a season with an injured medial ligament so who knows. My tip is 1 to 2 weeks, as we need him right for the business end of the season.