Field Marshal: How will clubs handle resting players during the fixture squeeze?
In 2013 Fremantle opened at Winx-like odds against St Kilda only to lose by 71 points after 11 stars were rested. The Dockers went on to make a Grand Final – but is that the best way to manage players?
Collingwood
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The AFL says the integrity of matches will not be compromised in the condensed fixture block despite the threat of clubs targeting a particular match to rest all of their superstars.
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley and St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt have flagged the possibility of clubs resting players en masse instead of sharing the load throughout the hectic schedule.
But the league will embrace the changes as clubs prepare to expose the bulk of their lists in the next three weeks.
The TAB will no longer offer betting markets rounds in advance and said it needed to remain “nimble” as the AFL stages 33 games in 20 days.
“Given the short turnaround in games, rather than offering odds on a round-by-round basis like usual, we will look to offer markets week to week,” the bookmaker said.
But clubs are only required to lodge their teams at 5.45pm on the day preceding their match and any plunges will be closely monitored.
In 2013 Fremantle opened at Winx-like odds against St Kilda only to jump at about even money and lose by 71 points after coach Ross Lyon rested 11 stars.
The AFL then introduced a pre-finals bye after Lyon’s Dockers and Brad Scott’s North Melbourne dropped a combined 20 players for the final home-and-away game in 2015.
The Roos and Dockers wanted to freshen up their stars for the finals and were happy to roll over in Round 23 given their security in the top eight.
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Riewoldt suggested Geelong could consider resting several guns against lowly North Melbourne next Wednesday.
But former coaching mastermind Rodney Eade said it made more sense to bank those wins and pointed out the Western Bulldogs would benefit from already playing an AFL-high 36 players this season.
“People think you might rest all your stars when you play the bottom team thinking you’re going to win,” Eade said.
“I reckon it’d be more the other way and those ones you’ve just got to bank against teams below you or around you, so you pick your best team.”
But Eade was against that strategy and said a scientific approach was needed where players simply sat out a game as soon as they felt sore.
“I think it’s dangerous to think along those lines (resting en masse), because if you’ve got plans for in two weeks’ time we’re going to do that and then all of a sudden the week before you get another six players who get injured all of sudden it’s thrown into chaos.
“I don’t think you’d do all your stars (in one game). That’s not a great look and is probably conceding we’re not going to win that game.
“If it happens that you do have to rest six to eight stars in one game it’s based on science or logic rather than a whim. The best-laid plans can all go awry.”
STARTLING STATS REVEAL PIES’ HUGE PROBLEM
Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir described Collingwood as “impenetrable” last month.
The Magpies were yet to concede 40 points in a game and Fremantle’s new coach knew their defence better than most, having served as Collingwood backline coach for the past two years.
“They’ve got a really mature back six that have played a lot of footy together,” Longmuir said.
The Magpies have since lost intercepting weapon Jeremy Howe (knee) and let through the biggest score of 2020 on Sunday, when West Coast piled on 18.3 (111).
But they are still the AFL’s No. 1 stopper and, despite playing one extra game, have leaked fewer points than Melbourne and Essendon.
For the most part they are as tight as piano wire. Structurally they set up so well that opposition entries are usually slow, predictable and without a threatening patch of open space on offer.
The key words being “for the most part”, because an alarming trend has emerged where Collingwood falls asleep at the wheel.
In Round 1 the Western Bulldogs pinged through three goals late in the second quarter to cut the margin from 48 points to 30.
It was enough for Dogs coach Luke Beveridge to tell his players at the last two breaks that they had a pulse.
No damage was done, but it foreshadowed what was to come.
In Round 2 the Magpies conceded four-straight majors against Richmond in a game that finished as a five-goal apiece draw.
In Round 4 it was the Giants’ run of three majors after scores were level at halftime that probably decided the match.
In Round 5 Essendon converted a three-goal deficit into a five-goal buffer it never relinquished.
On Sunday the Eagles went on two game-changing blitzes.
A four-goal burst to get back in the game and then a 13-goal charge that finished in the record books as the most consecutive goals the Magpies have conceded since Champion Data started in 1999.
It would be no surprise if Longmuir writes “Magpie lapses” on the whiteboard this week because at some stage, most likely after quarter-time, they will give Fremantle a look.
There is no team that starts faster and then slams on the brakes as quickly as Collingwood, with a disproportionate 40.5 per cent of its scores coming in the first quarter.
Ironically, it’s not the defence to blame for the lapses. Essendon champion goalkicker Matthew Lloyd put it on the misfiring forwards.
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“Your defence can only stand up for so long. You’ve got to put scoreboard pressure on,” Lloyd said.
Collingwood games average just 110.6 points, which is the fewest in the AFL and just below Fremantle’s 111.8 points.
It magnifies the importance of those lapses.
Port Adelaide and St Kilda have conceded runs of three or more goals five teams this year, only one less than Collingwood, but they are playing in games producing close to an extra two and four goals respectively.
The damage for those teams is diluted, whereas in Collingwood’s dour strangleholds landing a knockout blow is rarely far away.