Adam Cooney says ditch the taggers and see attacking, entertaining football flourish

AS a Brownlow medallist Adam Cooney knew all about them during his playing career. And while “it hurts” him to praise one here, he’s calling on AFL coaches to end the practice.

Adam Cooney and Cameron Ling tangle in 2007.

ATTACKING, free flowing, end-to-end high scoring AFL football. May it live long and prosper.

For those of you who had the pleasure of witnessing me play you would be well aware that I certainly enjoyed the attacking part of the game slightly more than the defensive side of it, hence why I thought Round 1 of this AFL season was one of the most enjoyable rounds of footy I can remember.

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There were plenty of goals scored, but what I enjoyed the most was seeing our stars’ full, uninhibited display, running freely through the midfield.

Dustin Martin started it off last Thursday night with an epic four-goal, 34-disposal game for the Tigers. If he keeps that up, combined with Richmond’s more positive, attacking and direct game style, Damien Hardwick might just be sticking around in 2018.

“The Bont” was up and about on Friday night in a decent spectacle matched up on the likes of Adam Treloar and Scott Pendlebury.

Saturday night saw my old side, the Bombers, slicing and dicing their way through what has been over the last six to seven years, an almost impenetrable Hawthorn zone.

To top off the weekend we saw the competition’s two best midfields go head-to-head in a shootout in the west. Although it appeared Fremantle for the most part were firing blanks.

There has been much debate this week on whether or not the tagger is going the way of the dodo, given the fact the teams are so heavily invested in an 18-man team defence zone, which can leave a hole in the defence if a tagger is running around six inches up Dustin Martin’s backside.

Adam Cooney wants to see the likes of Dustin Martin and Steele Sidebottom roam free. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

Surely if the AFL rules committee can ban the third-man up we can all rally together and put an end once and for all to the dirty rotten tagger. I’ll start the petition.

The only purpose they serve, in my opinion, is to ruin the viewing pleasure of the supporter by scrapping and scragging onto the league’s best and most entertaining players, which limits the aesthetics and therefore diminishes the standard of our great game.

Even the taggers don’t want to be taggers, 90 per cent of the time they despise the job, but are not skilful or damaging enough to get a game otherwise.

Adam Cooney doesn’t like taggers, but he sure did respect Cameron Ling.

There is of course the odd exception to the talentless scraggers out there.

One I came across frequently in my career and have to give kudos to, is the great Cameron Ling.

I had many battles with him over the years and overall he took the points on the majority of occasions. He was big, strong, could run all day, was sweaty, pink, freckly and red and held me tighter than a mother’s grasp on a son returning from war.

But he was one of the great taggers because of the way he worked offensively at times when Geelong had the ball. I hated playing on him from 2006 to 2010 but I certainly respected the way he played. That hurts me to say that.

But the big sweaty clingy days are surely long gone now, give the people what they want and that is six of the best midfielders at any time going up against six of the best from the opposition.

Ryan Crowley drags down Adam Cooney in 2008. Picture: Jackson Flindell

I’ll be looking on eagerly on Thursday, to see if Dimma and Bucks have scrolled through this article, taken my advice on board and let the mids go to work.

It’s a huge night for both clubs with the star midfield battle likely to be the deciding factor on where the games won and lost.

The decision to leave Mason Cox out of the side is no doubt a reaction from the ease in which the Bulldogs exited the Collingwood forward 50m and pierced straight through the middle of the MCG on the counter-attack.

For the Tigers and Hardwick, if they get a win and go 2-0, the confidence and belief will only grow from there and there will be plenty of people out there buying their tickets to jump on The Tiggy train once again.

My tip. Collingwood in a tight one.

Originally published as Adam Cooney says ditch the taggers and see attacking, entertaining football flourish