Mick Malthouse: Leadership more important than ever as AFL clubs deal with COVID fallout
As teams adapt to full-length quarters, Mick Malthouse says leaders have never been so important to be able to shift momentum in a matter of minutes.
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If a football team was made up of individual Roger Federer type players it would be supremely confident, aggressive, disciplined, competitive, and most importantly, consistent.
But when you have a team of 22 different personalities, different minds, different skill sets, inconsistency can so easily creep into a footy team.
I recently received a text from one of my former club doctors asking me what percentage of the game is played above the shoulders? I replied, 100 per cent.
We know these players are good enough to play league football.
Clubs put their best teams, or close to their best sides out on the ground every week. So therefore, the only component that changes is the mindset.
Self-doubt, lack of faith in the system or teammates, fear of the opposition, it all comes down to mental application or lack of.
And that leads to unpredictability, fluctuations, inconsistency.
Ben Rutten’s halftime smile suggested that Essendon was delighted by a 10.6 to 4.3 lead over Hawthorn at half time of the opening round, but a 10-goal second half from the Hawks, led to a heartbreaking one-point loss.
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In Round 3 Collingwood had control of a very low scoring match against Brisbane to come undone in the last kick of the game.
There were high expectations on Port as it entered Perth to play West Coast who had lowered its colours to the Bulldogs the previous week, but Ken Hinkley’s team was smashed, left floundering without a system, hardness, or ball control. A shadow of its effort the week before.
Yet in the following round the Eagles held a 33-point lead midway through the third quarter, but in one of the boilovers of the season the Saints dominated the remainder of the match with eight goals to none to win by 20 points.
After being flogged by Essendon the week before, St Kilda would have had to overcome massive self-doubt to turn things around so quickly.
Collingwood going in against an injury depleted young GWS side, with only one player short of its own best team, at no stage grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck, allowing the Giants to gain confidence and self-belief as the game went on.
I would love to have the answers as to why these things happen, love to be able to say there is a magic switch for halting momentum. But there are too many variables and unknowns within a team and within a game.
The greater the concentration of players, the higher the chance of momentum swings. The more moving parts you have the tougher it is to maintain momentum because everyone needs to be in tune. That’s what makes team sport so unpredictable. And exciting.
I do know that new rules and a COVID hub season have made the wild game fluctuations and unpredictable results more pronounced this year.
The extra minutes being played this season are exacerbating the blowouts and swings. Combined with reduced interchanges, fatigue is setting in those late, long minutes.
Plus a late season finish last year could also mean we are not yet seeing the best of sides.
Coaches have less opportunity during a match when the game is in action to instigate much of a change. The runner can only go out when a goal is scored which limits communication, and the 6 – 6 – 6 post-goal formation doesn’t allow for protecting a lead from the centre bounce.
So this is where it all comes down to planning. And leadership.
On-field leaders and senior players have to know how to pull the right strings at the right times. Most changes and moves and mood swings must be practised at training and reiterated before the game.
When I look back at Collingwood’s 2010 grand final draw, the midfield players around the last stoppage of the match knew exactly what St Kilda would do if it won the tap.
In front of 100,000 people, in the dying moments of the final quarter, when fatigue had hit, the right players pulled the right moves. Scott Pendlebury, Luke Ball, Dane Swan, and Dale Thomas filled the gaps that Lenny Hayes and Nick Dal Santo were going to run through, hence stopping the ball and killing the game.
This is not revolution however – it has been in motion for many years.
But sometimes all the planning in the world still doesn’t work.
All it takes is a spark to ignite a division or a team and suddenly it builds into a tsunami. A fluke goal, a courageous tackle, a defiant one-on-one contest, a mark against the flow – anything that goes against the grain can swing momentum in an instant.
Marcus Bontempelli single-handedly shifted the momentum away from West Coast in Round 2 for a gladiator type victory. It wasn’t just the bounce of the ball then, but inspiration from a captain.
Momentum. Mindset. Magic. It’s a triple M conundrum that keeps us entertained week to week.
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Originally published as Mick Malthouse: Leadership more important than ever as AFL clubs deal with COVID fallout
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