‘They come at you in waves’: The tactical moves that will decide the grand final
Brendan McCartney sat on Collingwood’s bench on grand final day last year, and in team meetings as one of their assistant coaches. The former Western Bulldogs coach was also with the Magpies when Craig McRae’s plans undid the Lions twice more. He has a clearer idea than most of what it takes to tame the Lions.
McCartney said one of the keys to beating the Brisbane Lions in last year’s premiership decider was the same as it will be on Saturday.
Lions defender Harris Andrews soars for a spoil against the Swans.Credit: AFL Photos
Sydney have to get through the first tackler.
“What Brisbane do very well is press forward. So if you want to run and carry through there like Sydney do, they will come at you really quickly,” McCartney said.
“If you are going to take Brisbane on through the corridor with using your numbers and shape and run and carry, then you have got to get through the first tackler. If they try and go through hands, or handball over hands [of defenders], the Lions will get you every time. They want you to panic handball or loop handball, then the next wave gets you, or they smash up on the player you’ve handballed to,” McCartney explained.
“So you have to try and get through your tackle and that will take quite a few of the Brisbane blokes out of the way because they come at you in lines and waves. But once you get through one tackle, you beat two or three opposition defenders coming at you”.
Corridor is king
Sydney like to own the corridor. It is part of their defensive mechanism as well as their attack. If teams want to go through the corridor, the Swans keep a strong defensive set-up so if they win the ball back they punish quickly on the scoreboard.
Opposition teams understood the strong Swans corridor focus and took the game to them there to good effect through the period of Swans losses in the second half of the season. They clamped down on Errol Gulden and put superior numbers in the corridor, and began beating the Swans at their own game.
But Sydney proved nimble.
“The last five or six weeks they have morphed into finding new ways,” said McCartney, who has started a coaching business called Player Coach. “Teams exposed them in that period they lost the string of games and they thought, ‘We can’t keep getting beaten the same way,’ so it was a part of the evolution of them. The other night they went around Port Adelaide, they went over them and when the game opened up they had the corridor back. They are more rounded now than they were mid-year.”
Indeed, both teams are nimble. They have several gears and multiple methods. In both preliminary finals, the Swans and Lions moved to plans B or C when plan A was not working. The Lions found a way to change angles and switch the flow of play, then sped up their ball movement against the Cats.
Win this stat and win the game
A boffin would say the numbers point to a fact about the Lions. If you keep them from taking more than 100 uncontested marks you win.
This year they have won 83 per cent of games when they have taken more than 100 uncontested marks. But numbers paint a colourless picture. It’s not as simple as stopping the marks. More consequential is slowing the speed of those kicks to the next mark.
A kick-mark game can be tedious, but the Lions are not tedious. When they play well, they move the ball quickly. Against Geelong, they did not change the method of ball movement from a kick-mark style, they changed the angles of their kicks and the speed with which they moved the ball. That is key to how they take on Sydney.
“Brisbane are wedded to kick and mark. It’s not only offensive, it’s how they defend the ground. They like to defend with keeping possession,” McCartney said.
“One hundred uncontested marks does not necessarily mean it’s a slow, safe, boring team. Brisbane play an uncontested marking game, but you don’t want to go slow. If you go safe and slow and sideways you are in trouble, but you can take uncontested marks if you face up, then quickly take one then quickly take another one and all of a sudden, you are past the centre circle then and you are off.”
The MCG
The width of the MCG makes it more confronting for teams to defend the corridor. There is always more space for the team prepared to take risks by cutting the ball inside.
Sydney’s potential advantage is in leg speed in the middle of the ground. Chad Warner, Isaac Heeney, James Rowbottom and Gulden all have toe.
The Lions have class on the ball, but not the foot speed of the Swans, which is a danger on the big ground.
Where is Billy Frampton?
Last year the unprepossessing Billy Frampton moved from defence to forward to play one of the more effective low-possession roles seen in a grand final when he played on Harris Andrews and dulled his influence.
The Lions normally prefer for Andrews to play the freewheeling defender’s role. It’s the quarterback, the interceptor, the “play on everyone and no one” defender, that is popular among the best teams and extremely punishing if not controlled. A defender like Andrews creates the springboard of attack.
The forward on Andrews has a choice, according to McCartney. Take short, sharp leads, or sit on his back shoulder.
“You can’t lead early on him. If you are going to lead on him, it has to be a short, late lead that commits him to you. But if you get high up the ground and almost take yourself out of play he will sit back and mop up. The other way is to sit back shoulder on him,” McCartney said.
“The thing is, he is just so clean. You can see he is going to mark the ball when it is 30 metres away. And that means all of his teammates are already off to the open side of the ground and moving into transition as soon as they see him in position 1A – the dominant position to mark. They take off. He is such a reliable, clean intercept mark [that] they go early.
“Swans forwards [Logan] McDonald and [Joel] Amartey are not consistent, high-output forwards. But the strength of Sydney is they have three or four midfielders who can kick three or four goals each, and then they have their small and medium forwards.”
Lions’ bite
The Lions are a team that get a lot of inside 50s – ranked No.1 in that area this season – because once forward they defend well to trap the ball and make it hard to exit. They score from volume of entries.
“Sydney’s backs are honest, but if they have to defend quick long entries all day they are in trouble. If Sydney get a delay on Brisbane’s ball movement they will try to make them shallower entries so you can clear the area,” McCartney said.
“If Brisbane can get the ball deep you struggle to clear the area.
“You leave it at ground level, you see what happens with their small forwards.”
The Grundy factor
The loss of Oscar McInerney is obviously significant. When the Lions beat Sydney in round 19, McInerney had the most contested possessions, first possessions and clearances in the game and the equal most number of inside 50s. That sort of impact is not easily replaced.
Darcy Fort is mature but has only played two games this year, and he is coming in to play on a two-time All-Australian, Brodie Grundy.
“Fort is taller, has good reach and can get his hand on the ball. That has always been his ticket. I have seen lesser ruckman beat more credentialled ruckmen just by hitting their forearm and disrupting their tap,” McCartney said.
“Don’t be naive to the fact there is a gap between these two players, so don’t invite the gap, mitigate what can go wrong and adjust your hit areas and limit Brodie being able to hit the ball to the outside.
“If Brodie starts to get the ball to the outside, or gets clean connection with their mids on the move, they will be hard to stop.”
The midfield battle
Both teams have elite mids. One has a dual Brownlow medallist in Lachie Neale, and the other has the most influential player this year in Heeney. Swan James Rowbottom will most likely get the job on Neale, especially at stoppages, with James Jordon potentially going to creative half-back Dayne Zorko.
The Lions use Josh Dunkley as their defensive mid, and will debate whether to put him to Warner or Heeney, neither of whom is an ideal match-up. Both have superior leg speed, but Dunkley is elite in contests and denying access to the ball. Heeney is so difficult to tag because he goes forward and exploits opponents in the air.
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