Rich pickings
Chloe Saltau | The Age | July 31, 2008
FIRST he blew the lid on Clarko's cluster; now coach Terry Wallace has orchestrated a rolling-zone defence at Richmond so similar to Hawthorn's tactic that it will either flatter the Hawks coach or cause him to combust.
It was Wallace who drew public attention to the revolutionary tactics employed by Alastair Clarkson from opposition kick-ins after Richmond's narrow round-six loss to the Hawks, remarking admiringly that it was "no wonder he wants to have lock-out sessions because he's doing things other people aren't doing at the moment".
Even before then, Hawthorn veteran Shane Crawford shifted uncomfortably in his seat when fellow Footy Show panellist and Tiger Nathan Brown referred to the "rolling-defensive zone" used by the Hawks.
The intense and protective Clarkson looked just as uneasy On the Couch as his new defensive formation, finessed and practised at length behind closed doors, were dissected by Fox Sports commentator Gerard Healy, who gave the zone a nifty name, Clarkson's cluster.
Having ensured the tactics were out in the open, Wallace — himself a tireless innovator — used the mid-season break to drill his players in a similar scheme. It was, Wallace explained yesterday, a natural phase in the evolution of his young team, and an inevitable popularisation of a practice that took zone defence to a new level.
"At the start of the year, from a mentality point of view we wanted to get a man-on man base into our guys, so we could improve our contested footy in those areas," the Richmond coach said.
"Once we got to the halfway mark, we still thought there were some layers we needed to put into our game. We needed to be up with what's happening in the industry and we spent a bit of time working on some of those layers over the week off."
Though the Tigers have used the cluster for a couple of weeks, it was on display in the first quarter against the Brisbane Lions at Telstra Dome last Saturday night.
After Mitch Morton kicked a behind, and Lion defender Josh Drummond prepared to kick in, Michael Voss noted from the Channel Ten commentary box that the Tigers had effectively formed an 18-man zone that extended the length of the field.
The Lions were forced to go wide to the back pocket, then chip backwards, then go wide again down the wing, as the Tigers swarmed from one side to the other whenever their opponents tried to switch the play.
On that occasion, Richmond succeeded in slowing the Lions' progress from defence and keeping the ball out of the centre corridor until it was turned over. Wallace said his team had mixed results with the cluster, and stressed he and Clarkson were not alone in modernising the flood for which he (in his Bulldogs days) and Rodney Eade (at Sydney) were criticised around the turn of the century.
Geelong, for instance, has been "playing a very similar style of footy" for 18 months with obvious success, while Port Adelaide has also experimented with the rolling zone and had a poor year.
Equally, teams such as North Melbourne have found a way through Hawthorn's cluster with hard running, quick ball movement and handball.
"Over an eight-year period it's gone from being a partial zone defence called flooding to a field zone defence called a rolling zone, Clarko's cluster, whatever you want to call it," Wallace said. "It's an evolution for us."
An evolution that has contributed to three straight wins, and placed the improving Tigers in contention for a spot in the finals. "Plenty of credit to Clarko," said Wallace, whose team meets the Hawks in round 20. "They have taken it to another level and he should be flattered."
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