More change coming...
The Age
David Wheadon
April 9, 2005
Leading football tactician and Richmond assistant coach David Wheadon predicts we're in for more defensive pressure all over the ground.If there is concern about where football is headed, we must first accept that change is inevitable. The game has never stood still and will never do so.
Change, in the form of innovation, is often unpopular. In fact, a true innovation is almost certain to be highly unpopular until it is accepted as a better way. Further, very few big innovations in a sport come from within that sport. They are usually borrowed.
Think of the criticism that arose when Essendon teams in the early 1990s used the tactic of short passing, often backwards, to a teammate when a lead needed to be protected at the end of a game. Previously, teams kicked as long as possible and close to the boundary line to produce a throw-in.
The change was copied from other sports such as basketball, where it was accepted practice to "ice the clock". Simply, it was a better tactical use of time. Now, supporters get angry if their clubs throw away small leads in tight situations by panicking.
There are basic principles and balances of strategy that are appropriate to every field game in the world: possession versus distance, concentration v width, one-on-one v zoning, attack v defence, delay v penetration, flexibility v stability, safety v risk, slow v quick, freedom v restriction, spontaneity v planning. There are innumerable combinations of these options.
Coaches in sports such as rugby, basketball, American football and hockey have placed different emphases on, and experimented with, principles of strategy for a long time. Soccer, for example, has teams that build up play very slowly and others that rely upon the quick counter-attack. It has produced long-ball teams, teams that encourage individual flair, teams that demand a very strict adherence to a game plan. Australian football is following this path and will continue to do so. Some coaches prefer long kicking, others a shorter, possession style. Some like corridor play, others want to switch to the wings.
If we have witnessed unprecedented change in the past 15 years or so, what might be ahead?
It is instructive to remember that defence and offence each dominate at times but that defence tends to dominate for longer periods. Author Adam Gopnik, in Paris To The Moon, explained this reality: "All sports take turns being dominated by their defence or their offence and fully evolved defensive tactics will in the end beat offensive ones because it is always easier to break a sequence than to build one up."
Defensive pressure will continue to spread all over the ground. Attacking teams once experienced a reduction in time and space as they entered their 50-metre arc. Now it can be very hard to move the ball through the midfield, and in five years, clubs may make it harder to move the ball deep out of their back 50-metre arc.
For this reason, we are likely to see administrators placed under even more pressure to make changes in our rules, such as restricting the movement and numbers of players to certain areas of the game, as Kevin Sheedy flagged last week.
But for every tactic there is a counter tactic that helps to explain why, in 1998, AFL teams were averaging 93.6 points a game and in 2004 they averaged 93.1 - despite the reduction in game time that has occurred. Zoning is the most efficient method of defence and it is what we will continue to see in our football. The introduction of zoning has certainly made it harder to score at times. Zoning requires players to protect the space, not just one opponent. It allows teams to send numbers to guard the most dangerous player in the most dangerous position. Zoning negates individual talent. Very few teams in any sport will risk having only one defender oppose one highly talented forward. Lose a contest and the result is immediately on the scoreboard for all to see.
Talented players, such as Chris Johnson and Gavin Wanganeen, are ideal zoning footballers because of their creativity and flair.
We should be prepared for the development of the mathematical analysis of strategy. There is no perfect game plan, but people are trying to find it. In the US, in particular, professional teams are trying to take the guess out of the game. They are using mathematicians and computer technology to find out exactly what you have to do to win.
AFL coaches have fallen in love with a book called Moneyball, which tells of the Oakland Athletics' quest to unearth the critical ingredients of success in baseball. By utilising statistical analyses, long-held beliefs such as power hitting being highly valuable were exposed as myths. In American football, Bill Belichick, coach of the New England Patriots, who have just won their third Super Bowl in four years, has used a study by a professor at the University of California that proved that teams should run the ball more instead of kicking in crucial situations.
In the AFL, a study by Donald Forbes, of Swinburne University of Technology and Champion Data, established that every extra effective kick a team has over the opposition will roughly add one point to its winning margin.
Kicking is a skill that offers as much, if not more, scope for advances than any other aspect of the game. The main skill required to play in the AFL is the ability to win your own ball in a crucial contest. After that, kicking skills are everything.
Turnovers by foot are one of the most important reasons why teams lose and, as the defensive skills of opposition players continue to improve, the amount of time and space available to hit targets will continue to shrink. There will be an increased emphasis on the skill of kicking, which could reverberate through the game, not least in the area of recruiting.
Clubs will try to recruit players who are very good kicks on both sides of their bodies because of the extra defensive strategies that have been introduced. Back lines will need players who can kick with either foot because the increased pressure will force backmen to choose the best option available, no matter what side of the body has to be used.
Goalkicking should also improve. In 2004, AFL teams kicked with an accuracy rate of 63 per cent from set shots. Goals can be momentum makers or breakers and many games are won or lost by small differences in accuracy. Hence, a renewed interest in the science of goalkicking.
Again, AFL clubs are looking at other sports that, for a long time, have had specialist coaches who were experts in the mechanics, psychology and teaching of this set-shot skill.
Earlier this year, the AFL flew Dave Alred from England to be keynote speaker at the National Coaching Conference. Alred is famous for being the kicking coach to England's World Cup hero, Jonny Wilkinson. He has just completed his doctorate of philosophy on performing goalkicking under pressure and this work will be part of an ever-increasing exchange of ideas between our game and other sports.
Players will be taught to understand the mechanics of their own kicks, the science of ball flight and how to rehearse properly. This is what has happened for a very long time in other target-oriented sports, such as golf, basketball, rugby and American football.
Other sports such as cricket, tennis and golf know a lot more about the science of their skills than we do, but we will catch up. The only problem with achieving a dramatic improvement is that, unlike many other sports, we allow non-specialists to take shots and so the change may not be as rapid as people would hope.
Apart from exceptional kicking skill, recruiters will increasingly look for kids who are expert decision-makers.
Jason Berry and Bruce Abernethy, of the University of Queensland, have recommended the recruiting of youngsters who have played other invasive sports such as soccer, basketball and hockey and rugby - sports where there is a big emphasis on tactics and decision-making.
Because of this, we will definitely see more indigenous players in the AFL. Indigenous people represent 2 per cent of the Australian population and about 8 per cent of the number of AFL players, but, when tested by Berry and Abernethy, were found to make up to almost 20 per cent of the elite decision-makers.
Indigenous players come from a background where they tend to play their own made-up games, compete against all ages and develop very early elite skills.
They are encouraged to show flair and initiative and individuality.
Their skills are so natural that they don't have to worry about basic skills, just how to outsmart the others.
Further, there will be greater emphasis placed upon the psychological assessment of recruits. Clubs will want to know right from the start who are the mentally tough, fast learners, the more coachable players, the self-organised on and off the field, the self-disciplined, those with flight or fight syndromes.
The only thing that won't change is the fact teams with the best players will almost always win. Great coaches have always had great players to teach.
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