Mick McGuane’s seven-point plan to save DustyMick McGuane,
Herald Sun
12 April 2019When you are the best, expect and plan for the worst.
Richmond’s Dustin Martin should be thinking about this philosophy as he sits out his one-game suspension following his spectacular brain fade last week.
Dusty is a star, no question.
But on the evidence of his past four games, taggers have become his kryptonite, and if he doesn’t change the narrative, he’ll be copping the same close attention all season.
This is a ruthless game. The competition will prey on the weak and the vulnerable.
Dusty’s frustration in being tagged by Matt de Boer last week saw him throw an errant elbow — costing him a week — and also give the bird and mimic a snorting gesture allegedly aimed at Shane Mumford.
This action cost him a $2500 fine, with a further $5000 suspended until the end of 2020.
That was an open invitation for every club to follow suit, fuelled further by pleas from coach Damien Hardwick and his manager Ralph Carr to lay off him.
Good luck with that.
TOO PREDICTABLERight now, Dustin Martin is not the player he was in his 2017 Brownlow Medal year.
He is getting more attention than ever before, and on recent evidence, he is being exploited because there is a predictability in his patterns.
In three games this season, he has compiled only 63 possessions — with ZERO coming in the defensive 50m.
Incredibly, last season he only had five of his 583 disposals in the defensive 50m.
He has had 37 per cent of his disposals this year in the defensive-mid range (from defensive arc to the centre circle of the ground). The rest have come from centre forward.
Dusty has had 54 of his 63 possessions from arc to arc.
That makes him easy to plan against, as you know precisely the areas of the ground in which he works.
De Boer capitalised on that last week, and got under his skin.
Dusty couldn’t get the game on his terms, and lost the plot as a result.
That’s not good enough for a senior member of the team, especially at a time when his club desperately needs him to stand up.
FOUR WARNINGA close examination of Martin’s past four matches, starting in last year’s preliminary final against Collingwood, shows how vulnerable he can be when closely tagged.
Levi Greenwood blanketed him in the preliminary final last year and did the same in Round 2 this year, restricting him to 18 disposals and only 196m gained.
A week earlier, in Round 1 against Carlton, Dusty wasn’t tagged and had 30 disposals, racking up 628m gained.
Last week against the Giants, the screws went on him again — de Boer kept him to 15 disposals and 212m gained.
I’m still astounded some teams don’t run with a tagger.
No one is untaggable. You just need the right person with the right mindset, who is disciplined, selfless and task orientated. When they do that, it wins the admiration of teammates.
Greenwood and de Boer have shown that in recent weeks.
BECOME THE HUNTERDusty is in danger of becoming a one-trick pony unless he changes his approach.
He has overcome challenges in his career, but this one provides a chance to make himself a more rounded player.
His return against Sydney in Round 5 — with a likely match-up with George Hewitt — must see him become the hunter, not the hunted.
Hardwick can help Martin through this situation by giving him a significant role on Luke Parker or Josh Kennedy.
That might prove a circuit-breaker, and may even provide the antidote to his tagging kryptonite.
HOW TO BREAK FREE1. Back yourself. Be positive, but also understand they are coming for you.
2. Be adaptable. Identify your tagger’s strengths and weaknesses. Can you outrun them? Are they physically stronger or weaker? Can you position yourself on the ground to make them vulnerable? Can you exploit their lack of speed or their agility?
3. Be cold and operate in silence. Don’t engage with them. Channel your energies into your strengths.
4. Go forward when you can, and see if he follows. That might force a handover of opponents, and provide a mental reprieve.
5. Play like a quarterback. Go behind the ball in general play, and see if the tagger stays with you. This is a mindset change as the ball is coming at them, and the tagger has to try and win his own footy.
6. In the midfield, push yourself onto another player. Last week he could have gone to Stephen Coniglio to test de Boer’s nerves, and test the opposition coach. That might have freed up a Richmond teammate such as Shane Edwards
7. Get more support from teammates. Taggers deny stars their space, but good teams don’t allow that. Take Carlton’s 1990s sides — Craig Bradley and Greg Williams were frequently tagged, but Fraser Brown and Brett Ratten were great blockers at stoppages.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/expert-opinion/mick-mcguanes-sevenpoint-plan-to-help-dustin-martin-shake-a-tag/news-story/93276355f97760d0da07743f3f3652d9
