i wonder if the turn around from winning lots of contested footy to uncontested footy is due to a change in focus from the coaching staff. Year one put high focus on contested, year two on uncontested? Perhaps year three get the balance right?
Despite both the coach and players at times talking about how winning contested footy wins games, i reckon that it is uncontested footy possessions that wins games, as long as it is not cheap pointless uncontested possies, a la bowden and co.
If you win the uncontested footy count this means that you are spreading and opening up the opposition, which is when you can hurt the enemy on the score board
I think you may be right al about us finding the right balance in year three. At least hopefully that is the case.
As for which is more important it does have a bit of the chicken and egg argument but IMO contested footy is still the most important part of the game especially in finals where there's less time and space. If you can't get your hands on the footy in the first place you aren't going to win too many big games. It's then for those without the footy to spread hard with gut-running so you get clean clearances and disposals away from contested situations such as stoppages. I agree from that you can then hurt sides the most on the scoreboard via the hard running and winning uncontested footy. That's why we must improve over the offseason our fitness and ability to gut-run harder and for longer. If we do that then we can begin to approach and match the efforts of the top sides.
They are/were pretty much my thoughts regarding contested posseions, MT, but I've noticed that last year, even when we'd lose, we would often be there abouts in terms of contested possessions, but smashed in uncontested. These year, we have won games where we have been beaten in contested possessions, but easily won the uncontested count. If we'd lose in both we would get spanked.
You still have to be at least competitive in that area, But I'm starting to think that it's not the be and end all. The other area I have a suspicion that is important is the number of turnovers you can force, particularly if you can spread and get worthwhile uncontested possessions from them.
In terms of building up a fitness base to be able to match the top sides, it took collingwood 4 or 5 years to do this. There was 2 or 3 years where they started the season well but dropped off as the season went on. As their core group of players approached the 23-25 age bracket they developed the fitness base required to play out the whole season