Victims of the reboundGarry Lyon
The Age
July 7, 2012IF YOU are Alex Rance or James Frawley, the key defensive linchpins for both Richmond and Melbourne, watching the ball go inside your own 50-metre zone should be an enjoyable experience.
Playing full-back is a largely thankless task. You're charged with the responsibility of playing on the opposition match-winner each week with the result often pivotal to the result.
It requires a steely nerve, an ability to handle and absorb pressure and levels of discipline and concentration often unique to those who make the position their own.
An inside-50 entry for their own team should bring about some degree of temporary respite from that pressure.
Sadly for Rance and Frawley, this is not the case. In fact for them, an inside-50 entry for their team is a signal for them both to get very, very nervous.
As commentators and analysts we are automatically drawn to the inside-50 numbers when assessing the trend and patterns of a game. We use it as validation for a team's superiority over the opposition and automatically assume that the side with the greater inside 50-count will, as a rule, win.
For Melbourne fans, that trend is not hard to measure. The Demons have won only two games for the year, and in one, over GWS, the inside 50 count was very much in their favour. In their other win, over Essendon, they lost the inside-50 count by 13.
More worrying for them was they won the count against Brisbane last week, 54 to 50, yet lost the game by 61 points. They are the sorts of numbers that must keep Frawley up at night.
Each forward-50 entry simply provided Brisbane with yet another scoring opportunity as Pearce Hanley, Josh Drummond and Ryan Harwood rebounded the ball, time after time, with little or no pressure.
For the Tigers, the numbers are even more worrying. They have been a far more competitive outfit than Melbourne with four more wins and a massive advantage in percentage.
Of the 14 games played, the Tigers have managed to win the inside-50 count eight times. That is equal with top-placed Collingwood, and one more than second-placed Sydney.
They have, however, failed to convert this statistical advantage into wins on three of those eight occasions.
In the past three weeks, against Fremantle, GWS and Adelaide, Richmond has not only won the inside-50 numbers, they are ranked No. 1 in the competition for inside-50 differential, plus 19, yet have managed just one win, surviving a scare against the lowly Giants.
It is a similar tale for the Demons, who have won the inside 50s in two of the last three games they've played and are ranked seventh for inside 50 differential, plus 12, yet recorded their sole win during that time, also over the Giants.
There are clearly issues for both teams in terms of not only converting opportunities once the ball enters their forward 50, but more significantly allowing the opposition to rebound the ball from defence with little or no pressure.
The Tigers, in the past three games, have allowed the opposition to rebound the ball from their forward 50 at a rate of 81 per cent, while they have sat at 66 per cent. The Demons have also struggled in the rebound-50 stat, allowing the opposition to rebound 76 per cent of the time while they managed a 63 per cent rebound rate.
So there have been issues for both sides in converting inside-50 entries to scoring opportunities. The Tigers had 10 more inside 50s against Adelaide, yet their scoring efficiency was a lowly 39 per cent, 11 per cent below the league average.
Interestingly, Richmond sits third in the AFL for disposals inside 50, yet 14th for inside 50s per goal scored.
What does it all mean? It would appear that Richmond is overusing the ball once it gets into the forward arc, allowing sides to exert pressure on the man with the ball.
Clubs will tell you that the inside-50 stat can also be very misleading, for it is not necessarily how many times you go inside that counts, but rather the manner in which it is delivered and the areas of the ground you go to. In fact, the kick inside 50 is arguably the most important in the game.
A failure to hit a target or, worse, to directly turn over the ball is a recipe for disaster. With extra numbers in defence, and an increased willingness to play the most efficient ball-users and decision-makers in the back half, the chance to win the ball back is becoming harder each week.
A quick, hard-running, rebounding defence will make you pay at every opportunity. And if the forward-50 pressure is not there, then the defenders at the other end become enormously vulnerable. Playing more than two genuine talls in a forward line now has to be weighed up against the volume of forward-50 pressure that can be exerted. The talls, generally, lose out.
It is one of the reasons that sides, if in doubt, will go long to a contest close to the boundary line in an attempt to generate a throw-in, rather than run the risk of turning over the football in a vulnerable position.
The hurried kick from a congested passage of play into the forward 50 is also despised. Where once a forward was blessed with the advantage of reacting quicker, and getting to the ball first, that kick will, now, more often than not fall into the hands of the ''free'' man in the back half. The result is usually a swift and efficient counter-attack that goes the length of the ground.
For Demons fans watching the Melbourne-Brisbane game, every forward-50 entry was a signal to cover your eyes. Without Mitch Clark as a marking target, the ball inevitably found its way to the deck where Hanley and company were able to counter-punch with devastating effect.
With Chris Newman the preferred ''free'' player for the Tigers, a very good ball-user and decision-maker, Melbourne will need to make him a particular focus, or run the risk of paying the ultimate price.
It is also why I would like to see Jeremy Howe spend more time in the forward 50. He is in outstanding marking form and has the type of midfield endurance to put real pressure on the Tiger defence.
Richmond is without Jake King, its best defensive small forward, and will look for a lift from Robin Nahas, who terrorised the Demons earlier in the season.
Supporters of both teams want to get excited when they see the ball move deep into attack, rather than fear for the wellbeing of Rance and Frawley at the other end of the ground.
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