collingwood had 48 against us. those that love to leap on a single stat have saying that number is too low.
for someone who pooh pooh stats all the time im surprised you put such credence on a single stat in isolation.
also the overall trend in tackles seems to be down this year.
when the stats back up the percieved weaknesses id say you take notice.
lots have complained about the lack of intensity the lack of tackling pressure and the poor skills. just to keep that stat in perspective collingwood had 48 tackles low for them yet we had just 33 thats a difference of 15 its massive when we have just 33 tackles.
we are currently last for ave tackles per game and by some margin.
in all fairness to those who are complaining id say there is some cause for concern. its not just tackling imo we have too many who dont work both ways dont do the team things and we dont play with enough intensity bulldogs excepted. our over all pressure created percieved pressure and some easy ball for our players against the dogs.. in all other games we have felt that percieved pressure and it reflects in the mistakes turnovers and constant skill errors..
tackling stats like all stats can be misleading. it could mean you are chasing tail all game and are second to the ball. i agree stats by themselves can be misleading but whos looking at them in isolation.
sides who are winning well are averaging a decent amount of tackles along with managing to win contests. they win games because they have a good balance between defense attack and ball winning.. the same can be said for the finals teams of last yr.
in all honesty are you telling us we have that balance right atm. if so i disagree. they beat us not just in tackles but had 57 more marks that says what. they had more contested ball yet out tackled us simply put it was not good enough.
i dont know about you but i want to see the intensity lift and the tackles happen. bruise free footy wont get you to finals and certainly not top 4. imo to be a good side first and foremost comes good defense right across the ground.
No i am not saying that 33 is acceptable. I am on record as saying a number in the low 40s is low. so that should put to bed that sort of rubbish, although there are some will continue to twist things to suit themslevs.
people keep harping on about this as if it is the be all and end all, as if we suddenly start getting 80 tackles a game we will be premiers and champions.
Against footscray our pressure and very good,acknowledged by most, yet we still only had 50 tackles. but for some thats not enough. somehow they think there is a magic number that you must get, yet thats 2 more than collingwood got on the weekeend. i then get one rabbit tell me that it is acceptable for a top team, but we need more? what the logic behind that? as you say looking at the differencial is a better indicator, but even that is flawed.
Despite our low tackle count rnd 1 we had the highest scoring from turnovers. Now isnt the idea of tackling to create a turnover? even now we are up there with turnovers created in our forward 50. add to that that the tackle count seems to be down accross the comp, except for a couple of games like freo last week and perhaps sides are applying pressure in a different way?
perhaps we should be looking at tackles in conjunction with pressure acts and turnovers? On the weekend i noticed that collingwood would get a couple of cheap cheap posessions coming out of the backline, but then break down badly. you could see the player with ball desperately searching but would often end up kicking either straight to one of our players or to a contest where we were at least the same numbers and many times outnumbered. result, we get the ball back without a tackle being layed. It appeared as if we allowed that easy kick to set up a defensive zone further up the ground that simply strangled them. Now once again for slow witted and trolls, that doesnt mean that tackles are not important, just that there other ways to win back the ball.
for three quarters on the weekend we matched Collingwood but were blown out of the game in one. In those three quarters they kicked 9 goals, in the one they kicked 7. You dont keep a side like collingwood to 9 goals in 3 quarters without applying some sort of pressure?
so for the umpteenth time, everything about our game went the window in that quarter, everything, tackles included. in fact because our structures went out the window, we didn't get near them to lay a tackle. so what was the issue?
did our lack of tackling cause our structure to break down, or did our structures breaking down cause the lack of tackling ( as well as actually getting the stuffing ball) . someone lese asked where do we get a quarter by quarter breakdown of the stats and it would be good to get hold of. their number of uncontested possessions would have been phenomenal for that quarter.
When things go to the crapper and opposition start spiltting you wide open and getting a lot of uncontested posessions, lack of tackles is not the cause, but a symptom.
