4 Points: Best of enemies working from the same playbookMichael Gleeson
The Age
23 July 2018Collingwood’s midfield, combined with their defensive method and approach across the ground, was so good that North were shut out of the game.
Richmond plays with a 1-5 forward set up, with Jack Riewoldt as the one. Riewoldt is in the best form of his career. If Moore can persuade his body to work for him not against him this week, he would most likely take Riewoldt, just because he would take on the best of the big forwards of any team.
Richmond tends not to play another tall forward, so wouldn't stretch Collingwood’s defence. But they have a spread of fast small forwards and these have been Collingwood’s Achilles heel more than tall forwards.
Collingwood’s attack is as unconventional as Richmond’s. Few other teams play with one key and a remainder of smalls like Richmond. No other team has a 213-centimetre American and a late-arriving journeyman VFL role player as their talls, and then a bunch of ‘‘tall-smalls’’, the 188-centimetre fast medium-sized forwards who are good overhead.
Mason Cox was missing last week and his return proved again how important he has become to Collingwood structurally to have that big target who marks, gets a free for arm chopping or holding, or brings the ball to ground.
Will Hoskin-Elliott was clearly still upset by his knee last week, but looked better on Saturday. Jaidyn Stephenson again hit the scoreboard against North, and Jordan de Goey built on the body of work that he is one of the most dynamic power players in the game. De Goey playing against Richmond will be like master and apprentice for him and Dustin Martin. Along with Cam Rayner, de Goey is the player who most closely resembles Martin’s style of game.
De Goey plays more forward than Martin and is as dangerous as the Tiger's star when playing as a forward. He has yet to prove he can be as reliably effective as a midfielder. Martin’s field kicking is better, he opens the game up and penetrates deep forward with 60-metre flat passes. Richmond’s approach has been to start Martin as a midfielder and then go forward from the bounce. Most teams tend to roll a midfielder off him, and a defender onto him when forward, but he loses opponents in transition.
Collingwood could consider playing Levi Greenwood on Martin all over the ground. Greenwood is a rare tagger strong enough overhead to be comfortable isolated deep in defence. Nathan Buckley tends not to like tagging one player (unless it is Greenwood on Joel Selwood) because of the effect it has on the positioning and roles of other players, but could consider it with Martin.
This game is a genuine blockbuster in a way so many of the games of big rivals on big days with big crowds are not. This is two big Victorian power clubs with big supporter bases who play the most watchable brands of footy, sitting one and three on the ladder on a Saturday afternoon at the MCG with the game not on free to air but only for the small pay-TV audience. A crowd of 90,000 would be expected.
The two teams play similar games after Collingwood borrowed almost entirely from the Tigers’ play book – finish 13th, have your coach clinging to his job, do a searching review, turn over assistant coaches and allied staff on advice of a grizzled footy director, get the coach to lighten up, simplify the game to defence first and pressure over the ground - then watch the wins mount up.
They both like fast ball movement and have been troubled by the slow possession games of other teams, but are unlikely to get that from each other. Richmond tends to handball the ball forward more than Collingwood, while Collingwood’s non-key forwards are mid-sized players and stronger overhead than Richmond’s. Collingwood doesn’t have an Alex Rance at the other end. But who does?
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/4-points-best-of-enemies-working-from-the-same-playbook-20180722-p4zsyt.html
