King: Tigers must avoid ‘shallow hell’David King,
Herald Sun
14 Aug 2019If you choose to land the football 30m to 50m from goal then prepare to fail.
This 20m band known as “shallow hell” is the intercept marker’s feeding ground.
Jeremy McGovern is the star of “shallow hell”.
No one has intercepted the ball more in 2019. Some 24 of his 39 defensive 50m marks have been intercepts.
McGovern is marginally ahead of Greater Western Sydney’s Nick Haynes and Richmond’s Dylan Grimes, two other masters of the hell zone.
The interceptor is a role that creates counter-attacking fluency. It flips the game from defence to attack with one high-octane counter punch.
It is why McGovern is the AFL’s most influential defender. He generates more scores from his intercepts than any other player.
“Don’t get beaten by what you know” is a philosophy I believe all coaches abide by when they make their match plans.
While all plans don’t necessarily work, negating the opposition’s best player or method is imperative.
West Coast Eagles plays a different style of football and employs drastically different systems than its premiership rivals.
These points of difference require greater focus from opposition teams.
Reducing McGovern’s impact is the No.1 priority of opponents.
McGovern’s intercepting influence has greatly affected the Eagles’ win-loss ratio over the past two seasons.
If he takes four or more intercept marks, the Eagles win 86 per cent of the time, but when he takes two or fewer intercept marks their win rate falls to 61 per cent.
Teams have used different strategies to stop McGovern from disrupting their ball movement, especially trying to block or check his path to marking contests.
Port Adelaide drove the ball forward along the ground in Round 5, which ensured the Eagles had their fewest intercept marks of the season. The chaos approach was an outstanding success. McGovern did take three intercept marks but none led to the Eagles scoring.
Collingwood checked or blocked him several times prior to marking contests.
The Pies flirted with the laws of the game, but it worked to great effect.
McGovern took only two intercept marks — as opposed to his five in last year’s Grand Final — and Collingwood pinched a one-point win.
Why don’t teams negate McGovern by tagging him?
If he was 6cm shorter and a half-back flanker with his kind of scoreboard impact on the counter-attack, he’d certainly be tagged.
Surely it’s easier to slightly alter your system by assigning one player a tagging responsibility rather than distorting all your ball movement patterns?
Jackson Trengove rattled Alex Rance in a half of football in Adelaide last season, to the point of requiring a Trent Cotchin intervention at the main break.
Why don’t we see that against method against McGovern?
If McGovern is allowed to continue to be McGovern through the finals series the Eagles are likely to go back-to-back.
Does Richmond coach Damien Hardwick keep some powder dry at the MCG on Sunday, thinking of a potential finals meeting, or does he try something lateral on McGovern?
Is the tagger worth a look, even for just one quarter?
What if Josh Caddy or Jack Graham stood at McGovern’s shoulder all night, never leading for the football, never trying to out-think or presume to out-read the ball’s flight better than McGovern?
What would be the impact for Adam Simpson and the Eagles?
Logic says Richmond should continue to play the Richmond way, particularly given that it’s Round 22.
Their forward handball game may create enough overlap run that it will place the Eagles’ defence group under enough pressure to disrupt McGovern’s tactics.
Maybe, maybe not.
The Eagles are only an average team at winning clearances over the last five weeks.
All the data highlights that their attack off the back of intercepts is their strength.
It produces a high scoring rate for inside-50s as they often carry the ball the length of the field.
Richmond this week can put a severe dent in the Eagles’ hopes of hosting two home finals, which would be a significant blow given they’ve won seven of the past eight matches in Perth.
The season’s most influential home-and-away game on Sunday will either make West Coast premiership favourites or friendless with punters.
My best advice to the Tigers is: don’t lose to what you know.
Don’t fall foul of “shallow hell”.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/more-news/richmond-cant-allow-jeremy-mcgovern-to-intercept-in-defence-writes-david-king/news-story/fab2136906fce90dedf6a834a1c7638e
