How to beat the Zone!!!

[mightytiges]

Zone?

Rolling Zone?

What are they seriously?

does the 'Zones' occur when we kick a point and try to keep it in our Forward 50?

and when the ball is in our Forward 50, we apply the 'Zone'?

The Clarkson cluster is having a 15-man zone that clogs up the midfield especially when the opposition are trying to come out of their backline.


Defensive 50:        X    X     X

Between arcs:  X    X     X     X
                      X    X     X     X
                      X    X     X     X
                         X     X     X

Forward 50:          -

So the Hawks are quite happy for you to have the ball in your backline as your only choice is to either risk going through it where you are outnumbered or you switch to the other opposite stuff trying to outflank the zone to which the whole 15-man zone just moves across preventing you from bypassing it anyway.

To get through the zone you either need precise footskills trying to pinpoint teammates in the gaps (very risky) or you try to run and carry and handball with numbers running and supporting from behind. If you have long kicks in your side some players try to torpedo their way over the top of the zone (Newy with his kick-ins). We combined the latter two strategies successfully against Hawthorn in round 20 last year plus it was one of our better footskill days which helped as we didn't make too many turnovers to hurt us the other way.

What's been worse about this preseason series is this zone has been pushed back into the defensive 80 so it's almost like the old flooding of the Swans 3-4 years ago. So teams are creating turnovers in their back-half but then have no one to kick to up forward so they rely heavily on a mass of handball to work the ball forward until they can get some numbers inside their forward 50. It's almost soccer/rugby/basketball with handball. It's only when a team gets a stuff can they move the ball by foot and score easily before the opposition cluster zone is set.

[one-eyed]

Interesting comments by Healy in the today's Herald-Sun. He mentions the importance of Richo.

Copy Cats to counter cluster
Jon Anderson | March 03, 2009

AFL coaching staff should look beyond last year's Grand Final scoreboard in an effort to counter the ugly brand of football that's been served up in the NAB Cup.

That's the view of 1988 Brownlow medallist Gerard Healy, who says the 2009 trend of copying Hawthorn's rolling zone is a "sheep mentality".

"Many of the coaches and their assistants are desperate to replicate the rolling zone, but from where I sat Geelong broke Hawthorn's cluster in last year's Grand Final," said AFL Hall of Fame member Healy.

"How many times did the Cats get the ball inside 50m?

"Sixty three, which would suggest to me they smashed the rolling zone, but stuffed up because they couldn't kick straight.

Healy sees the game as changing in the sense that entries inside the forward 50m are no longer as crucial, rather possession once in that zone.

To that end he believes we may see sides such as Geelong employ some of their A-grade midfielders in the forward 50m.

"West Coast did it successfully with Ben Cousins and Geelong has players such as Gary Ablett and Jimmy Bartel, who could do the same," Healy said.

"The other alternative for teams trying to counter a rolling zone is to kick into forward space and rely on a player such as Matthew Richardson to run onto the ball."

Full article at:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25130028-19742,00.html

[Chuck17]

What's been worse about this preseason series is this zone has been pushed back into the defensive 80 so it's almost like the old flooding of the Swans 3-4 years ago. So teams are creating turnovers in their back-half but then have no one to kick to up forward so they rely heavily on a mass of handball to work the ball forward until they can get some numbers inside their forward 50.

Yeah it was funny vs the Pies when on two occasions their player broke free of our players and was closest to goal the only problem being that he was about 80 metres out with no one to pass it to.  I forget the players name but on one occasion he just booted it to no one and Thursty cleaned it up

[tigersalive]

What's been worse about this preseason series is this zone has been pushed back into the defensive 80 so it's almost like the old flooding of the Swans 3-4 years ago. So teams are creating turnovers in their back-half but then have no one to kick to up forward so they rely heavily on a mass of handball to work the ball forward until they can get some numbers inside their forward 50.

Yeah it was funny vs the Pies when on two occasions their player broke free of our players and was closest to goal the only problem being that he was about 80 metres out with no one to pass it to.  I forget the players name but on one occasion he just booted it to no one and Thursty cleaned it up

Dayne Beams.

[mightytiges]

O'Bree also did it IIRC. He was all by himself in the middle of the ground and there were no Pies ahead of him so he just said stuff this and just kicked the ball as far as he could to about 4 Tigers waiting  .


Paul Hamilton in today's Age is right. Sure it's horrible to watch all this handball but it's only preseason and it'll sort itself out once the real stuff starts and we play under the normal proper rules.

[Hes My Hero]

The Dome's dimensions enable it to appear very congested at times.
I think once we get back to the "G" these things will sort themselves out.

[Francois Jackson]

What's been worse about this preseason series is this zone has been pushed back into the defensive 80 so it's almost like the old flooding of the Swans 3-4 years ago. So teams are creating turnovers in their back-half but then have no one to kick to up forward so they rely heavily on a mass of handball to work the ball forward until they can get some numbers inside their forward 50.

Yeah it was funny vs the Pies when on two occasions their player broke free of our players and was closest to goal the only problem being that he was about 80 metres out with no one to pass it to.  I forget the players name but on one occasion he just booted it to no one and Thursty cleaned it up

Dayne Beams.

pity he plays for those scums because he will be a gun this kid

[Chuck17]

The Dome's dimensions enable it to appear very congested at times.
I think once we get back to the "G" these things will sort themselves out.

Except when we go to the SCG, man I hate that ground (not as much as the Swans supporters or team though )

[Francois Jackson]

The Dome's dimensions enable it to appear very congested at times.
I think once we get back to the "G" these things will sort themselves out.

Except when we go to the SCG, man I hate that ground (not as much as the Swans supporters or team though )

Why do you hate that ground? Because we get smacked every time we play there?

What i would like to see this year is for us to get within 6 goals of the swans, instead of putting up the usual insipid performances every time we travel to the SCG.

[Chuck17]

Why do you hate that ground? Because we get smacked every time we play there?

Yes partly that, as I live in Sydney I only see one game a year live and it is really crappy coming out of there after getting belted every year.

But also because the size and shape of the ground suits a slower heavier bodied side.  IMO it allowed the Swans to gain advantage over other sides not because of skill or class but because they utilised the flood on a ground that suited their recruitment of certain types of footballers.

[one-eyed]

Rolling zone stumps AFL Laws of the Game panel
Michelangelo Rucci | March 04, 2009

THE AFL is fighting a losing battle to remove the ugly spectacle of rolling zones from the competition, a key lawmaker admitted.

After being forced to make constant rule changes in the past decade to stop tactics such as flooding ruining the look of football, AFL Laws of the Game committee member Andrew McKay yesterday conceded "zone football" had his panel stumped.

"We've been thinking about that for a year, 18 months," McKay said.

"And it's a tricky one.

"We've tried. We've put our heads together, but we're not exactly sure (how to beat the zone).

"We hope the game sorts it out rather than by making changes to the rules."

Rolling zones or clusters are where coaches take players out of their traditional positions to crowd the area around the ball, making it difficult for the opposition to penetrate its attack.

Hawthorn had great success with the tactic last season.

And the Hawks' ability to frustrate the league's highest-scoring team Geelong with the ploy in last year's Grand Final has made rolling zones a favoured tactic of AFL coaches.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25135626-19742,00.html

[one-eyed]

Rules tinkering is backfiring: Roos
Michael Cowley, Sydney | March 4, 2009

SYDNEY coach Paul Roos says the AFL's desire to speed up the game by continually tinkering with rules each season has backfired and been the catalyst behind what critics are calling ugly, defence-based, football.

After the rolling-zone defence proved successful for Hawthorn in last year's grand final win over Geelong, many teams have adopted a similar strategy in the pre-season.

It was only four years ago that Roos's team was being tagged with a similar moniker by chief executive Andrew Demetriou but then because they played hard, man-on-man, defensive-style football.

"It is good for a change that we're not being called ugly," Roos said jokingly. "The ironic thing is that the two grand finals that were the most one-on-one contests and the most physical, and with no flooding and no zones, were the '05 and '06 ones and we were criticised in 2005 for ugly footy.

"My concern is some of the rule changes are starting to catch up with us a little bit. In a sense, the lawmakers have got what they want, but that was my point all along, you had better be careful what you wish for because this is what you're going to get. A lot of the rule changes have contributed to what we are starting to see now.

"With all the rule changes it has lent itself to zoning and flooding, and that's probably the disappointing thing, and now people are talking about changing more rules to stop what's going on now. A number of people have said all along, let the game evolve, but unfortunately they have tampered with the rules, which has now meant there is greater incentive for zoning and that's the frustrating thing.

"Blokes now have less time with the footy. Three or four years you could have 20 seconds to make a decision then they brought it down to 15 seconds, then to 10 seconds. You just haven't got time now. You haven't got time to go back and take your kick and hit a target. Basically, the ball is in motion so often because the umpires are calling play on so quickly.

"And the kicking backwards (which is now play on) is a disaster and falls right into the trap of the zoning teams all the time. Then you have the rushed behind rule (a free kick is now awarded for intentionally rushed behinds), you can't rush it through, so what are teams going to do? If you could rush it through, teams are more likely to go man on man, but you can't rush it through so they just set up in their zone and let you kick it back in.

"If you ask me I'd wind the clock back and change all the rules back to what they were, but they are not going to do that, so I think you've got to weather the storm and see what happens."

Roos says his side will not use the tactic, because they are "not set up for it as a team".

He agreed with Collingwood's Mick Malthouse and Essendon mentor Matthew Knights that "you can't change a style based on what someone else does if you can't deliver the style".

"Some clubs will do it I suspect it will be about 50-50, eight teams will zone and eight teams won't but what every club will do is try to find a way through it and we've been working really hard to find a way through it," Roos said.

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/rules-tinkering-is-backfiring-roos/2009/03/03/1235842411657.html