Wallace's view on "ugly footy" / handball stats now match kicks

[one-eyed]

An ugly concern
Mark Robinson and Jon Ralph | March 03, 2009

TWO of the AFL's senior coaches, Richmond's Terry Wallace and Collingwood's Mick Malthouse, have raised concerns about the problems presented by defensive and zone football.

Wallace, an innovator of defensive tactics, said he was concerned about where football was headed.

"I haven't got a solution," he said.

"I don't know because I'm more worried about how we're going to play this year and what we need to get right, and how we're going to structure up around stoppages, where you play your high half-forwards.

"We deal with the game where it is at the moment.

"But somebody has to deal with the game and where it's going."

Malthouse has warned sides attempting to mimic Hawthorn's rolling zones might find the tactic backfiring.

As concerns are being voiced about the ugly, defensive tactics dominating pre-season football, Malthouse is hopeful clubs will play attractive, attacking football this year.

He said yesterday that while Hawthorn had found a way to use the zone effectively, not all clubs had the skills to master it.

He said Collingwood is determined to play to its strengths and hopes rival sides are too.

"I don't think every side fits into the same box. Because if you try to do that, you probably fall under the spell of someone who wants you to do it. You have got to acknowledge it, but is your side capable of doing it? And if they are not capable of doing it, why do it?," Malthouse said.

"You might build up over three or four years. If we are talking about Hawthorn, they have done it since (coach Alastair) Clarkson came to the club - four years."

"The same with Geelong. Last year, do you have to handball 200 times because they do? If we handballed 200 times, we would have been lucky to kick five goals.

"It has got to be about the strength of your team."

Wallace was accused of butchering games in the 1990s when he adopted flooding tactics with the Western Bulldogs, and in particular in 2000 when he flooded heavily to beat Essendon at Docklands, the only match the Bombers lost that season.

"I've had those accusations placed on me but it doesn't mean I am not a lover of the game," Wallace said.

"I'm still a coach who will try to win, but I keep getting concerned that people will do whatever they can nowadays to steal from another code - park the bus in the defensive area to make sure the game is as difficult as it possibly can be.

"And that's taken a lot of the one-on-ones out of the game and that's a concern.

He said blame must be shared.

"Coaches have a part to play in it, I think the rule makers and the coaches," he said.

"I think we have to be careful. We have a great product which we have a responsibility to look after."

Malthouse was confident clubs would work out ways to play effectively against the zone.

"It will work it's way through. People will restructure until such time as they find the methodology to suit their side," he said.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25130027-19742,00.html

[one-eyed]

Trouble at hand
Mark Stevens | March 03, 2009

AUSTRALIAN Handball League.

It is emotive even to suggest a name change, but the game is on the brink of the unthinkable: the handball is about to overtake the kick as the most common act in the game.

As teams desperately search for ways to crack the "rolling zone", they are turning to the handball as never before.

In the 12 NAB Cup games this year, teams have averaged 173 kicks and 171 handballs.

The kick-to-handball ratio is now a staggering 1:1.01.

As recently as 2004, clubs were averaging 184 kicks and 109 handballs, a ratio of 1:1.69.

The pre-season is renowned for throwing up exaggerated stats, but evidence that the kick is about to be booted out as No. 1 is undeniable.

The graph tracking the gap between kicks and handballs in the past 10 years says it all. The lines are set to touch - that's akin to a kiss of death to football as we once knew it.

It has become so prevalent, Brownlow medallist Gerard Healy now believes a limit on handball will be trialled in the NAB Cup.

"I would think that at some stage that will come into the NAB Cup," Healy said yesterday.

"The whole game is in a position of experimentation right now.

"But if they limit the handball, the way it's going, it's going to maximise the effectiveness of the zone defence."

Clubs' pursuit of handball happiness was highlighted at AAMI Stadium on Saturday.

Port Adelaide had 162 kicks and 198 handballs. Geelong had 155 and 188.

That's 69 more handballs than kicks in one game.

Asked if he had ever envisaged the handball overtaking the kick, Healy said: "I wouldn't have thought it when I started playing footy, but I'm not surprised now."

To have more handballs than kicks was once dubbed the "stat that stinks".

It was considered a recipe for self-destruction and a sign of a poor club under intense pressure. But the game changed forever, at Subiaco in Round 17, 2006.

West Coast, desperate to break down the flooding tactics of Adelaide, bamboozled the Crows' usually granite-solid defence by shooting off 227 handballs - a record back then. Adelaide buckled and the Eagles announced they were the real deal for the 2006 premiership.

From there, they handballed their way to the flag, averaging 183 handballs a game - 28 more than any other team during that time.

AFL is all about "follow the leader" and Geelong took a plan into 2007, barnstorming its way to the flag with swift and clever handball.

It is now amazing to think that in 2003, Melbourne made headlines for committing the "stat that stinks" when it had 182 kicks and 186 handballs.

At the time then Demons assistant coach Brian Royal said: "In a perfect world, we'd love two kicks for every handball".

At that stage no team had ever won by having more handballs than kicks.

The only other sides to do it - Fitzroy twice in 1996 and Sydney in 1993 - lost those matches and went on to win the wooden spoon.

When the Crows won the flag in 1997, Champion Data stats revealed they averaged 195 kicks and 91 handballs a game for the season. In the repeat triumph of 1998, it was 189 kicks and 97 handballs.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25129799-19742,00.html