2023: A review

[DJC]

Another buzz word these days is connection or connectivity and often its implied that this refers to connection between lines (ie Def - Mids - Fwds). I often see a lack of connectivity between our fwds (ie talls - smalls). I feel lie they need to work on their structures and patterns as sometimes it looks bit haphazard. Thats what I reckon for what its worth.

And then you see the slo-mo replay and the likes of Owies and Martin are setting blocks for Charlie or Harry.

There's no doubt that we waste some of our forward 50 entries but a lot of our forward 50 work in the second half of the season was superb.  No other team won eleven of their last thirteen games!

Our mid season slump makes it hard to compare team rankings but, for what it's worth, we were seventh for Inside 50s.  Brisbane, Melbourne and GWS had more and Collingwood had around one less per game.  However, Collingwood managed around 1.5 goals more per game with a cobbled together forward line at the end.  Collingwood regularly bomb the ball into their forward 50 and have confidence that if Cox, McStay, Cameron, Mihocek, Elliott, DeGoey, Johnson or Hill don't clunk it, a crumber will do the job. Brisbane does much the same. We don't quite have the marking power and our medium and small forwards aren't as dangerous, but that's a work in progress.

One area where we did improve was the depth of the of our forward 50 long bombs.  Earlier in the season, many of our long kicks inside 50 were landing around 40m out. An intercept mark or spoil usually resulted in a rebound that we found hard to defend.  Later in the season, our long kicks inside 50 were landing 10-20m from goal and that made it easier for crumbers to get a shot at goal, or for our forwards to lock the ball in or force an outlet kick to a contest.

There's certainly work to do but kicking long bombs to Harry, Charlie and the King has to be one of our main avenues to goal. Kicking long bombs to Acres works quite well too