Goaltracker

[sydneybluesfan]

Attack is the best form of defense - 1970, 1972, 1995, 2007 GF's, all examples of teams who were either inherently attacking, or changed it up to go more attacking on the big day.

It's much harder for the opposition to catch you when you score 120 points per game than 70. It also makes it easier for the defense. There is simply no margin for error if your back 6 is defending measly low totals. The Crows defense, however good or bad they may be, have it easier than our boys. By this factor, our back 6 are doing a stellar job.

I think your point is often lost on people in the attack vs defence argument. For the last 3 years we have been playing the 'get the defence right, and then work on attack later' when in reality you need to both at the same time. Attack's take longer to build than good defence, as we have shown. But if you believe that then you actually need to go earlier and harder on building your attack.

It feels to me like we have made some really bad trade decisions [getting rid of Betts, Gartlett & Waite, and replacing them with KJ, Jones and Sumner] and are hoping that we can make up for this with draftees, even though our drafting history forward of centre has been putrid for over 10 years. Add to that, drafting forwards is a minimum 3 year horizon before you get real consistent return. Defenders can make a solid contribution from Year 1 - Weitering, Williamson etc.

As you say we have no margin for error, opposition sides are always in the game against us because we can't put scoreboard pressure on them, and they know they only have to kick 12-13 goals in a game to win. This puts enormous pressure on the defence from the beginning. Our team defence is doing pretty well - we concede 52 i50's per game which is ranked 7th.