Just go long

by MATTHEW BRETT

WHILE there are some stupid concepts in football, none quite compare with the 'kick it long' mantra. It seems you can listen all weekend to Rex Hunt, Robert Walls, Sam Newman and Jason Dunstall pleading with losing teams to kick it long. Triple M leads the chart on making the comment why don't they just kick it long to get the full forward one out? It's honestly a waste of our weekend time to listen to this stuff..

It's worth adding that this same radio station has Sam Newman preaching that umpiring is easy, something I could have easily disproved while umpiring myself for the Footscray District League's under 13's. Running 10 400s and then being in position to see whether someone got a hand in a back or slightly around the shoulder is blatantly not easy. I also didn't appreciate the inference from the crowd that my mother was selling her body for money and that I had suddenly found a romantic interest in men.

Back to the point. Football tactics have evolved exponentially over the past 10 or so years. It's not just that teams drop men back, but that the old concept of positions has no bearing. You don't have two blokes sitting out on the wing waiting for a one-on-one, nor do the forward pockets sit out on the boundary as they once might have. Structure is everything and coaches who instruct their players to be in positions and play to a set pattern that minimise the opposition's strengths win games. The team with the best footballers does not win as much as they once did.

Some great examples are Terry Wallace's transformation of the Western Bulldogs in the Year of the Dog'. The same team that we're often referred to as not having the cattle', missed the grand final the year later by a kick. There are countless examples that football teams do have the talent, it's the leadership that matters.

What's more astounding is that coaches like Frawley, Shaw and Schwab have reacted by asking their team to kick it long, only to find the ball going to a two on one or a match up they would prefer not to have exposed. The big argument that Brisbane kicks it long is also garbage.. It's true that Brisbane goes man-on-man and can kick it long to the best combo in the league in Lynch and Brown, but should someone drop back, then Caracella or Power end up 40 metres out on their own and believe me they get the ball.

The real coaches out there love their competitors listening to these philosophies. Sheedy, Matthews and Malthouse, love watching oppositions kick it to their tall defenders and then be caught out on the rebound.

I've watched with interest the appointment of Jason Dunstall to the CEO role at Hawthorn. I'd love to be a fly if he tried to tell Terry Wallace to get them all to bomb it long. Terry would be thinking that Richmond offer didn't look so bad after all...

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