The death of anti-football

by GIOVANNI TORRE

Written on December 17.

Looking back on the grand final from a safe distance, I tried to write about it in a cool and analytical fashion.

The overwhelming conclusion I reached - from a scientific perspective - is that anti-football is dead.

Take, if you will, the four teams left standing in 2007.

North Melbourne, for all their faults and apparent limitations - so cruelly exposed by Geelong and Port Adelaide during the finals series - play a gutsy, honest brand of football revolving around hard running, hard tackling and moving the ball quickly to leading forwards. On song, North are a pleasure to watch and a formidable opponent, as Hawthorn discovered when they were bundled out of the finals.

Collingwood may be considered lucky by some for pipping West Coast and making the top four, but winning in Perth isn't easy at the best of times, let alone with a young and green team against the reigning premiers in a cut-throat final.

Collingwood's strength is their pace, gung-ho attitude and penchant for flair embodied in Neon Leon Davis and Shooter Didak. They understand that a tight defence doesn't mean playing defensively.

Port Adelaide depends far too heavily on a handful of champions to carry their fortunes, but that's a recruitment problem - no one can fault the philosophy behind their style of play. Playing on at every opportunity, backing their forwards to take pack marks and rarely showing doubt in themselves or each other, Port's enthusiasm and confidence sometimes over-cooks into a terminal arrogance, but usually means they will kick plenty of goals and can't be counted out until down and out.

Then there's Geelong. The best the Cats had to offer was most apparent when it counted most. In the grand final, the entire team demonstrated an almost fanatical attack on the ball or the man carrying it. Seemingly obsessed with destroying rather than beating teams, the Cats dished out thumping after thumping this year by refusing to flood or play for time, instead pushing themselves harder and harder towards victory - urging each other on for more and more goals. Never satisfied, never finished until the siren sounded - the Cats won 21 of 25 games by an average margin over 50 points by playing attractive, flowing, attacking football.

Now, 2005 premiers Sydney is accused of starting anti-football under the reign of the evil genius Paul Roos. Accommodating the vagaries of their bizarre postage stamp home ground, the Bloods developed an irritating, tiring, flooding style of game aimed at suffocating their opponents, grinding out victories of 10 goals to seven, nine goals to six and other startlingly dull sparse score lines.

Despite being the key architects of anti-football, the Bloods at least had one redeeming feature. On a good day, Sydney's style was similar to the Italian style of playing round ball: defend resolutely until an opportunity presents itself then surge forward with flair, courage and dynamism to score a goal. In the case of the Azzuri - Totti, Del Piero, Vieri, Baggio, Grosso and Pirlo were or are the point men. In the case of Sydney, it was Hall, O'Loughlin, Nick Davis and others. The thing is, that kind of play suits soccer - where goals are gold and an unguarded net a crime against God. In Australian Rules Football, it's pretty inexcusable as anything other than an admission your side simply isn't good enough to win any other way.

While Sydney's dark cloud had the silver lining of using Hall and O'Loughlin in stylish bursts, 2006 premiers West Coast offered an exciting array of pacy midfielders. Much of the team played defensively most of the time, but the way Kerr, Judd, Cousins and others approached the game meant they were still great to watch and still capable of scoring big scores.

This year, however, problems aside, the shortcomings of their plan was exposed when they played Geelong mid-season. The difference between the two sides was Cameron Mooney and Nathan Ablett who scored seven goals between them in a 39 point win. In addition to these two, the Cats have Steve Johnson, Brad Ottens and teenage titan Tom Hawkins waiting in the wings. Where are West Coast's key forwards? They play a high possession brand of football because they are looking for an option. The 2007 top four know they can let rip and play efficient, low-possession football because they have something to kick to.

The real murderers of anti-football, however, are not West Coast and Sydney but those who took the horrible brand to its logical conclusion.

St Kilda, despite possessing Fraser Gehrig and Nick Reiwoldt, played anti-football this season under the seemingly confused and bleary-eyed stewardship of Ross Lyon - a disciple of Roos.

Hawthorn was also guilty. Despite the presence of Buddy Franklin and Mark Williams in their fifty, they more often than not over-possessed, kicked sideways and got numbers behind the ball. WHY?

The game between these two sides was a waking nightmare. Actually, it was more a conventional nightmare since it put many of its witnesses to sleep. Others have tried, inexplicably, to emulate this style.

Kevin Sheedy, by comparison, heroically refused to abandon the dream of playing match winning rather than match-saving football and for his troubles was sacked by the Dons. This was a shame, because the Dons did as best as they could with the limited stocks they could get on the field. Flooding would have ruined their confidence completely and retarded the development of the skills of the young players.

Geelong, missing Steven King, Nathan Ablett, Henry Playfair and Charlie Gardner, may not have the depth to snare the 2008 flag in the event of serious injuries - but it won't be because they did not give it a red hot go. Ultimately the lesson of 2007 and Geelong's rampaging triumph is quite simple. Play a style that will allow your players to be the best players they can be. Anti-football is not that style.

8 February 2008

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