but can you blame them. with this being the only country to play the sport, there has never been a need to look outside for ideas. in the last 5-7 years, the trend has been to study and mimic what other 'team invasion' sports are doing eg world football, netball and basketball
anyway...it was an interesting read.....
seriously though, would a world football coach make a difference in the crows or power coaching box????
Hawks shaping for war Font Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Stephen Rielly | May 03, 2008
THE essence of Australian football was for so long fundamentally physical and free-form. The idea of a game played in a confined space by 36 males ought to prove the point, even before the absence of territorial restrictions and the use of a ball of unpredictable bounce are considered.
It wasn't meant initially to be a rigid exercise or a reflection of clipped, military thinking.
Increasingly, though, it has become a game of order; of grids and patterns, of coaching sciences, design and motion analysis. Which does not necessarily make the game less interesting.
What it does mean is that football has new virtues. It still takes courage and skill but it now demands unprecedented systematic arrangement too.
Which is what Richmond coach Terry Wallace effectively said last Sunday night when, in the wake of a narrow defeat, he all but described his Hawthorn counterpart, Alastair Clarkson, as the best drill-sergeant in the game.
"They are the best drilled team I have seen in the last six or seven years, probably since Sydney played a different style to everyone else," Wallace said.
"Hawthorn has taken the game to another level and that's a credit to their coaching staff.
"It's the next generation of footy."
Wallace's use of the word drilled for an incredibly well-rehearsed, almost programmed outfit was apt.
Clarkson and his staff - many suspect the influence of his assistant, David Rath, the former Australian Institute of Sport analyst and bio-mechanist - are imposing a new defensive order on the AFL.
Football has never seen such a comprehensive system of zone defence. The Hawks are committing as many as 16 of their 18 players to it, even leaving opposition players free behind them to maintain the structure. forwards drop off and retreat clse to the half way line and protect the closest avanue to goal
The shape of the zone, which is employed when the opposition is kicking the ball into play from a deep defensive position, can change from an arrow-headed 'A' (classical xmas tree formation) to a rectangle. The arrow points at the player with the ball, effectively dividing the field into two before him, encouraging a kick to one side of the ground or the other.
Once that decision has been made, the formation mutates into a rectangle and moves laterally, to close off whichever side of the ground the ball has travelled. the defending team changes shape according to where the ball is - ball orientated defence - rather than man to man 'player orientated defence'
A quick Hawthorn player has to rush to where the opposition player has marked to buy the time required for the zone to travel (he is the 1st defender - his role is to delay).[/b] At times the designated Hawk speedster will deliberately go over the mark and get the umpire to call him back, to crib a couple of extra seconds for the zone to assemble.
It has become one of football's more enlightening experiences to sit in the cheap seats, up high, and take in the aerial view of Hawthorn's formation. Four lines of four players, sometimes only three on the last line, spread approximately 15 metres apart and moving as one like a human net.
It is designed to be difficult to pierce with a kick and, at approximately 60 metres long, difficult to kick beyond - it is Hawthorn's intention to force the opposition into a frustrated kick which can be easily intercepted.
It is unique and not just because for now, Hawthorn has it to itself.
Zone defences, any defences for that matter, have in most sports been employed in defensive areas of the ground or court. The Hawks are stationing their zone well up the ground, basically between the two 50-metre arcs, seeking to be in a superior attacking position if a turnover is created. teams usually defend in the middle 3rd of the pitch - if you defend to high, you might get caught out with a long ball on the counter attack. if you defend too deep, you encourage teams to run at you or shoot from the 18yd box.
If there appear to be hints of Neil Craig's work with Adelaide in what Clarkson is doing, it is Hawthorn's near complete team involvement in the strategy, its aggressive positioning and underlying attacking intent that stand it apart from what the Crows or anyone else has attempted.
As one opposition coach said this week: "No-one has ever taken it to the level Hawthorn is right now. Not with allowing free players on the other side of the zone. They're basically daring us all to go long over the top, knowing that if you try and kick that far they can adjust and be in a position to intercept because a kick of that distance is going to take time."
So much time that opposition sides make it into their own forward 50 metre area far less often against Hawthorn than any other side. The competition average is 50. Against the Hawks, the figure is 41.7.
Two of the most obvious benefits for Clarkson of this near-impregnability are the protection it affords his defenders, a collection of players the club has conceded it needs to improve, and the compensation it offers for the relatively slow speed of his best three midfielders, Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis.
However, as the Tigers proved by kicking 15 goals from their miserably low number of forward 50 entries, if you can get past the zone to where the game reverts to more of a one-on-one contest it is not so difficult to score against the Hawks.
"If you have a look at the percentages of goals being kicked by opposition sides once the ball gets inside their back 50, they are poor," said the coach of one of Hawthorn's recent victims.
"But their strategy is to deny you the entry in the first place."
There may be even more to the audacity of the strategy. It is acknowledged the end-to-end scoring success enjoyed in the less structured game of yesteryear has diminished significantly. The counter-attack launched from a turnover is now the second highest percentage option with which to score, behind only scoring from stoppages.
The Hawthorn zone is a pillar of Hawthorn's counter-attacking game. First, it breaks tags on Mitchell and Hodge who fall into a position in the formation when the opposition is trying to bring the ball out of defence.
Their opponents can't stand in the formation with them unless they want to be lost to their own team's offensive cause, but once Hawthorn forces the turnover they are often hopelessly out of position.
Second, with so many good kicks in the formation, particularly on the last line where Brent Guerra, Rick Ladson, Grant Birchall and Luke Hodge are often placed, Clarkson has in effect four Exocet missile launchers ready to send the ball back into attack with accuracy over a distance of up to 55 metres.
"Once they win the footy back a lot of their players are unmanned. They are the best uncontested team in the competition because of that. It's almost overlap footy from there and then it's 'Buddy' (Franklin) one-out," noted a rival club official.
"(But) it can breed a mentality where players don't accept responsibility for a man and can struggle one-on-one. No-one plays on anyone," he said.
"It creates a scenario where it is very hard for the coach to go back and demand one-on-one accountability. And finals are about being able to withstand one-on-one pressure. So, it's a risk."
An old-fashioned contest, perhaps, between yesterday and tomorrow.
