High-minded Hawks eying greatness
Johan Cruyff was obsessed with passing. His playing career and then eventual ascension to manager at Barcelona marked the point possession (as part of the Total Football concept) became the club’s prominent philosophy. A high-minded, high concept vision of how football ‘should’ be played, only achieved through painstaking repetition and a disturbing attention to detail.
Pep Guardiola, a Cruyffian acolyte would 15 years later go to perfect the concept, turning it into the most beautiful and devastating football ever seen.
The current philosophy of the Hawthorn Football Club and Guardiola’s Barcelona is more than a fleeting coincidence – players pressing high up and whilst trying to keep a perfect zone width, neat possession-based kicking with the ball, players shifting positions to keep the opposition on their toes.
As Cruyff once pointed out, never pass the ball to someone, pass it in the direction they’re running to continue to keep the game flowing – another trademark of their game.
When the Hawks broke away midway through the first quarter, it was incredibly smooth and faultless football. Geelong kept themselves in the game by upping the pressure, but it was still nowhere near enough.
Hawthorn are one of those sides we rarely come across, where the way they operate stops being a mere game plan but rather a strict ideology. The problem with a strict ideology is it’s a constant high-wire act. A risk-reward situation, where a 10% drop in intensity when playing a complex style results in uncharacteristic losses (Essendon, Richmond, GWS etc).
Like Guardiola’s Barcelona once upon a time, the only thing standing between them and further glory is their own continued competence. At their best, no one will get close.
Gutsy Swans and ineffective Pies
For three quarters, it was a contested slog. Players fought for every disposal, barely finding time and space and being under duress to clear the ball. The Swans have a reputation as a team filled to the brim with human battering rams, and they lived up to that stereotype on Friday night.
After Luke Parker’s unfortunate leg injury, Jeremy Laidler subbed and Kieran Jack and Dane Rampe finding themselves fighting cramp for most of the final quarter, they had to dig deep whilst playing what was far from their best footy. There are still rightful doubts over whether they will cut it in September, but winning ugly is the first step to finding form.
As for Collingwood, it’s easy to blame coach Nathan Buckley. The first half of the game was littered with errors in midfield which saw the ball turned over, while the second had many entries going forward and kicking for goal poorly executed. The Pies are about where they should be, trying to balance out and prevent a large drop down the ladder whilst their stars age and a new generation start to find their feet.
The first half of the year had many positives, especially their defensive set up and consolidation of solid players like Jack Frost, Adam Oxley and Jack Crisp. What they need is ball users coming out of the back half, and that’s something they have to develop. Mid-table is where the Pies are destined to be for the next year or two, but it’s a decent start to the rebuild.
North Melbourne – more questions, no Answers
It’s not that North Melbourne don’t possess the capabilities to trouble top teams, it’s that there are still significant questions over their concentration and output over four quarters.
These questions aren’t new by any means, but it’s the undeniable fact that time is running thin on their so-called assault for a flag. Even if North find replacements in the off-season for types like Daniel Wells and Nathan Grima, there’s still such a lingering factor of whether this team has the will or even culture to push deep into September.
Every time there appears to be a galvanising moment, the North of old is only a game away. The North of old rocked up for a half in Hobart. St. Kilda shouldn’t be discredited here, their pressure had the Roos on the ropes. But the fact experience only won out after such a fright for the umpteenth time suggests the message isn’t getting through.
The idea that overlap coming out of defence or concentration for the switch of the ball only occurs haphazardly, suggests Brad Scott’s team and tenure is likely doomed if there isn’t a serious 11th hour intervention.
The Lowest Ebb
Essendon offered little resistance as the Crows stormed past them, at one stage kicking a dozen unanswered goals. Fantastic performances from Eddie Betts, Patrick Dangerfield, Rory Sloane and Taylor Walker against a generally unresponsive Dons after quarter-time, put further pressure on James Hird.
Saturday’s 112 point implosion joins their other mammoth beltings this year – 110 points to the Dogs and 87 points at the hands of the Saints. Everyone else but Essendon can see the blatantly obvious, that Hird’s time is up. Regardless of missing personnel and other circumstances, the playing group looks devoid of enjoyment and enthusiasm.
Hird’s tenure has been quite large scale and high budget with a lot of carnage, like a Michael Bay film comically lurching to the next predictable massacre. The continued cognitive dissonance by those in a position to affect a change only puts the club further behind in cleaning up the mess.
Freo: tanking or tanked?
Depending on what theory you subscribe to, you’d take away two differing versions on what occurred at Subiaco on Sunday evening.
The first version has the Eagles rightfully confirming their premiership credentials. Storming out of the blocks with the first six goals of the game, they had the Dockers pinned from the outset. Freo were average moving the ball for most of the game, with West Coast’s press causing all sorts of headaches for Ross Lyon’s men. They spread their goals and midfield load evenly with great games from Josh Kennedy, Andrew Gaff, Matt Rosa, Josh Hill, Brad Sheppard and Jack Darling.
The second version of events, has Freo perhaps not trying as hard as they could have. As unlikely as this conspiracy theory is, there will be a few out there suspicious of the result and the ends Ross Lyon was out to achieve. As much as Lyon is well known for playing chess whilst everyone else is playing checkers, it’s probably best to leave the false flag missions to men in black helicopters.
