Re: Covering Our Forwards
Reply #5 –
As an opposition coach, in what order would you cover our forwards with your defenders? ie who would get no1 defender? No 2 etc.
Assume our forwards are:
Henderson - Smartest (e.g. Gibson)
Jones - body on body/third tall (e.g. Stratton)
Casboult - biggest/strongest (e.g. Lake)
Menzel - experienced rebounding defender (e.g. Birchall)
Problem - Stratton is 189cm odd, 90kg, Jones 198cm, 98kg+
Probably use Spangher on one of our talls like they did in the GF.....Spangher while no star managed to get his body in the road of leading players, was the third man up and play help defense
as part of a team defensive effort like all the good teams do....Geelong had Milburn playing a similar role....
We are yet to progress in playing team defense and too often leave our defenders one out.....Sam Rowe is about the only one who gets to the contest to help a mate out....
Good point EB; the better teams play team defence and Hawthorn excel at it with Hodge chopping off passes, McEvoy filling holes, etc. I don't think Hawthorn would be terribly concerned about covering our forwards.
Hopefully, our forwards can really step up a notch next season and getting the blokes in the back half to play team defence should help.
In terms of Townsend's call for suggestions for covering our forwards, in a purely one on one scenario I would go for:
Henderson - tall defender with the best endurance.
Jones - whoever is left over after covering the others.
Casboult - strongest tall defender and preferably one who could run off Levi.
Menzel - someone like Shaun Burgoyne who can hurt us going forward.