On paper, it seems like GWS might have got lucky against Brisbane at the Gabba.
Their incredible accuracy in front of goal – and the Lions’ propensity to butcher chances – saw them finish with nine fewer scoring shots and still claim the points, with a 17.5 tally some four goals ahead of their expected score.
The loss of Jack Payne to a suspected serious knee injury in the opening quarter robbed the Lions of a defensive rock, with his absence looking particularly crucial after Giants pillars Jesse Hogan and Aaron Cadman combined for 11 goals between them.
But when it keeps happening like this, and in remarkably similar ways, it pays to sit up and take notice.
That’s two years in a row now the Giants have come to the Gabba, seen the Lions spray their shots everywhere, and capitalise themselves – last year, it was in the form of a 13.4 (82) to 8.16 (64) win.
In between, they led the Lions in a preliminary final by seven goals, and it took a choke job of monumental proportions to squander what could have ended up being an inaugural flag, given the Brisbane march to the premiership that ensued.
In that game, the Lions got the jump, led for nearly the whole match, and then gave up four goals in nine minutes in the final quarter to let the Giants run all over the top of them.
This time around, it was five goals in 15 minutes on either side of three quarter time, with scintillating, running football straight down the Gabba guts making mincemeat of Brisbane’s defence, and feeding a forward line that just could not miss all afternoon.
It starts at stoppage – the Giants are the only team consistently capable of shutting down the Lions’ menacing midfield, and hurting them on the scoreboard.
Here’s a snippet from last year’s Footy Fix on that match-up:
“The Giants banged on four of their goals directly from centre bounces, with the Lions’ defence exposed one-on-one and their midfield beaten for the ball and unable to win it back once they’d lost it.”
Sound familiar? This time, it was three goals straight from centre bounces, with the Giants packing their midfield with pace and swarming forward in numbers, with high half-forwards pushing up towards the stoppage and then beating their opponents back towards goal.
Take this key final-term goal, for example: Darcy Jones starts on Darcy Wilmot, and leads the Lions defender up to the stoppage.
He doesn’t influence, but the idea is to create space behind him: Wilmot is suckered into trying to smother Finn Callaghan’s long kick inside 50, with Jones already scurrying back into attack.
The result? When the kick comes to ground, the Giants have an outnumber – Jones gathers, draws Brandon Starcevich and gives over the top to his man, Callum Brown, and from 45 his left-footed snap is a beauty.
There’s a weakness here with the Lions: this year, they are the best team in the competition at beating their opposition in the clearance count, and are top-six at scoring from stoppages relative to their opponents, but only eighth at centre bounce wins, and bottom five at scoring from them.
The Lions’ strategy is simple: quickly slingshot the ball from defence, usually via the elite kicking skills of Dayne Zorko, keep the ball in perpetual motion as they rack up marks to keep moving the footy closer to goal, and either score off a fast break or get the ball inside 50, lock it in, and eventually capitalise on an opposition mistake under heavy heat.
But force them to defend fast breaks themselves, as the Giants have in each of their last three games against them, and they are vulnerable – and with Payne likely to miss the rest of the season, there’s an opportunity for teams to be truly aggressive in coming hard at the Lions’ backline.
It didn’t always work – early on, it seemed the Giants would once again pay the price for being over-aggressive with their kicks…
… but by the end of the day, the scoreline was well and truly to their advantage. Fortune, as they say, favours the brave.
The Giants, remarkably, kicked 11 of their goals from defensive half – add to that the three from centre bounces, and the match was won in those two facets virtually alone.
The centre bounce numbers? 18-10 GWS’ way, all the more important given the amount of goals on offer.
It’s to the Giants’ great credit that they were able to play in this manner, having struggled so heavily to move the footy in recent weeks – against Port Adelaide last week, they were cruelled by turnovers trying to access the corridor in the second half, leaking key goals in a low-scoring slog.
It’s no coincidence that this ultra-aggressive approach brought with it a dominant performance from Hogan and Cadman: regularly either one out or given the chance to fly at the footy by a Payne-less Lions defence, they were given ample opportunity to thrive as key forwards, and made the most of it.
But it’s also not unique – Hogan now has 14 goals in his last three games against the Lions, many of them opposed to Harris Andrews; while Cadman, in last year’s home-and-away clash and with Payne missing, bagged three and looked exceptional in the air, a performance he expanded upon for a true breakout game on Saturday.
Payne is an enormous loss for Brisbane, if indeed he is done for the season: shifted down back when he went down, Eric Hipwood fought manfully but noticeably lacked the defensive nuances a player like Payne provides, most notably in how frequently he allowed Cadman a free run and jump at the ball where engaging with the light-framed Giant would have almost certainly stopped him from marking.
Andrews, too, falls into the camp of attacking defenders – he rarely engages with an opponent unless he has no choice, while he, as an elite interceptor, has the confidence to hang off his direct opponent, backing himself to win the ball in the air and knowing Payne typically has the responsibility for the true forward line monsters.
As the Giants proved, that’s something you can exploit, because Andrews will now have to take far more responsibility for the big dogs – Ryan Lester, too, will likely need to punch above his weight for the rest of the season.
Cadman, for instance, exploited this perfectly in the first quarter: with Andrews hanging marginally off him, he was given a clear run and jump at this long Callaghan ball inside 50, and was good enough to clunk it at a high enough point on his leap to be clear of the Lions great’s lunging spoil.
As for the Lions’ inaccuracy, a lot of it boils down to the Lions taking long-range pings at the big sticks rather than missing certain goals – their expected score was only seven points ahead of their final tally, surprising considering a scoreline of 13.18. The Giants, to be sure, were more than five goals better off.
The Lions back themselves to convert from 50 more than most: quite often, especially in the last quarter, a marker on the edge of 50 was empowered to go back and have a crack rather than looking to pass off to teammates in a better position.
The Giants, for the most part, did wonderfully well to stop up those cracks and force those shots to be taken – helped by the master of guarding space in Sam Taylor, whose presence in defence was a constant pillar for the Lions to work around.
At their feet, too, the Lions’ most dangerous small, Charlie Cameron, was given an almighty bath by Connor Idun, going goalless and finishing with just five disposals for the match.
None of it is easily replicable – it’s not as if every team in the AFL can flick a switch and mimic what the Giants did to Brisbane at the Gabba, and indeed have done to them in their last three outings.
But there is a definite blueprint for the good ones at least to know exactly how to bring the reigning premiers down: attack boldly from defensive 50 through the central corridor, keep your talls deep to expose Brisbane one on one, and push up your quickest players to the stoppage and then have them hare back towards goal the second a break comes your way.
Up next for the Lions is Geelong at GMHBA Stadium. You had better believe Chris Scott will be taking copious notes.
www.theroar.com.au (Article Sourced Website)
#Footy #Fix #Giants #Lions #worked #team #note