To tag or not to tag? The decision that sparked the greatest comeback in AFL history

The tagger is one of the most talked-about roles in footy. Each week, speculation abounds about whether teams will deploy a tagger on the stars of the competition.

On Sunday, the tagger was out in force. For the first three quarters, Saint Marcus Windhager toiled after Melbourne’s Kysaiah Pickett. In the fourth, the most remarkable comeback in AFL history was completed.

For that last quarter, the Saints largely abandoned the tag and focused on attack. A 46-point deficit was wiped off the scoreboard in an instant.

That doesn’t mean that tagging doesn’t work — but it does speak to the situational value of the role.

Defining a tagger is tough and working out whether they are effective is even harder. ABC Sport has talked to a range of AFL coaches over the course of the season to try to work out what a tagger is in 2025, and whether they are effective in the modern game.

Looking outside

The traditional image of the tag is pretty simple. It is a player standing directly next to a star on-baller, pushing, poking and niggling them prior to a ball-up.

The traditional tagger doesn’t just stop there — the tagger follows their prey around the ground with indifference to winning the ball themselves. No eyes for the ball, just their target.

These days, balance is required between stopping a player and contributing positively as well. These run-with players are deployed situationally by most teams and are expected to contribute on both sides of the ball.

Sydney coach Dean Cox has praised the way Swans tagger James Jordon can combine accountability with his own impact on the ball.

“The great thing about James is the balance that he does have between ‘OK, I need to restrict’ but also ‘I need to impact when I get the chance as well,'” Cox said.

“He’s done that numerous times when he’s played on an opponent, to be able to try to have shots at goal, or to impact not only by quelling someone’s influence.”

There’s a fine line — if there’s too much attacking intent, it can open up the defence. GWS regularly deploys Toby Bedford in a variety of roles, including as a tagger. Part of his strength is his ability to counterattack.

“It’s a hard balance to have — because the more he [Bedford] attacks, chances are his opponent has got a big gap on him and then it’s hard to defend,” GWS coach Adam Kingsley said earlier this year.

The orthodoxy of who to tag has also shifted over the years. While Ron Barassi was once called too creative to tag, these days it’s the creative players who draw the most focus.

Often, the belief is that if the ball is in the contest, there’s little that can be done to prevent first access by the best in the game. Instead, it’s the more open ball and work down-field that merits restriction.

A player like Pickett — with the ability to break lines when winning the ball on the inside and to do damage with ball in hand — is a prime target of opposition stoppers.

In last week’s match, this played out to form. For the first three quarters, Pickett was able to win the ball at the contest but had his ability to rack up easy football limited.

Despite this, when the tag was broken in the last quarter and St Kilda focused more on winning the ball, Pickett’s supply of harder ball dried up. Pickett compiled just one knock-on and three handball receives for the quarter, while the freed Windhager managed five ground-ball gets and four score involvements.

There were other major reasons for the comeback, including moving Max Hall into the middle and being more proactive with their ball movement. The total result was a massive turnaround in all facets of the game.

Working out the tag

It’s often hard to work out when a player is being tagged from the outside. Match-up data is patchy at league level and doesn’t distinguish between a common match-up, a soft tag or a hard tag.

As a result, it’s hard to know exactly when players are being tagged without intensive research or unless coaches or players across the league disclose the use of the tactic.

Take Brad Scott’s explanation after Essendon’s loss to GWS in round 19.

To most watching the game, a tag was not easily discernible. It also didn’t appear to have any impact on Tom Green’s monster game, with the Canberran racking up 30 disposals, including 17 contested possessions and 16 clearances.

It’s tough to assign causation to one player, but when their teams have lost this season, some of the top midfielders in the competition have struggled.

Players like Nick Daicos, Caleb Serong, Hugh McCluggage and Jason Horne-Francis have seen their inside 50s drop by a third and their metres gained by about a quarter in losses against wins.

Geelong coach Chris Scott explained the idea on Fox Footy earlier this year.

“There is a cost to tagging. Very few teams play one-on-one where they think they are going to take out a certain player,” Chris Scott said.

“Every team prioritises their structures and their set-ups first, but what I will say — no team plays Collingwood and puts no time or effort into stopping Nick Daicos. It all happens on a spectrum.”

This is exactly why teams tag. Limiting an opposition’s best player can have massive impacts on game results. But usually it’s hard to work out whether it was the tag or whether the player in question was having an off day.

The trade-offs

No tactic in football comes without a cost. To get something, clubs have to give something.

A tag can also hand over initiative to the opponent, with Craig McRae saying two weeks ago that “you can manipulate the tag a lot”.

This manipulation of the tag can take several forms.

Clubs copping a midfield tag have free rein to decide where the opposing player will be positioned and what parts of the ground they’ll be taken to. Often, they’ll be moved forward for patches, hoping for a hand-off or a mismatch in the forward line. Against the Saints, Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge shifted Bontempelli to the back line to influence the game there.

“Marcus played a really selfless game tonight. It meant teammates capitalised on that.” Beveridge explained after that Saints game.

“He went to half back briefly, he played forward, so that means they have to move their chess pieces around a bit and it can be a bit destabilising”

Of course, forcing a star player into a secondary role can often be the victory the tagging club is after. Moving Nick Daicos away from the ball could be the difference in a game.

There are also some more direct tactics that can be employed.

Teams can also use space at contests to create more space for the other midfielders in a side. This can turn a 3v3 contest at centre bounce into a 2v2 and will allow an easier exit if executed correctly.

If a side still wants to focus on getting the tagged player the ball, they can execute blocks to physically force the tagger to switch opponents. This often only works for a matter of seconds, but that can be enough to get the separation required to get the ball headed goalwards.

The mental factor

The practical elements of the game aren’t the only reasons to tag.

In a tough sport where group mentality is one of the great intangibles, some clubs also believe tagging can bring the risk of instilling a negative mindset or distracting players.

“Sometimes when you have too many of those things going on, it sends the wrong message to your team,” noted Brisbane coach Chris Fagan after they declined to tag in their win over Geelong.

“We just came out to play, and that was more because I wanted our players to have a positive mindset.”

The Lions chose to take a different path around the ball, working positionally to make Cats opponents like Bailey Smith accountable for their own stars. Flipping this accountability on its head is also one of the ways some of the best taggers mitigate many of the drawbacks associated with the tactic.

There’s also the need to be flexible in-game when applying a tagging role. For GWS, Kingsley often switches up tags mid-game. Other sides move away from tags when they don’t look like working.

Fremantle’s coach explained the idea after the Dockers’ landmark comeback victory over the Pies in round 19.

“Well, we tried [to tag Daicos]. He [started] at half-back. We actually played better when we dropped the tag. That can happen sometimes. You get caught up in that and it creates a bit of confusion.”

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon didn’t place much focus on the dropping of the tag in the wake of their win.

“I think it’s a part of giving you a different mix. There’s no doubt about that. When you’re coming from behind, as an old coach taught me, you’ve got to do everything right and you’ve got to take your opportunities. Clearly, we did that, didn’t we?”

Like all things in football, the tagger isn’t a golden bullet. But it also isn’t likely to disappear fully any time soon.