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A LONG time ago, on a football field far, far away, there were centremen, ruck-rovers, rovers, wingmen and half-forward flankers.
Then, as the game was invaded by new-age coaches, there were midfielders, taggers, inside ball-getters, outside runners, half and halfs and high half-forwards.
Today, there are spitters, inside sliders, roundup players and every team has a fifth man, a sixth man and sometimes a seventh.
This is footy, circa 2015, and this is the language used by St Kilda’s inner sanctum as they begin their planning to beat Melbourne at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
It is Tuesday, 4pm, and 10 men and one woman gather for the first of the opposition analysis meetings. The second will be on Thursday morning, more detailed and more finite.
Today is a scene setter of sorts: This is how Melbourne wants to play, this is how it operates at stoppages and this is what we have to be aware of.
Sitting at a rectangle table in the boardroom are Alan Richardson (coach), Jamie Cox (general manager football performance), Danny Sexton (director of coaching and strategy), Adam Kingsley (assistant coach midfield), Aaron Hamill (assistant coach forwards), Rohan Welsh (assistant coach defence), Peta Searle (development coach), Adam Skrobalak (assistant coach ruck), Robbie Chancellor (football IT manager), Luke O’Brien (football services manager) and Danny Frawley (part-time coach defence).
At one end of the table is a whiteboard and its best friend is Danny Sexton.
Sexton runs the show. He speaks for 45 minutes of the one-hour meeting and his knowledge of how football is played seems both enlightening and alarming.
If footy is a religion, then Sexton speaks in tongues.
Of course, football remains the same. You either have the ball, the opposition has the ball, or the ball is in dispute. What’s upon us is the multiple roles for players and the terminology of those roles.
Sexton played football for Port Melbourne in the 1990s, coached in the Northern League and at the Northern Knights. He joined the Saints in 2006 as a development coach, became the opposition analyst in 2010, was the Saints defensive coach in 2012 and at the end of 2014 was named director of coaching and strategy.
“What will be first,’’ he says, “the stoppages, what we’re doing, what they’re doing, the spread ... and mid-turnover entries. All right, what we keep finding is when we create turnovers, we’re No.1 at scoring and yesterday (last Monday) when the Dees played they had scores kicked off turnovers ... so we have to cause turnovers.’’
St Kilda’s coaching staff analyse its next opponent, Melbourne. Picture: Chris Eastman
St Kilda’s coaching staff analyse its next opponent, Melbourne. Picture: Chris Eastman
Everyone knows the Demons are a stoppage and contested ball team, but Sexton stresses they have improved in recent times..
“Don’t think this is the same Melbourne team over the past three or four years,’’ he says.
“They’ve added a fair bit. There’s certainly attack from half-back. (Heritier) Lumumba has been added, (Angus) Brayshaw’s been added, (Jesse) Hogan’s been added, (Jeff) Garlett’s been added. OK, (Daniel) Cross has been there for a couple of years. What they’ve done is get some 100, 150-game players in, so they’re not the same team as we go to the vision.’’
The whiteboard displays at least 40 identifiable areas that will be addressed with the coaches and players during the week, which include, in specific points, how Melbourne plays its best footy.
“They will want to get us in an arm wrestle, they’ll want to be accountable around the stoppages,” Sexton says. “Three weeks ago they played wings on wings and they haven’t done that since, but they’ve got that in their armoury. They’re ranked No.2 for pressure, ranked No.2 for secondary stoppages — they want us in an arm wrestle.’’
The meeting is off and running.
Richardson interrupts often — actually, the senior coach is allowed to speak whenever he wants — and he says he already has had a meeting with the leadership group about how he wants the team to play.
As all teams do, Sexton hammers in on stoppages and he and Kingsley, the midfield coach, trade comments for several minutes.
Sexton explains how Melbourne used its wingers against Collingwood, how important Bernie Vince was to their setup, how Nathan Jones got the better of Scott Pendlebury and how overall they beat the Pies at stoppages.
Footage from the Melbourne-Collingwood game dominates proceedings.
Sexton speaks quicker than legendary wildlife presenter David Attenborough, but the footage of the footballers on the move is not unlike Attenborough describing footage of a herd of impalas being spooked by lions. Who runs where? Who gets blocked? Who gets left flat-footed? Who pays the price?
There was fascinating discussion about Melbourne keeping their forward structure and how they might push a tall up the ground at stoppages _ again, a strategy adopted ny most teams against any given opponent.
Discussion goes backwards and forwards before this takes place:
Kingsley: “Five and six roundup?”
Sexton: “Aaaah, nuh, nuh, five and six stayed straight because it was hard to round up the winger, because the winger would obviously get on the inside, so it didn’t round up so much.’’
Kingsley: “Did Port Adelaide send the sixth in?”
Defensive coach Rohan Welsh and senior coach Alan Richardson. Picture: Chris Eastman
Defensive coach Rohan Welsh and senior coach Alan Richardson. Picture: Chris Eastman
Sexton: “Port played the spitter a lot so they paid five forwards and had one coming in from the back.’’
Kingsley: “And Melbourne held their back six?”
Sexton: “Yeah, and Cross was the spare a lot. He wasn’t as effective as (Adam) Oxley but he was pretty good.’’
Richardson: “Crossy is a bloody good mark and he’s courageous.’’
Sexton: “At the start of the game, Cross tried to get to Sidebottom strong and they put Sidebottom to six and Cross didn’t drop off. After quarter-time, they dropped the Sidebottom tag and Cross played on whoever was the high one and Cross dropped off a fair bit.’’
The entire hour goes along those lines, to some extent.
There are many basic facets of football on the agenda and then there are the conversations that made you wonder if the sport we see on the weekends is the same as the one the coaches see.
It is, of course. They just look at it differently.
We want to know who won and why. They want to know why and how and what can be done about it.
Curiously, direct match-ups are hardly discussed — maybe they are on the agenda for the Thursday meeting?
Vince gets their attention as a tagger and the obvious match-up is either Jack Steven or David Armitage, and discussion is held about Jesse Hogan’s power, Jeff Garlett’s pace and Jeremy Howe above his head.
Then comes what Sexton terms “opportunities”. They are the best ways to score and beat Melbourne, which unfortunately are not for today’s article.
Sexton speaks of using the width of the ground, the pattern of play and uses a term for handballing I hadn’t heard before — “across the nose”.
They talk about spitters, inside sliders, plus ones, drop offs, sags, the use of midfielders as forwards and forwards as roundup players.
Midfield coach Adam Kingsley. Picture: Chris Eastman
Midfield coach Adam Kingsley. Picture: Chris Eastman
Footage of anything and everything is on the club’s data base which is accessible for all coaches. “You can take it home,’’ Sexton says, which hints at homework.
“Basically, at the top is the tactics, starts in the middle at the stoppages, down here is our ball use and here is their defence.’’
Collingwood’s Adam Oxley and the role he played was a topic of discussion for Paul Roos after Monday’s game, and it also on the minds of St Kilda’s coaching staff. Would they do it? Would Melbourne let it go again?
Richardson interrupts constantly, probing Sexton and Kingsey, and at one stage asks Hamill about how Melbourne’s forwards set up at centre-square bounces.
Sexton keeps the meeting humming.
He speaks of Melbourne’s spitter and likens it to how Eddie Betts, when he was at Calton, and Port Adelaide’s Robbie Gray operate in the centre square.
“It’s no different to us dealing with it against the Crows (in Round 3), so we’ve seen this play,’’ Sexton says.
“Against the spitter, OK, this is a good play if we decide to go to the spitter.’’
Sexton shows footage of Western Bulldogs Marcus Bontempelli and Brett Goodes, as the stayer and the spitter against the Demons in Round 8.
Back to the Melbourne-Collingwood game and Sexton highlights the use of Melbourne’s inside mids, the use of wingers and how forwards pushed high to stoppages, which again is not for publication today.
WHAT THEY MEAN:
SPITTER: A player who comes off the back of the square at the centre bounce. This player is a forward who will get himself in the traffic in the middle before “spitting” out into space where he can hopefully lose the defender waiting for him on the other side of the stoppage.
INSIDE SLIDERS: A half-forward who comes up into clearance and positions himself in the midfield while a midfielder pushes forward.
COVERAGE FROM THE WING: Where a wingman positions himself at the back of a stoppage with a defensive mindset.
WIDTH OF THE GROUND: When you have the ball, you want to make the ground as big as possible to open the space up in front of you.
ACROSS THE NOSE: After taking a mark, giving a handball to a player who is running at speed who will get past the man on the mark.
ROUND UP: A half-forward who pushes up to a stoppage with the task of minding the opposition winger hanging outside at a stoppage waiting for a handball. This player will be ‘rounding up’ the winger.
5 and 6: Terms that have come in since heavy rotations began. They are titles that effectively replace specific tasks of a forward pocket/half-forward. They are high forwards who get involved up the ground. So a player coming off the ground will tell his replacement he is 5 or 6 instead of forward pocket/half-forward.
