MATT ROWELL, TAKE A BOW!

                             

As impressed with the title of this post, I was even more impressed by the next-to-last play of the Gold Coast/Collingwood game and in particular, Matt Rowell.

Don't let his eating habits distract you, the kid is a beast!

As great as Daicos was just minutes earlier, having 3 possessions in a center bounce clearance chain to a goal from the man himself, his ability to link up repeatedly eventually got him in a position to score.

Rowell does the same but differently.

We already saw elite Suns pressure from a center bounce from earlier in the game and this is the how Rowell does it, repeated efforts defensively.

He attends the center bounce then once the ball is cleared, then he is the one who causes the stoppage about 30m away, 13secs after the center bounce. 

After the next ball up he tracks the ball in a support running role for about 40secs where he covers a further 115m or so - not gut running by any stretch at just 2.88 meters per second - probably the slowest speed he could run without walking, or close to. 

Once he sees his opening to really impact then he goes full tilt, covering about 25m and applying a game saving tackle in the next 4secs (6.25m/s ave, not top speed which would be in the high 8m/sec range I'd guess).

It's a monster effort a great lesson for young players showing that although the last 4secs where he chased hard and laid the tackle is what most of us really see, it's the 40secs of support running that really put him the position to make that impact. 

If he had laid of the support running mid-wing, then he would not have been close enough to even apply pressure, let alone impact, giving the Pies a free run through the corridor at top speed.

It would be a great learning tool if you showed your mids this play up until the point of the big tackle and ask them what they see.

Most will say the chase and tackle is the main thing but then have them watch it again and see how what Rowell does before that allows that to happen later...

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