Sydney organising their "6/6/6 connection" upon a switch of play allowing the defenders, mids and forwards to connect all over the ground for an easy inside 50 lead, mark and goal
Sydney center bounce clearance where Sydney push in from half back to create the stoppage
Sydney again at center bounce clearance getting tapping to Warner on the move who drives the legs for another easy inside 50 lead, mark and goal
Sydney again organising their "6/6/6 connection" this time off a center bounce free kick
After a very pedestrian Friday and Saturday of football, at least I has the Sydney game to look forward too, even if it too was more like a training session as far as competitiveness went, fora good part of the game.
The Swans just wanted the win without any injuries but I'd have thought the Crows would be up to taking a scalp to finish off the very underwhelming season with, but alas I took some clips from it anyway.
In part 1 we look at:
A goal from Sydney teamwork at stoppage
Sydney using a high full ground press and creating the turnover just before the halfway point of the ground
Mills to Gulden playing "between the lines"
Sydney quickly forming their 6/6/6 immediately off a center bounce
Learn at the Edges of your Current Ability to Stretch, but not Overwhelm
Expand Your Search and Exploration Area
No Right or Wrong Answers
Suitable for Coaches and Players of All Levels
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Aussie Rules Training Game Intelligence Challenge.
“You cannot teach skills without knowledge...skills are an accumulation of knowledge” - Daisy Christodoulou (Director of Education, No More Marking)
What this challenge will focus on is the building of your game intelligence through improving your knowledge-of-the game which is the ability to identify patterns of play before, and while, they are occurring, as well as being aware of what you’re affordances (opportunities for action) are, in a given situation.
“Self-regulating players can think for themselves and can solve game situations through their communication with the game environment and their decision-making, as well how they interact with the game” – David Garcia, Coach Educator
By developing your knowledge-of-the-game you can dramatically improve your knowledge-in-the-game, which means a decrease in your decision making time, giving you more time to physically act, resulting in you being involved in more game interactions, and then having more impact when you’re in them.
“Understand how small events can have significant consequences and amplify the chaos on and off the field” – Fergus Connolly, Elite Performance Coach
There are 3 levels to the Game Intelligence Challenge with each level fielding questions/scenarios relating to the back line, wing/ruck positions, the midfield, the forward line and around the ground interactions.
I have my own answers to each question but there are no right or wrong answers – your answers will be based off what YOU see in front of you, what YOU have been exposed to during your playing/coaching experiences and the playing/coaching philosophy YOU have towards footy right now.
“Your real job as a coach is to create more leaders, not more followers”
There will be answers you have that I don’t have and vice-versa, and that’s what a growth mindset is all about – being open to new knowledge that might go against what you currently believe, but being open to differing opinions and beliefs.
As a way to scaffold the content (a proven way to effectively deliver learning material), the challenge will be delivered 1 level at a time.
There is no “marking” of anything, making this a safe zone for thoughts and exploration, especially if some of this is new to you. You’ll give me your answer and then I’ll provide feedback based on that, with the aim to guide you towards a potentially more effective solution - if I have one!
Above all, this is aimed at being a challenging, but fun, activity which is where we can enter a flow state, which is the optimal state for higher level learning.
Questions for all 3 levels are spread across written, image-based, video-based forms and some where you will be required to draw out the answer so get yourself a whiteboard and some different colored markers, which will also help you greatly in working through most of the other questions.
There are 24 questions in level 1, 35 in level 2 and 45 in level 3 for a non-rounded total number of 104 in total.
This is a stand alone product so anyone can purchase it with or without a current membership, and you'll receive it in a PDF via email once payment notification hits my account and I'll email it manually, but it will be on the same day as your purchase.
You can send your answers to my email and/or messenger (preferred as you can more easily send videos and images through there).
Feel free to go into as much detail in your answers you like as this a process-driven project far more then it's an outcome-based project.
Now just to help you out with how I would go about answering the visual questions, let's refer to the 1st game clip in this video:
Here's a quick video of me explaining how I'd go about drawing up this scenario to give my answer:
On an image-based question you can either draw it up like above and answer, or print the image out and draw over it, take a photo/video of your answer and send it in.
Here is 1 question from each of the categories from level 1:
As a defender, how should you position yourself against your opposition forward and why?
Explain what the skinny wing is and what are their roles?
What is the most important role of the ruck player?
What are some team-based offensive tactics you can use at a stoppage?
What can forwards do individually when not in the immediate play?
What are the main teaching points of ground ball technique?
I can't wait to get into this with coaches and players from all over so head to the register page and click on the Game Intelligence Challenge Level 1 and let the games begin!
That Hawthorn 1st quarter, or the first half of the 1st quarter, was simply ridiculous and had the look of a team at the absolute top its game at the moment.
The clearance work from center bounce was unbelievable which just fed them continuously - center clearance to goal back to center clearance!
What we'll cover in this video is:
The Hawks rolling with pretty a much the same formation each time with a slight variation on a few which is probably more of a Tigers adjustment then a Hawks one
Richmond actually winning half of the ruck taps cleanly but then being sharked by the Hawks quick as a flash
Once the Tigers were on the back-foot then the Hawks started to get a midfielder forward of the stoppage to get out the front
The Tigers weren't as pedestrian in there as it first looked and they made some adjustments on the fly but the Hawks just had too momentum in there at that time
It's season 2024 so of course the 11th placed team beats one of the league's hottest team and flag favorite but still get knocked out of the finals race.
The Pies have looked a lot better in recent weeks but simply took too long to regain their DNA and therefore form to push into the top 8 where they could have been a dangerous opposition for any of the other 7 teams in there.
With a dead rubber Friday night v Melbourne this might be the last game on Collingwood this season so today we look at:
The over-the-back Collingwood kick out has again been scouted, this time being cut off in the air by the Lions
Quaynor playing as a very deep winger, then Ah Chee losing goal side of him and at the top of the goal square for a goal
Nick Daicos using a running pattern he's gone to almost exclusively at center bounce as it has multiple 2nd options off the back of it
Nick Daicos vacuuming the Brisbane defenders at stoppage creating a hit zone for the McCreery goal to seal the game
OK, maybe we just need to accept that this is the Swans in 2024 - terrible in first quarters but then being more than capable of having 2 big quarters of footy where they score they crazy and still register 100pts most games.
It's clear they don't know what to do about those first quarters, with John Longmire constantly saying in press conferences that "we'll keep trying things around that" but the results still being the same.
For those keeping count our biggest quarter time margin was 25pts v the Hawks back in round 7 when they were terrible so we've never really blown anyone out of the water straight out of the gates and we've given up 5 goals in the first quarter 8 times.
But it all fits with the season 2024 has turned out to be though doesn't it?
In part 1 of this game analysis we look at:
Sydney kick out and how to use your deepest forward off the kick out formation
Details matter
Sydney midfielders on the move enabling huge forward 50 pressure
Part 3 split over 2 video goes into detail on the last half of the 4th quarter of this game which includes a lot of Warner and a lot of Heeney who were the top rated players in the game and who also combined for a ridiculous 28 disposals, 13 contested, 8 clearances, 5 inside 50's, 28 pressure acts and 2 goals between them!
Talk about performing when the pressure is on.
Us Sydney supporters are hoping that final 12 or so minutes is the catalyst to kick-starting this season after a very-ordinary 6 weeks.
In these 2 videos we look at:
Warner surge run from mid-wing throw in
Heeney taking Crisp to the goal square on a forward 50 boundary throw in
Gulden finally being able to shake free for just 1 second to kick the sealer
Warner doing the only thing he hasn't done all year and that's lay a huge tackle that sticks
Sydney defensive running as a team creating the turnover 60m down the field
Heeney's run to take the last mark of the game
And if you missed it, I released a new 2024 Collingwood Training Activities product yesterday which you can find on the register page, as well as the level 1 membership for full access to this game analyse post.
Back in February of
2023 I released 35 training activities that Collingwood used in their 2023
pre-season training, followed by 20 in-season training activities released in July, then another batch
from in-season right up to the Pies Grand Final win last season.
These new 25 training activities all come
from throughout 2024 from pre-season all the way until now (round 23).
Between the 3 Collingwood products I released
last year, there are 66+ training activities, 60 McRae insights and 11 posts
consisting of 17 game clips of Collingwood.
This new product contains another 25 training
activities and 21 game analysis clips to help you connect the training to the
games a lot more + a training activity inspired by Nick Daicos!
If you like what Collingwood do, and would
like to see how your own football club could replicate some of it in season
2025, than this is your starting point.
This is another standalone product which
anyone can purchase as a 1 time purchase but will also be added to the full
Collingwood package and there is no membership needed to purchase either
option.
Register for this, or the entire Collingwood package, from the register page.
This game had huge implications, as did most of the other games in this round, and one of the biggest things to look for what what sort of response Sydney would put up after last weeks total and utter debacle v Port Adelaide.
On the flip-side the Pies were playing for their season so it was evident someone was going home very disappointed and up until the 14min mark of the last quarter, if was indeed going to be the Swans.
Enter Heeney and Warner and a full team energy burst of pressure all over the ground.
With Sydney and Collingood being my 2 focus teams it was obvious that I was going to be able to pick all sorts of stuff that we've already covered from both teams out of this game, so it's a 3-parter this week.
Today we look at:
Collingwood going for their defensive 50 rebound to to the fat side and in front of their player running forward
Chad v Nick Daicos center bounce clearance
Quaynor goal from positioning as a very high half back flanker off a forward half stoppage
Parker v Howe part 1
Hayward 1v1 kick our target + Parker v Howe part 2
This training activity works mostly on the starting positions of your players which if done effectively, can afford the opportunities you want presented, to the defense or offense.
This is an offensive-based training activity so we will position the defense where we want them to provide a greater opportunity for the offense to have success, at least initially, before the defense can organise a strategy to combat what they are able to do in the early attempts.
At that point it's then up to the offense to develop a new strategy to move the ball to their designated "goal" area/s.
The offensive team are in a transition offensive game moment from defensive 50 while the defensive team is in defensive transition game moment.
As your players have success, feel free to position the defensive players closer to the initial action and on the flip side, if the offense are still struggling them have them start further away from the initial or have them on freeze until the coach says they can start moving.
This is a pretty free flowing activity once it's set up but make sure to reiterate the principles you have want to instill in your game model, preferable adding them into the scoring system of the game.
So if you want turnovers in your defensive 50 then incentivise the defensive team to go after them by awarding extra points if they do.
If you want the offensive to stretch the defense via their positioning and running patterns then again award extra points if they can drag defensive players out of the corridor.
For part 3 of this weeks game analysis series we continue with the debacle that was the Port/Sydney game before moving to GWS/Hawks and finishing with Essendon/Freo.
Today we look at:
Running your lane
Using run from behind options to build your connection through 6/6/6
Hawthorn kick out tactic
Elite Hawthorn work rate from starting outnumbered to creating the outnumber and subsequent turnover
Essendon center clearance tactic for the 2nd time this season in the dying moments
The result of this game as always going to have huge ramifications on the ladder and it definitely lived up to it with the Pies keeping their slim finals chances alive and the Blues at risk of actually dropping out of the 8 altogether!
I don't think either will happen but no prediction is safe in season 2024.
Once again I was looking for Collingwood DNA to be on display after showing glimpses of it last week and it was clear to see that they are getting back to what they do best, although the De Goey injury hurts a lot.
With more clips from this game to come tomorrow, today we look at:
Collingwood using the same kick out tactic twice in the space of 5 minutes with both resulting in fast play deep inside forward 50 ball movement with 1 of them being a goal
Collingwood's angled in and out player movement at contest again resulting in a goal
For the 4th or 5th week in a row Darcy Cameron simply jogs in from behind the ball, the Pies go into slow play, then kick to him down the line without a direct opponent
Collingwood winning center bounce clearance with a popular running pattern they use but also their forwards keeping width to create a huge leading lane for McStay
Small group personal training done the right way. Train in a group - do YOUR OWN program. PT studio located in the heart of South Yarra on Surrey Road North, just off Toorak Road. 1on1 personal training also available. Don't do everyone else's program, get personal with your training.
