GOLD COAST/ESSENDON + MELBOURNE/BRISBANE GAME ANALYSIS

                          

The Coasters are up and down a bit at the moment but with Anderson, Rowell and Petrecca yet to play and gel together, I think they'll be OK in the long run and the gaps they seem to have right now will be wall papered over with midfield class.

The Bombers have had a relative resurgence of late with the 2nd half v the Bulldogs, the win over Melbourne, and then another solid performance v the Suns here. The definitely have a talent upgrade on recent times so time is the key here, but some encouraging performances can never hurt a club or its fanbase.

The Dees are 2 different teams at the moment but their run and gun offense feeds this as there's so little room for error and those errors can go straight to the scoreboard very quickly but I they're great to watch.

The Lions look like they're struggling but are actually in a similar spot as they were last season (3-3 @ 111.7% this year with 1 home game loss v 4-2 @ 105.7% last year with 1 home game loss), but 2nd v 9th on the ladder but they'll be there when the whips are cracking.

Today we look at:

• Kako - What's Next?
• Gold Coast at Center Bounce Clearance
• Brisbane Patient With Ball in Hand
• Brisbane Missing Open Option Going Inside Forward 50

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SYDNEY v GWS GAME ANALYSIS

The Swans keep rolling on sitting on top of the ladder with a 30% difference between them and 2nd spot Freo while being 1st in points for and 2nd for points against coming up against a potentially injury ravished Bulldogs Thursday night.

GWS, themselves injury ravished but over a much longer stretch, just haven't had the cattle to compete against anyone really and will probably be the theme until next year once Tom Green comes back, or at least their defensive pillars.

Today we look at:

• Sydney Creating and Utilising Length Through the Mid 50 x 4
• Lloyd Wing Run
• Sydney at Center Bounce Clearance

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CARLTON/COLLINGWOOD GAME ANALYSIS PART 2/2

Usually, I'm watching games on some form of delay as I'm never home when they start which allows me to fast forward through them a touch but with a soleus strain during the game Friday night and the resultant icing I needed to do for it coupled with being unable to drive to the reserves/senior game the next day because of said soleus strain, I was able to take my time watching the replay of Carlton/Collingwood at that time.

The Blues are a must-watch purely for the fact they lead every game and then find new and exciting ways to cough up that and not be able to hold on.

Like I said yesterday I don't really do positive/negative analysis - it's more around game patterns that you can use as coaches at local level but this Carlton run has so many glaring errors I can no longer ignore them!

Today we look at:

• Williams Going Kick Over Handball
• Carlton Lack Structure During Offensive Fast Play
• Evans Not Protecting the Back
• Harry Not Hard/Low Enough
• Walsh Losses Daicos
• Blue Mids All Too Close
• Newman Too Loose
• Jagga Too Slow to React

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CARLTON v COLLINGWOOD GAME ANALYSIS PART 1/2

                              

Another week of the exact same from the Blues - half/three quarter time lead and a loss - against Pies team that's just going with multiple best-10 players missing.

This game is broken into 2 with today showing some positive clips (mostly Colingwood) and tomorrow being negative clips (all Carlton).

I don't normally analyse games like this, but I watched this one from start to finish without distraction so I noticed a lot going on as the Blues fell into their weekly 2nd half stupor.

Today we look at:

• Collingwood on Kick Out
• Pies at Center Bounce Clearance x 2
• Nick Daicos Draws 4
• McGovern Run

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20 NEW STREAMLINE TRAINING ACTIVITIES

The latest post in this series cover training activities #222 -  240 and as usual there's only a quick explanation, no diagrams or images.

#222 - TACKLING

#223 - TACKLING BAGS

#224 - PROTECT BALL

#225 - FINISHING WAVE 

#226 - WALL PASS RONDO

#227 - GOAL TO GOAL

#228 - TEAMS IN TEAMS

#229 - PRESSING VICTIM

#230 - 5v5 + 4

#231 - 6v6 + 2

#232 - TIEBREAK

#233 - 3 TEAM TIMER

#234 - DEFENSIVE SHAPE/POSITION

#235 - ROLE PLAYERS

#236 - END TO END RONDO

#237 - FAST ATTACK

#238 - 3v3

#239 - 2 x 4v3 RONDO

#240 - TRI COLOR GAME

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ROUND 5 GAME ANALYSIS - ADE/CAR + COLL/FRE + HAW/WB

Same old story for the Blues which is a cannot-stop-watching trainwreck at the moment because no matter how good they are early, we know it'll fall apart later. 

The Crows really need this win to stay in touch with the top 8 (can't bring myself to say top 10 yet!) but they're anti-2026 brand of football just doesn't look like it's going to worry the big guns throughout the season but we'll see what difference Dan Curtain makes when he returns to pass full judgement.

The Pies and Dockers was an absolute snooze-fest! The weather wasn't super but other teams played in the same weather and easily surpassed the 24 total scoring shots these teams combined for. The Pies have the 2nd least total points for so far, only behind an anaemic Richmond with their 3rd best defense the only thing keeping them in games at the moment even with a favourable draw so far.

The Dockers are still trying to consolidate their run and gun game so a team like the Pies were always going to have them default back to slow ball movement but that's on the Dockers for going to conservative and might be a hindrance in the pressure cooker that is finals footy.

The Lions again puff the chest out for 5 - 8mins and get over the line while North actually showed more in this game then their wins but their under 10 skill errors still hold them back from making the huge strides their trying to make. 

The Hawks are the in-form team right now for mine after beating Sydney, Geelong and the Bulldogs 3 weeks in a row BUT all 3 of those teams were down in personnel through injury which does bring midfield depth back to even for the Hawks so let's see them against a top 5 midfield at full strength before restructuring the mortgage on them. 

Today we look at:

• Carlton Trying to Play 2026 Football
• Colingwood Forward Press Defense
• Colingwood Kick Out
• Brisbane Kick Out
• Brisbane Going Corridor x 2
• Hawks Width 

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SYDNEY v GOLD COAST GAME ANALYSIS

If you're a regular reader/watcher of my game analysis posts then you'll be well aware of the teams like Sydney, Gold Coast and Brisbane creating length through the center of the ground for to move the ball through the corridor whole getting your forwards deep inside forward 50 at the same time.

Leading up to the Sydney/Gold Coast game I posted about how both teams both want to this mid50 length from contest, who would be able to do it the best and will the dimensions of Norwood allow it to happen?

My locals’ R1 was last Fri so really looking fwd to Syd/GC who both love creating length through the m50 to run/hb chain to f50 with deep fwds (more vids in comments) - Who stops who? Does Norwood Oval allow this? Can’t wait!! #aflswanssuns #AFLSwansSuns pic.twitter.com/BMQfQUZzc9

— AFL Training (@AFLTraining) April 11, 2026

In the end the deciding factor was pressure and tackling.

Over 45 games so far this year, 15 have had a +10 tackle differential with 8 of those having a +20 tackle diff.

Only 1 of those 8 games has had a +30 or more tackle differential and it was this very game, where Sydney were +45 in tackles with an almost 2:1 tackle ratio (97-52).

Post-game the Swans' players said this was a focus which I presume was based on the ground dimensions (narrowest ground in the AFL) = less ground to cover per defender = more congestion = high pressure/tackle which also helped the Swans limit the Suns to 0 contested marks for the entire game.

On top of that the Suns had 13/14 lowest rated players on the ground v Sydney having 7/8 highest rated and to get back to the tackle factor, Gold Coast had 19 players with 3 or less tackles for the game v Sydney with 7/8 highest tacklers for the game. 

Cox thoroughly outcoached Dimma in this game.

This video is sorted into 2 parts:

• The first 12mins looks at both teams creating m50 length from center bounce clearance, general play stoppage and kick outs
• The last 3 mins looks at Rowell losing Heeney, Sydney Forward Press Defense and Grundy Ruck Run

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