SYDNEY v COLINGWOOD GAME ANALYSIS

                   

A very, very interesting game Friday night between the Swans and Pies.

The Pies are THE most organised team in the AFL and with a team down on personnel, a solid plan was always going to be in place for this one, especially around taking away corridor use for the Swans, that North were able to do to good success last week.

Before I go any further into the senior game I took a look at the VFL game that was on TV against the 2 teams who probably mirror their AFL/VFL teams playing style the best and see what I could find.

What was evident early was Colingwood's defensive plan to take away corridor, a prelude to the senior game hours later as shown in the first clip.

The middle clips show the Swans VFL, bolstered by the senior team only missing 2 players, dominating in spite of that plan, rebounding from defensive 50, using corridor and having more numbers at almost every contest.

The final clip shows the Pies applying the clamps defensively on a Sydney defensive 50 rebound, following the principles of Forward Press Defense perfectly. 

Getting back to the senior game, it was again very evident on the Pies focus of taking away corridor that did rattle the Swans but as stated in the clip below and from Coxy's 1/4 time interview, the players knew what the Pies would probably try and do, had wide options to counteract that with, but just tried to force everything corridor regardless.

The result? 

Down 33 points in the 2nd quarter.

In the 2nd quarter we were able to wrestle game back to neutral, but still were down by 21pts at the half as while we took the time to fully adapt to the Pies defense, they turned us into a kicking team which is much easier and predictable to defend.

Enter the 3rd quarter and the Oscar Steene injury.

We turned a 21pt deficit into a 6pt lead on the back of 6.6 to 2.3 and some dominant 3rd quarter stats.

The Pies generated 10 inside 50's from 27 defensive chains in the 1st half v 1 from 17 in the 3rd as the Swans had total forward half field position dominance with 25 - 8 inside 50's resulting in 12 scores.

According to the best stats in football, the Swans managed 41 points from stoppage to 11 with 52 of our 81pts from the forward half, showing Grundy' dominance with 46/62 of the game's hit outs.

Sysney also managed 18 - 1 hit outs to advantage where I assume a lot of them were in the forward half that gave us a leg up to the 41pts we scored from stoppage.

In the end a win for both teams I suppose.

The Pies came with and carried a plan that gave them every chance to win and the Swans won in a completely different manner to what we have been and adjusted in-game successfully (not a usual Sydney strength).

BRISBANE/CARLTON + GEELONG/COLLINGWOOD GAME ANALYSIS

                           

Funny game this one where Brisbane pulled a Carlton and Carlton pulled a...reverse Carlton!

That being said the Lions clearly took the foot off the pedal in the 2nd half but the Blues did play well, albeit for their usual 2 quarters.

The Cats have been going OK and the Pies just going but I don't think anyone saw this end result coming where Collingwood's clear inefficiencies across the ground are bottom 6 material.

Today we look at:

• Brisbane Rebound from Defensive 50
• The Very 1st Sighting of 2026 Football for Carlton
• Carlton Not Continuing the Handball Chain
• Brisbane Kick Out
• Geelong Creating Corridor Space 

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NORTH MELBOURNE v SYDNEY GAME ANALYSIS

My local team had the bye this past weekend which worked out perfectly in actually getting to see the Swans play live in Melbourne and to top that up I was able to sit in a box directly behind the goals which was elite!

North were very good in this one, had a chance to win, but the times we were able to break through the middle of the ground we definitely made them pay.

The class of players of really the deciding factor here I reckon so that's a good sign for the Roos as their youngsters get more games into them - especially Wardlaw who is close to all non-North supporters' favourite player.

Today we look at:

• North Team Defense Fail
• Sydney Corridor Space x 2
• Sydney Forward 50 Stoppage x 3
• Sydney Adopting the Brisbane-esque Formation
• North Taking 1 Thing Away and Sydney Adapting

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SYDNEY v CASEY VFL GAME ANALYSIS

                     

The Sydney Swans/Casey Demons VFL game was televised over the weekend so I thought I'd give it a look to see the level of AFL/VFL alignment in regards to game modelling for the Swans.

It's safe to say that the alignment is very good with a huge preference to handball chain through the middle of the ground to great success, much like the senior team at the moment.

 For the record both teams have lost just 1 game each this season.

This is great to see as it means when there are injuries to best 23 players, it's pretty much a plug and play for the VFL guy coming in and you can minimise the drop off in individual and team performance because if you lose a top 5 player from the best 23, you're usually replacing them with player 24 - 28 from the VFL.

2025 presented all sorts of injury issue for the Swans with the big one being Gulden where we were 6-8 without him and then 6-3 with him when he returned but so far this year we've been able to cover him and the AFL/VFL alignment foes a long way to accomplishing that.

Today we look at:

• Sydney Creating/Utilising Corridor Space x 2
• Sydney Rebound 50
• Sydney Defensive 50 Throw In
• Sydney Defensive 50 Ball Up
• Sydney Kick Out
• Sydney Wing Play

WB/FREO + ADE/PA + ESS/BRIS + SYD/MELB GAME ANALYSIS

 

Today we look at:

• Bulldogs Kick Out
• Port Creating Corridor Space
• Essendon Defense Fail
• Brisbane Kick Out Transition
• Brisbane Kick Trigger
• Brisbane Transition Offense
• Melbourne at Center Bounce x 3

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COLLINGWOOD v HAWTHORN GAME ANALYSIS

Yesterday I isolated some Nick Watson clips and today I deliover the rest of the game.

The Pies have seemed to weathered their lack-of-scoring storm, managing 88, 137 (v Blues/Essendon respectively) and then 93 against a stingy Hawthorn outfit.

18 scoring shots for 15.3 from just 34 inside 50's was a Fly masterclass as they were able to pull the back 6 apart for the Hawks and not allow Battle, Barrass and Sicily to 3rd man up intercept mark.

The Hawks let 1 slip though with 13.15 from 62 entries - 28 scoring shots to 18 - to draw so they'll be kicking themselves (but not goals obviously).

Today we look:

• JDG Lane Running
• Hawks Forward Press Defense
• Houston Overlap
• Weird Formation from Both Teams
• Collingwood Corridor Positioning
• Hawks Skinny Wing in Defensive 50
• Collingwood Kick Out
• Colingwood Rebound 50

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NICK WATSON v COLLINGWOOD GAME ANALYSIS

I had a close look at the Pies/Hawks game from the weekend and came away with 12 clips, 4 of which were of the Wizard so I'm breaking them up into 2 sperate videos.

I'm loving what he's doing this year and if you're a small forward at local level you HAVE to be watching how he goes about it.

He has pace that not everyone has but his positioning and movement patterns can be studied and replicated by almost anyone + it helps to have a coach that allows you to almost single handedly focus on small forward craft in actual games to simplify things.

What did help his cause though was Collingwood rarely locking onto him during transitional contests of which we can see in some of these videos below, and at forward 50 stoppages when they had the opportunity to do so, his constant movement caused all sorts of issues for the Pies defenders!

Check it out: