BRISBANE v SYDNEY GAME ANALYSIS PART 2

I had some left-over clips that focus on coaching concepts Like I usually do so here they are:

• Brisbane Kick Out
• Lions Corridor Space
• Brisbane Outnumber Advantage
• Lions Forwards Holding Deep
• Sydney Defending Brisbane Kick Out
• Sydney Forward 50 Stoppage Goal

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BRISBANE v SYDNEY GAME ANALYSIS

A bit of a different tact with the game analysis this week with a huge focus on the game itself then isolated coaching concepts like I normally do.

Going into the game Brisbane had regained some form beating Gold Coast and Richmond by really doubling down on their stoppage/clearance game as well as transition defense.

In those 2 games they were +29 in first possession, +22 in clearance, +6 in center clearance, + 43 in scores from stoppage and + 24 in scores from turnover.

On transition defense they won 90% of the stats for chain to score %, d50 to f50 %, d50 to score %, defensive half to f50 % and defensive half to score % but more importantly kept both teams to well below league average in those metrics.

Moving to the Sydney game, those metrics remained a huge focus on stopping the Swans' handball chain game and although the Swans still managed 705m gained from handball, the eye test proved it just wasn't the same as we've seen with a little glimpse in the last quarter when the game was done and dusted.

SYDNEY PLAN

In the last 2 previous games, the Swans had been spanked at stoppage (-20 in clearance against St Kilda and Port Adelaide) and would have been spooked by the Lions last games as mentioned above.

Sydney opted to start with an extra around the ball which didn't help things (-13 in this game) but then also leaves Harris Andrews twiddling his thumbs in anticipation for intercept after intercept.

BRISBANE PLAN

With offensive advantage at stoppage they simply had to focus on denying Sydney corridor space to run handball chains through.

SYDNEY HANDBALL CHAINS

Sydney lead the league in handball meters gained by a fair margin to the 2nd best team in that area (696 to 565 Collingwood) and this is it looked like once they were able to get it going in this game, albeit in the last quarter when the pressure from Brisbane was way down and fait enough.

BRISBANE DEFENDING HANDBALL CHAINS

The Lions' mids were rinsed good and proper a month ago for a lack of 2-way running on defense but were possibly just trying to get through the middle part of the season unscathed and fill up for the run home, which they definitely seem to be doing no going by the defensive run to shut off corridor on Sydney handball chains early in the game.

With Brisbane taking away corridor as shown earlier, you can turn them into a wide kick-mark team and then you simply have to crowd the space just in front of the kicker (but out of the protected space of course), to limit and runners from behind to receive handballs and the ensuring overlap.

Brisbane were diligent here but I also suspect Sydney were a bit hesitant to be so attacking once the goals started to flow for the Lions.   

As good as Brisbane's preparation was for this game, Sydney left a lot of potential scoring opportunities on the table as players didn't give handballs when they normally would have so far in 2026 which I'm sure will be on the review tape this week.

With Brisbane's defense and our poor transition game the stats were startling:

• Chain to Score - 23.8% season average to 18.7% in this game
• D50 to F50 - 27.7 % to 13.7% (only went 2 for 29 in the first half!)
• D50 to Score - 11.91% to 2.0%
• Defensive Half to F50 - 35.5% to 22.7%
• Defensive Half to Score - 15% to 6.7%

Other parts of the game that didn't help and was totally out of character was clangers (41-25 at half time) with many of the coming out of defensive 50 resulting 41pts from turnover for the Lions (again by half time) v 44pts average off turnover per (full) game so far in 2026. 

Personally, I saw signs that we/Sydney were at least half to blame for this result so we can turn this around pretty quick, especially getting some troops back that are very important to what we do in McInerney and Papley + more games into Gulden who was well off the pace.

Much like the opposition 4 weeks ago, hopefully this is the kick in the backside we need to really kickstart a finals tilt.

10 TRAINING ACTIVITIES USED WITH MY SENIOR WOMEN'S TEAM

80% of our training is live which means there's problem solving, game representation and every player involved in some shape or form all the time.

There are minimal lines, standing around and cone to cone drills because there is very limited learning taken from that type of training and without learning you can't improve.

We're currently sitting 4th on the ladder and eyeing a finals birth which is a top 5 format.

We had just 3 players carry over from last season so we were always going to be better in the 2nd half of the season then the first half but have had some heartbreaking losses that we need to get on top of going forward all against other top 5 teams (1pt, 4pts and 4pts with an after siren missed goal!).

1 thing I've found with live training activities is that once you start using them as much as I do, then cone to cone drills just doesn't do it for the players and they simply go through the motions when you do them which is great because then it's pushing you as a coach to design and deliver them on a consistent basis.

#1 - 5v2 or 6v3 Pivot/Width Handball End to End 

#2 - Handball Overlap Forward Handball

#3 - Protect the Ball

#4 - 4 Cones, 3 Defenders, 1 Attacker

#5 - Away Groundball 4v2

#6 - Kick to 3v2 in Box

#7 - 4v2 Handball to Goal Player

#8 - Team Ground Ball

#9 - Diamond Rondo

#10 - Ground Ball Escape

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AFL CRAFT TIPS

 

I post a couple of these a year that compile whole watching and reading AFL content on TV/socials which have been referenced and the others are mostly me jotting stuff down in my phone.

Hopefully you can use at least 1 of these 13 AFL craft tips this coming weekend. 

TALL FORWARDS - JOHN LONGMIRE

• Competing/getting the ball to ground is most important thing...it’s not about how many contested marks you take but how many times the opposition take them on you where you don’t even get the opportunity to get inside and score from an inside forward 50 entry

STOPPAGE - PATRICK CRIPPS

• Create space between you and the drop zone...hold the opposition out, allow the tap to happen and then push off late towards the ball...you can also hold/wait for the ball to bounce/push and then go to the ball

SWITCH PLAY - FIRST CRACK

• Try to catch a lazy midfielder not pushing across hard enough then go in board to the space/player they haven’t filled

GEELONG WING - FIRST CRACK

• Ollie Dempsey starts on the wing but then at a mid 50 stoppage a half forward comes up (Shaun Mannagh) to take his man...even if Geelong lose the clearance they are covered with their defensive spare + the half forward covering the opposition wing...if Geelong can win the ball back quickly then Dempsey leaks out towards goal on his own

SPARE DEFENDER - FIRST CRACK

• Having one means someone from the stoppage can leak out goal side even if the opposition win the clearance as there’s still defensive cover

CYCLE DEFENSE - ADAM SIMPSON

• Skinny side defenders press up to the ball instead of hanging back on defense...fat side defenders then slide in behind from the fat side to cover in behind/goals side

COLINGWOOD - FIRST CRACK

• Opt for slow/wide on offense so they can organise defensively behind the ball and play a forward half game and/or free up Darcy Moore as the spare...are the best at holding shape around the ball and refuse to compromise even if they concede contested possession inside so they can apply frantic pressure when they do lose the contest and counter punch on live turnover’s and then once they win territory they don’t give it back...they kick down the line more than anyone but they also score next after a kick the line more than anyone

DEFENSE

• Defend with a corridor-bias with only anchors moving out to contest so the opposition have to go around you and then when you regain possession you can go directly through corridor as your floaters are already/always there

TEAM DEFENSE 

• With not many left footers in our competition, can we set up defensively to force them left by not overcommitting and letting them slip back inside by coraling them to the boundary so they can only kick straight down the boundary at best on their opposite foot/banana kick and we can set up defensively in front of them and intercept  

OPPOSITION DOMINANT MIDFIEDER

• At stoppage set up 2 of our mids in a row but they are still playing 1v1 with their direct opponent...the player sequence will be us, oppo dominant mid/us to create a potential 2v1 advantage where the ball is going to go and force another of their mids to beat us

LAST TOUCHED/OUT ON THE FULL 

• you need someone on the 45 and then a half back/mid coming through as a lateral kick but on the move so we can go immediately inboard...we can kick to the 45 and then get a handball off to the lateral option, or just go directly to the lateral option to run and carry but that 45 option can trail back to goals as well and be used as a forward handball option 

CORRIDOR 

• When we go corridor aggressively to a wing/half forward then have the half backs come up to surround the contest of it hits the deck 

BREAKING TACKLES

• If you gather and someone is trying to tackle you face on then tuck ball into your armpit, turn and push off with 1 arm and they’ll have nothing left to grab

BUILDING TRAINING ACTIVITIES BY ADDING LAYERS

I'm coaching the senior women again this year so I'm going to way back to November last year to day 1 of building out a training activity that we have gradually built and layered as the season has gone on.

STEP 1 - INTENTION

The intention is the end point so picture what that is and then work backwards from there.

In this case I wanted my players to look off-the-line as often as they can when they have the ball in hand.

To encourage this search behaviour, I needed to design a task that requires that very same thing in training.

I can't just go into a game and expect them to do it just like you don't go straight to a full car license when you're 16 and have never driven before.

I need to work as far as needed to make off-the-line options as obvious as possible and this in itself starts the learning process, with the gradual progression and frequent exposures hopefully adding more learning points and the shift to long term memory (real footy IQ).

STEP 2 - MAKE IT OBVIOUS

You're looking for low complexity here which means as little moving parts as possible BUT you still need to retain SOME (doesn't have to be all) game information for transfer purposes.

In the case of day 1 here it's a 2v1 with kicker having 2 options to choose from initially but that decreases to 1 as the defender deliberately choses to go with 1 of them leaving the obvious option to go to.

I always have a player on the mark too which is vastly underrated game information missed a lot of local training activities but not noted in the image.

I start this by kicking the ball the designated kicker to a) Get some extra marking practice and 2) The 2 offensive players then have to time their leads appropriately.

Also, as coach-umpire, I'm pretty hard on players going off the mark, getting called to play-on and taking away the control that the mark gives us, so I umpire accordingly all throughout this training activity (and in general!).

STEP 2 - INCREASE COMPLEXITY SLOWLY

STEP 3 - LAYER

5v2

5v3

6v3

5v4

6v4

8v4 End to End 

So there's a great way to build out your training activities because if you've started and ended on the same activity from season start to season's end then you haven't provided an environment where your players can learn, grow and improve.

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PERCEPTION v SCANNING

 

Continuing on the theme of perception I've been running with intermittently, here's more about it and what the differences are between the 2 which should really help you in being able to nail down raining each specifically.

• There is a difference between looking and seeing
• Gaze direction/fixations (looking) show where the eyes are directed but not whether the player is picking up action-relevant information (seeing)
• Peripheral visual, sound, haptics and context can be crucial for perception
• What the player perceives as relevant depends on the relationship between knowledge in the game and affordances like a running opportunity is perceived differently depending on who has the ball and what they can do
• Design training activities where players have to search, discover and use relevant information to succeed
• When an Errol Gulden has the ball then players can lead into tighter spaces and expect the ball from far more different angles then other players and thus they provide an option for him at the same time which is rooted in the relationship between the players, specifically Gulden’s passing ability
• Because Gulden’s such a great kick, player s can expect their runs/leads to be acted upon so they continue to perform them with each leading affordance shaped by Gulden’s action capabilities
• If a different player has the ball then those same players can be less likely to provide the same option and the affordance no longer exists in the same way
• What a player sees is limited by what the player themselves and others can do so every player calibrates their behaviour accordingly
• These options are also shaped by broader socio-cultural contexts where norms/values/perceptions influence how players/coaches perceive/act/interpret the game and often without being noticed because it’s perceived as the way things are
• Learning is inseparable from doing and doing is inseparable from place
• Scanning is not a passive observation but an active search that specifies the player’s options for action guided by the requirements of the task/individual competencies and culturally shaped expectations of what information is important
• Instead of saying to scan more, create environments where players have to search for information in order to succeed
• Design puzzles where relevant information is not always directly available where players are encouraged to explore
• Scanning should not be isolated but in performed in environments where players absorb information effectively
• The aim is to improve the quality of the link between perception/action
• Start with 8v8 x 15mins to develop an understanding of the environment then use this information to evolve what could be amplified/dampened (co-design)
• How do they defend/attack and is there enough variance in each?
• Knowledge about the game promoted in the training culture dictates player behaviour and limits how players develop knowledge in the game, specifically restricting players’ ability to scan the environment and perceive opportunities they could exploit
• Help players break these patterns via task design aimed at shaping players’ intentions – individually/collectively – and help them attend to information in the game
• Balance the intentions of playing through/around/over the pressing/defending team
• Instruct the defensive team to form in a specific way and see if the offense catches on
• Players rarely go short/slow as it carries negative connotations and they’ve been told all their life to go fast and long
• To give value to going slow, time how long the offense can maintain possession for
• To give value to going short, can they use 1 pass through each of the 3 zones
• Teams can discuss how to achieve their specific aims
• Some adapt quickly and some slowly – relying on familiar patterns – but by prioritising observation, manipulating constraints and guiding attention, the coach can foster an environment where perception/action are continuously entwined

ROUND 14 GAME ANALYIS - ESSENDON CENTER BOUNCE + KOZZIE GOALS

Essendon haven't had much going for them in recent times but what they do have is a go-to center bounce play that they use in close games that has garnered excellent success as far as center bounces is concerned.

To start with we look at a center bounce from 2024 and the last one from the Carlton game Saturday night.

Going into MND clash (it has to be renamed surely!) I was sure Kozzie was going to have a big one as I just don't see anyone that has the run that he has in the Collingwood team.

I was thinking more goals but the goals he did kick were probably the 3 most crucial goals of the game and below I take a look at the 1st and last goals of the game by the man himself.

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