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
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.
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.
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).
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!
During the week I received a message from a local coach helping out at under 15's interleague level.
He was after something to teach D1/2/3 specifically as he has found that not a lot of them are even aware of the concept so he wanted to introduce it to those who hadn't and to build on the current knowledge of it for those that had.
I sent him the easiest way I know how to introduce the concept with a quick video each for A1/2/3 and then a separate one for D1/2/3.
The defense you're up against more than likely dictates the offense you can/need to use so I'd teach the defensive side of this first and keep the focus on that specifically - literally coach the defensive players in the activity and let the offensive players run free...
The Bombers went full Essendon in the 2nd half Saturday, giving up 15 goals to 6 against a low-scoring Collingwood outfit after a couple of pretty solid showings but that's the inconsistentcies of a young team for ya.
The Pies were always going to be too professional against the Bombers with their elite organisation around the ground but I think they'll come back crashing to earth against the Hawks Thursday night.
At times, the Lions seem to breeze through games and then once-a-month just remind everyone who they really are and what you'll be contending with in August/September.
The Crows haven't really dealt with their ball movement issues from last year and being 13th placed with the 7th worst offense is a testament to that.
The Swans are flying at the moment which concerns all us Sydney supporters as we've seen this story too many times before, yet this does seem different as we're doing without Gulden (which we couldn't do last year), and didn't see much of a drop off without Heeney this past weekend either, albeit against the Dogs reserves!
The Dogs are going to just have to try and hold on for the next month or so until they get their troops back with Freo home, Port away, Carlton and Melbourne home so they should be OK in the short term but it's hard to ee them really contending without Darcy as Naughton is your classic 2nd forward.
The Hawks are flying as much as the Swans are and winning in a variety of ways like they did last year with a 34 and 21 year old doing a lot of damage up forward for them along with their rock solid defense.
The Suns are struggling at the moment and even with Trac, Anderson and Rowell, are losing clearance (16th for clearance differential before this round and lost them again by 3 in this game.
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
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
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!
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.
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.
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#AFLSwansSunspic.twitter.com/BMQfQUZzc9
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
The Dogs could have made an awful mess of the Bombers but a late scratching for Richards and a 2nd quarter injury to English allowed an Essendon comeback of sorts for an 8-2 goal 2nd half to the Bombers.
Nothing to worry about for the Dogs who were probably looking ahead with Hawthorn this week and if Essendon want to be taken seriously then they need to be able to hang with teams when they're not in 2nd gear.
The Hawks are winning like last year but you just feel they're a rung below the other top teams and it seems like the Cats might be as well this year but both teams fielded a lot of 1st and 2nd year players so a little dip before another rise is probably on the cards for both.
I expected a touch more from the Eagles in this one winning 2 games in arow and on their home deck but just shows the chasm between the top and bottom teams at the moment but that's not a change from any year we've had up until now.
The forward handball game from the Swans at the moment is going a ridiculously high level, with total meters gained for the match being 6,648 v 5009 Sydney's way.
Although we took far too long to embrace the handball game even with players perfectly suited to it, it's good to see us use it now when it can be fully taken advantage of with the new/old stand rule.
The Eagles have a clear game style which is hard to say for a lot of other younger teams so they'll be alright but until the kids can play at 100% intensity for 100% of the game, they'll still get opened up like this from time-to-time but they're on the right track.
The Lions are somewhat up against it after playing 23 games or more per season and going deep into finals for 5yrs now but it's come at the best time so I've no doubt they'll stay afloat during this injury-ridden time period and then be fine come the back end of the season.
The Saints season has not started like they wanted and although I'm not too up in arms about their off-season investments, they've already lost to 2 teams who are fighting for similar ladder positions come the season's end (Collingwood/Melbourne) + an undermanned Brisbane team at Marvel meaning they're going to have to win some major upsets going forward.
The less said about Essendon/North Melbourne/Carlton the better and I like the Demons this year but they're a play-in team at best although almost a must-watch team now with Kozzie Pickett about to have a NAS-type season.
Not that anyone wants to be peaking in round 3 but there's a lot of teams with high expectations just getting by at the moment.
Geelong have been flogged by Gold Coast, had a huge come from behind victory over Freo and this past weekend just got over an offensive-allergic Adelaide but they're also blooding youngsters like O'Sullivan, Dempsey, Wiltshire, Neale, Edwards, Humphries, Bruhn and Clarke.
Adeliade have not got the memo for playing AFL footy in 2026, reaching scores of 93, 88 and 60 from an inside 50 count of -32 over the season. It's too slow and they're really missing Dan Curtin who can win 1v1's through the middle of the ground at 197cms but they need to really shift their philosophy around ball movement. For what it's worth I had them sliding this season anyway.
The Pies are boring at the moment but winning is winning and defense will keep you in almost every game you play but you need both sides cause they're not the come-from-behind types they used to be, no matter how much the TV commentators tell us they are. How they can defend teams like the Suns and Dogs to half their score while scoring above their own average remains to be seen.
GWS have been fighting the injury battle for months already and although I like their kids, they still are too thin through the midfield which can't be hidden with key defenders and forwards out of the team. If there's a great time for around 4 bye, then it's now for the Giants.
Over the first 3 rounds, AFL footy has undertaken very noticeable changes in how the game isa currently being played.
Whether this will hold is not entirely clear but the rules have been altered to do so at some level and a good amount of player damage has already been done with an extremely high risk of secondary occurrences of hamstring injuries after the initial one - poor Callum Ah Chee is on his 3rd since Xmas already! (cue the image from Useless AFL Stats!)
For a multi-faceted sport like Aussie Rules, it needs to be looked at through a multi-faceted lens.
I like to use the 4 co-actives of performance to do this:
Tactical
Physical
Technical
Psychological
Tactically, we can clearly see the shift in play with a lot less stoppages and more continuous play.
This tactical shift can have an effect on the physical co-active as with more high-speed running comes more fatigue - low/medium speed running won't really shift fatigue markers in elite athletes.
The next flow-on effect is to the technical co-active as with fatigue comes sub-optimal movement patterns and players can overreach from less-then-stella positions.
But what about the psychological co-active?
Why has this not been mentioned at all?
It's definitely a black hole in daily media reporting as it's not visible and cannot be tracked by Champion Data and alike.
Enter Cognitive Overload.
Cognitive Overload occurs when a players' working memory gets overflowed by information from the environment which occurs in high pressure situations with great consequences.
In 2026 the game is far more open with tackles, clearances, ruck contests, ball up/throw ins, repeat stoppages all down with disposals, meters gained, marks all up.
More open play = More information to process = Less time to decide and execute in
Less stops in play = Less in-game rest = More high-speed running under relative fatigue
Cognitive Overload is definitely playing a part in this as well and couple that with dual tasking (performing multiple tasks at once) and attention can be pulled in too many directions, adding to this cognitive overload even more.
The simplest way I can describe cognitive overload in terms is through practice games and/or round 1.
Practive games are the hardest games from a physical standpoint as it's usually your first bout of continuous contact and has far closer game-simulated running then any training game can have.
You can do all the running you want but it doesn't compare you for the contact and 3 - 4 decent tackles can take the stuffing right out of you.
Round 1 is different all together and although you've had the contact in the practice games, what you haven't had is the extreme level of arousal and this another major component to cognitive overload and is why it seems you haven't even trained once 7 - 10mins into the 1st quarter of the 1st game.
Even AFL teams struggle with this as players are always saying practice games aren't even close to the real stuff, much like training game-sim isn't even close to the practice games.
There's a lot of focus on running loads and the like and I don't know if they do already but if they don't, then AFL teams should try looking at interaction load and how many at the ball, near the ball and far away from the ball decisions are made by players and try simulating that at training along with the running demands they already know about.
Soccer has some software around this sort of thing I believe, and I'd be surprised if something similar wasn't being used in the AFL to some degree.
Despite scoring the most points in the league and the 8th best defense, they still couldn't make finals, going 2-9 against the other top 9 teams.
Unless you're a bottom 6 team playing the top 6 - 8 teams maybe 4 - 5 times a year, then not beating any of them won't allow you to ever make finals and you'll forever be stuck in the middle.
In 2025 they beat 3-borderline finals teams by 11pts or less (Carlton by 8, Sydney by 11, Melbourne by 6) while losing to 6 top 8 t4eams by 15pts or less (Colingwood by 6, Gold Coast by 14, Geelong by 14, Adelaide by 11, Brisbane by 10 and Fremantle by 15).
Going into 2026 it was all about what their defense would look like and can they beat the top teams.
After not bringing anyone in specifically to shore up the backline, it didn't look promising from the outset until we saw them in action.
It's not like they need to drastically do anything defensively as they were OK last year but they needed to find a way to be better against the better teams during transition defense.
So far in 2026 they're averaging only 5pts more than last year and allowing 3 more points against but have a 3-0 record and already having beat probable top 8 teams in Brisbane, GWS and Adelaide with 2 of those being away games.
They won 8 games by 72pts or more last year and with an improved defense I shudder to think what those scores will be in 2026!
I made a quick 5min video detailing what the Bulldogs are doing which is nothing ground-breaking but it works for their playing group rather than the players having to fit the system and requires excellent discipline in spacing.
From a local football point of view, there are many times where you'll be outgunned in 1v1's in your forward 50 and something like this could help you tremendously such is its simplicity.
Given, potentially, the bottom 5 teams in their 1st 6 games, the AFL set them up to start with momentum and then see what they can do with it.
Losing on just the 2nd game to the Eagles certainly put a stop to that, at least for the time being.
The Eagles have been slowly revving their game style up to that of Andrew McQualter and even though the results haven't been there, their KPI's to how they want to play definitely have.
Pressure, ground balls, forward surge and territory is their blueprint - taking a huge leap out of the Richmond playbook through their premiership years, and now it seems some of their draft picks seem to be coming along for the ride.
West Coast still might finish 2nd bottom this year, and they'll be better than their record actually suggests I reckon, but North must be very disappointed to allow a 60pt turnaround in this game - and so they should be.
The dominated hit outs 54 - 27 but only marginally won clearance 46 -37 and once it turned into a chaos game, then North will be North.
She was a fast start to this one with an 11 goal 1st quarter with Sydney getting the game to look like they wanted it to, scoring 3.1 from turnover and another 3.0 from clearances (8-5).
After that though the Hawks made all the adjustments that mattered and just took it away from the Swans ending with +64 possessions, +43 marks and their back 6 having 46 intercept possessions showing out very poor efforts going forward.
The Dogs look outstanding with a better defense but their offense is also better than last year which is a truly frightening prospect.
The Giants are going to be inconsistent this year with the outs they have the young replacements they have in instead, at least until some of those injured players get back anyway but the Dogs under the lid could be the hardest trip in the AFL this season.
The Swans were looking as good as the Dogs until the news of Gulden's surgery and 3 - 4 month recovery time came through although our revamped game time and development of some players from the injury-riddled part of last year has me thinking we can handle his loss better the 2nd time around.
Injuries are the theme today it seems as we come to the Lions, missing 7 - 8 of their Grand Final team from last season in the early part of the season and no one's depth can withstand that and they've played the 2 best teams so far in the 1st 2 rounds so they'll be fine I suspect.
AFL in 2026 has come with a bunch of rule changes but also with a shift in how teams are moving the ball on offense.
Yes, the stand rule allows for play tempo to be maintained but teams are already on the run anyway, they're now just more confident continuing to go fast and not hold the ball up.
The biggest change for mine has been the use of handball through the center of the ground that some teams were doing previously (GWS/Hawks especially with their high half forwards) but it is widespread now and in a variety of ways.
Last week I highlighted how Sydney were using space through the center of the ground and I doubled-down on watching for it this round and it was pretty clear at times.
Like most tactics/strategies, once you see it you canlt stop seeing it!
Today we look at the following teams and how they are using the most important space in football today:
Coach AFL just put this up on their Facebook page today - a training activity (we've got to move on from drills that are predetermined and based on routine - language matters!).
They've been dormant for some time but have fired back up of the back of the Coaching Forum but it should never stop delivering to community coaches.
Here's the training activity:
The Positive's:
All players are involved all the time - no cones, no lines, no standing and watching
It contains information that represents the game - direction, ball, teammate, space/time constraints
Low complexity - the offense will have at least 1 clear free player to kick to at any given time, whether that's the other player in the middle area, the end line player or a player in the next half
The Negative's
There is no regression or progression to the activity
It provides a hard rule of having both players in the middle area at 1 end having to touch the ball before it can go to the other half which doesn't open up more options, it limits them, and that goes against what happens in games.
Pretty much every training activity I see, and that includes a lot of them I saw at the Coaching Forum miss maybe the most vital part of designing training activities - affordances.
Affordances are opportunities for action.
You receive the ball and there's 1 player covered and 1 wide open - the affordance for action is to play to the open player...but what if defensive pressure is closing in on me? That affordance for action is not as strong as it would be if there wasn't any defensive pressure.
In front of me is space, space that I can run and carry through and get away from that defensive pressure.
I now have 2 affordances for action - kick or run and carry.
What training must focus on is on players being able to recognise these affordances in game-like situations and it's that decision making process that carries over into games.
If you're coaching from the sidelines and telling players to kick the ball as soon as they get it, they will never see the affordance of an open player or space to run and carry through, really putting the onus of player development squarely on you, the coach.
The hard and fast rule of both players having to touch the ball takes away affordances the initial player might have which is to keep playing forward once they receive, rather than looking sideways or backwards to make sure everyone gets a possession.
A better way is to add a scoring system around this so if each player can touch the ball before transitioning then award 2pts for every transition v 1pt for a transition where they don't.
This keeps both options, and most importantly all affordances, open to be used as the ball carrier sees fit.
Here's what I would do with this to make it a more complete training activity by building this out.
First, I need to settle on my intention and that can be the coaching focuses on the original image - first give, adjusting and protecting the ball.
I've never been sold on first give/first option as it's only the 1st option, it's not always the best option.
I'd possibly shift to a draw the defender towards you and then give and possibly keep it at that to really narrow the focus.
Alternatively, you can run at the defender if they are sagging off and make them focus on you, freeing up your teammate as well.
Going back to my Coaching Forum report from last week, let's use the concept and sill framework from Austin Stubbs.
The concept is drawing the defender and how to do that initially (wait for them, run at them, deceive) and the skill is the handball to your teammate (which hand to use, footwork, execution, outcome)
This might translate to only handball when the defender is within 2m of you and then seeing how they go about achieving that - you don't want to give the answers if they can learn them themselves which has greater learning retention then simply being told.
What might end up happening is a that the ball simply moves in a clockwise fashion as the defender will possibly always be a step behind being so disadvantaged.
To break this pattern up add a defender to the half-way line where they can go from side to side but must remain on the line - the ball will now have to be moved diagonally at some point.
My next step would be to bring those end players into the activity and bring in another defender so it will now be a 3v2 in each half and you can make a handball count before the ball can be passed to the opposite end
Again, I'm still staying with my original intention and the cues around it - don't go away from them, keep the focus narrow.
Another aspect you can add in is that 1 player from 1 half can run and carry the ball into the other half to again open up the affordance of run and carry if it's there, and once they pass off then they simply return to their original half.
I don't do laps - unorganised coaches send players on laps.
To make organisation easy during the session think about how can build out your first training activity into something else in minimal time.
In this case we can add kicking into this by simply extending the playing area and shuffling a few players around.
Let's keep the 3v2 in each half but then add back in the end line player but also some neutral wingers.
The end line player can cover the width of the end lines to receive and the wings can cover the entire length lines to receive.
Each end is now essentially a 5v2 which is a low complex way to start.
As we've moved to kicking then the intention has to change but it doesn't need to be turned upside down as the same concept as before can be used with different cues.
In a possession game you want to move the defenders which is done by moving the ball.
With the stand rule back in effect you really want to make that defender have to stand, so you now take them out of the game until you've kicked the ball - this could be your intention: make the defense stand the mark.
Once you've forced them to that then moving the ball will be pretty easy as there's only 1 defender to cover 4 players.
Pretty quickly I'd suggest adding another defender to each end and possibly extending the area again as we still want kicking success.
A rule might use here is that only middle players can transition the ball to the other end, either to the middle and outside players or only the middle players.
Each layer slowly increases the complexity of the training activity which keeps your players on high alert, engaged and solving problem after problem and using the variability of repetition without repetition to do so.
Finally you can take the half-way line out and play 10v6 end to end full field.
Double finally you can then add more defenders in but if offense is your intention, then keep it a +1 or 2 on offense.
The pace of the game has definitely sped up for the time being although I suspect by rounds 5 - 6 coaches will have gone to work to slow it back down in an attempt to gain more control of different game variables.
In the meantime though, let's enjoy the show.
GWS completely stifled anything the Hawks wanted to do on Saturday afternoon, and with some clearance dominance (rare for GWS), we were able to witness what their team defense can actually look like when they're not defending from deep in their defensive 50...and their mid 50 trapping was very, very good.
The Dogs looked like they would continue the trend of not being able to front up against the big teams and even with Brisbane being +46 in disposals, +13 inside 50's, +6 in clearance and +47 in marks, what certainly looked like a Brisbane win by the stats, was turned away by the Dogs' back 6 when they really needed it with Lobb, O'Donnell, Khamis, Freijah, Jaques and Budarick managing 24 between them.
After the breakneck speed of the 1st 4 games, last night's boundary-fest was not the greatest watch. Both teams defend with the ball via low-risk ball options with a whopping 239 total marks between both teams - 223 uncontested!
The Pies have a system that allows for creativity via the Diacos Brothers and De Goey but when the Saints needed some flair in the last quarter, they couldn't make the shift but that's a staple of Ross Lyon-coached teams.
Today we look at:
GWS Team Defense x 2
Brisbane Kick Out x 4
Dogs Creating and Utilising the outnumber Advantage
That would have blown out a little bit more after the Blues skipped out to a 22 point lead after the 1st 2 goals of the 3rd quarter.
Enter McInerney, Heeney and Gulden with those stats for the 3rd quarter reading
Disposals +72, Contested Possession +40, Uncontested Possession +36 and the score +61!
21 clips from this game in 3 videos with the themes being Carlton getting overcommitting and getting stuck at contest, Sydney creating length to provide space in front of the immediate play to transition forward via handball and/or run and the huge difference in running power between both team's personal.
As normal the full analysis is part of a level 1 membership ($9/month) but I will post 2 of these videos from below to show what contest looks like in 2026 and it's a huge shift:
VIDEO #1
Sydney Kick Out
Sheldrick Not Continuing the Handball Chain
Carlton Kick Out
Wicks Not Continuing the Handball Chain
Gulden at Center Bounce Clearance
Sydney 666 Connection
Gulden Overlap
VIDEO #2
Carlton at Center Bounce + Chaos Play
Sydney Creating Space to Transition with Speed
Gulden Overlap Creates the +1
Carlton Going Corridor Without Being Set Up for It
Marc is at Collingwood VFL but is a high-performance tennis coach by trade with Austin and him having done this in a tandem for a while and it showed in their delivery.
This was again focusing on using CLA to drive how to you design your training activities which I've also written about extensively, so it was right up my alley.
My favourite nugget from this was Austin's framework of concept and skill where you need to be able to label both and if you can't then the training activity is probably not representative enough of the game and won't contain enough game information to transfer to games.
I'll touch on that in the 4th training activity presented below.
Austin went in to how when he was at Essendon and they tried emulating the Richmond chaos handball/surge game and this was what they used day 1 to introduce it:
2 DEFENDERS IN
A transitional handball activity with the constraints of time and space being progressively decreased for the offense as more defenders come in:
INSIDE TO OUTSIDE DIAMOND
A congested-driven activity that requires the offense to move the ball quickly and cleanly to the outside players to get the number advantage with the number players in such a tight area constraining time and space a lot for the offense, yet the defense needs to also adjust to having more players to cover as the outside players join the fray:
INSIDE TO OUTSIDE OPEN PLAY
Over a bigger area, this deliberately and specifically positions players from both teams to start with and then it's perceive and act for every player from there. I'll just add that if you only train in tight spaces where there isn't time to think and act, but simply to act then players will find it hard to perceive, think and act when they have the time to do so:
FORWARD PRESS DEFENSE LINE
Let's go back to the concept and skill framework from earlier.
In this training activity the concept is forward press defense and the skill is closing space effectively.
Going deeper on the concept, the why is to create a turnover as close to your goals as possible also recognising the triggers of when to use it which is usually once the first defender presses then the rest trade up an opposition player as well. Other triggers are the opposition receiving the ball facing our goals, a high/loopy handball receive or a fumble/loose ball.
The skill of forward press defense is how effective you are at closing space and then directing the player to an angle that will disadvantage them.
We're talking powerful acceleration into small/tiny steps to decelerate + angling the ball carrier towards the boundary line or another teammate coming into assist
What concepts you want to train up is the easy part but you really need to go to work on the skills required to carry it out repeatedly in the heat of battle.
In the end it weas a big but fruitful weekend and it should be mandatary for coaches and parents (especially dad's) to attend these typers of things in my opinion to increase the barrier to coaching which is THE number 1 reason for kids dropping out of football at any age and the sooner clubs realise this, the better.
This past weekend I attended the 2026 AFL Victoria Coaching Forum with countless other local men's, women's and junior coaches from all over at the MCG.
Should you attend in future?
Yes.
Sitting still is essentially going backwards.
I did a lot of the practical session's so and I didn't take any notes - this is all from memory so it's bit scattered but here's what I took from it.
COACHING GAMEDAY - WOMEN'S (SHAE SLOANE - HEAD OF WOMEN'S FOOTBALL MELBOURNE AFLW)
I only got the back end of this one as I was late getting there but she was covering the different aspects you need to address in the lead up to, and on. gameday.
This included what you want to do at contest and then on offense and defense.
The simplicity of it all might have surprised a few with the "line to goal" positioning mantra used on both phases of play to ensure they go the long way to goal on defense and that we go the quickest way to goal on offense.
Yes, it's predictable to them but it's also predictable to us (Geelong in the 2000's hitting the hot spot 300 times a game yet couldn't be stopped!) and makes perfect sense with Melbourne's past marking power inside forward 50 (Zanker, Harris, Hore).
Things to cover on offense include line to goal, best position (draw defender/cut to teammate), take grass, leading patterns, knowing what to do if you see a spare for either team, kick to advantage.
Things to cover on defense include line to goal, best position, 1st to move/transition focus, patterns (corrections), footwork, spacing.
On gameday you'd have 2 - 3 points of focus for contest, offense and defense depending on that game's KPI's:
Contest x narrow focus, 1st give, support/come back to the ball
Offense x attack line to goal, deep entries, roles in blitz/forward half play
Defense x defend line to goal, 1st to move/happy feet, roles in counterpressing.
I can add to this as the slides come through later but I'd most local footy clubs focus far too little or far too much on this part and simply need to find the balance of information v under/overload to keep retention as high as it can be.
Shae has been there and done that in women's sport having played high level volleyball and AFLW and now high up in AFLW administration.
Mon Conti has also excelled at football and basketball, often with both season's overlapping and playing both sports at the top level at that the same time so how she navigated that was interesting to hear - especially lying to her basketball coaches that she was also playing footy!
Daisy is 1 of 1 and she could literally talk AT me all day but she's as human as the rest of us, going into detail of how she was unsure of her relationship with a player last year and the worry it caused her and then how she dealt with it.
Her perspective on all things football, and especially women's, is like no other person in football at the moment that has the platform like she does and there should be more of it.
LIVE LIFE WHOLE - MEG DICKINSON
Live Life Whole is an online platform by women for women involved in sport that has gathered specialist form many areas of women's health and have popped them all in 1 space.
I've written about some of these issues before and with a lot of men coaching women's teams, this at least gets them thinking about more than just football when relating to their players.
This online platform needs to me made available to female players of all ages so coaches get to work doing so!
We've all had some experience with the Prep to Play protocol since it came to local footy clubs in the last 7 - 8 years and it's a constant work in progress to streamline the program to improve user-ability and to target what you need to in an ultra-specific way.
What's gone a bit sideways with PTP is that teams have used the same protocol for years on end when in fact there's level to PTP and you're meant to work through them and build your resiliency and robustness to the game of football.
Not that I want to start racing as soon as we start but one of my gripes with PTP is that is can be slow and engaged with not a lot of engagement from the players which can also mean it's not going to have its desired effect but seeing Brooke show how we can get it down in 10mins in a ramping intensity format has me back on board and I'll be adding the components I was missing straight back in for training tonight.
SKILL ACQUISITION - SHAE SLOANE
This was a practical session straight up at 9am Sunday morning and was highlighting the use of constraints in skill development 9sound familiar?).
She, and other AFL Vic Game Developers, all mentioned things I've written about over the years like repetition without repetition, differential learning, variable practice, challenge point, game representation and incorporating a constraint-led approach to training and had us try it out ourselves as well as showing some ways they do it at Melbourne.
It was great to see this stuff finally making its way from the AFL down to community level but that was only about 40 coaches out of the 1000's in Victoria alone but you got to start somewhere.
I saw ads for Game Developers a while back and now that I know what it actually is, I have asked for more information on becoming one.
In small groups we had to move through various stations and develop a training activity with the equipment at each station where we had 1 station of nothing but 3 tennis balls but when you know the principles behind CLA, then you can do this far easily then if you don't.
During your warm-up you want to incorporate some form of quick reaction/decision making straight away and get away from partner handball with slow/low intent handballs and 10min chats about the weekend.
For quick reaction it might be as simple as 3 kicks each in a race with the other partners to ramp up intent.
For low complex decision making it can be as simple as this by incorporate repetition without repetition by having the defender give the ball to the kicker in as many different ways as possible (roll, up in the air etc) and/or the kicker having to do something with the ball before they kick like pass it around their backs, under 1 leg etc:
RUCKS AND TALLS (STOPPAGE SET UPS/SYSTEMS + ROTATIONS/TIMINGS) - DARREN FLANIGAN
This was fun as Darren is old school Geelong ruck from the 90's and 90's and is as throwback to those days.
I only did half of this but 1 thing I took away was how to use your body at contest whether you're a big or small and that's to give them a shove 1st to knock them off balance but nothing silly, step across and in front of them with the leg closest to them, then use your closest elbow to hold them out as they try and come back to you and the ball:
Jodh was an innovator in the women's space, setting up kicking masterclass for female footballers as far back as 2014.
A high energy speaker, he was very engaging and had plenty of little gems on teaching kicking such as young girls initially trying to kick from their quad only (that can lead to overuse injuries as well as poor kicking distance/accuracy) and talked a bit about using basic leg swings to groove the action you want them to use as well as using a traffic light analogy:
I would like to see a lot of what he said combined with more external focus though v internal focus.
DEVELOPING GAME PLAN + OFFENSIVE STRATEGY - JACKSON KORNBERG (FRANKSTON DOLHINS VFL)
This was a very well-done presentation with just enough information to cover a lot of area's without getting bogged down into too many specifics.
Once again it was the simplicity that stood out but to be clear - it's probably highly technical when a coach lays it out for themselves but by the time it gets to the what the players get to see, it has been streamlined to an inch of its life with only the necessities remaining for ease of consumption and retention.
I liked he connected stats they use as KPI's to their game style, suggesting that your brand is crucial to sustainability and if your stats are maintaining or increasing, then you're on the right track.
He also posted a pre-xmas slide from a season or 3 back that shows how they introduce concepts from session 1 onwards.
Week 1 - Fundamentals
Session 1 x Hands in Tight + Session 2 x Kicking Club + Session 3 x Kicking Club
Week 2 - Flow
Session 1 Face Up/Fight Forward + Session 2 x Outnumber Game + Session 3 x Fight for the Outside
Week 3 Smash
Session 1 x Charge/Go Forward + Session 2 x Recover Back + Session 3 x Close Out/Deny
Week 4 Smoke and Flow
Session 1 x Outnumber Game + Session 2 x Recover Back/Own 1.5 + Session 3 x Intro to Transition
Week 5 Transition
Session 1 x Fight Forward/Transition + Session 2 x Fight Forward/Transition + Session 3 x Fight Forward/Transition
2 training activities he has on his slides were:
DIAMOND KICK
Go for 1min sets, not 3 - 5mins as I say in the video with the focus points being footwork for the outside players, use 1st option and don't force something inside that's not on
SEARCH AND DESTROY
Focus points being to face up and fight forward for the offense and to press forward and spare the deepest opposition for the defense.
Last year I discovered a Twitter account called One Percenters which is actually a guy named Mateo Szlapek-Sewillo - a footy analyst who provides THE BEST season previews in all of AFL-media print, screen and audio.
I've linked to him before and with his permission I have started to put together some AI-generated graphics on each tea based of his preview of each team.
Today we'll cover Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton and Collingwood.
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.
