Skills of Australian Football by Chris Downey

BY DAN EDDY Foreword by Brenton Sanderson AFL National Academy Head Coach TIPS, DRILLS & TACTICS FROM STAR PLAYERS AND COACHES OF THE AFL

UPDATED WITH NEW CHAPTERS

BY DAN EDDY Foreword by Brenton Sanderson AFL National Academy Head Coach

Interviews for the first edition of Skills Of Australian Football (2009) were conducted by Nick Bowen, Ben Collins, Peter DiSisto, Michael Lovett, Peter Ryan and Andrew Wallace, with editing by Howard Kotton. Subsequent interviews, and updates for this edition were conducted by Dan Eddy. Dan Eddy is also a co-author (with Ben Collins) of Champions: Conversations with Great Players & Coaches of Australian Football, from which several references were sourced.

XX CHAPTER TITLE

LEARNING THE GAME

GOALKICKING

THE HANGER FOREWORD BRENTON SANDERSON ..................... 4

INTRODUCTION DAN EDDY ............................................. 6

LEARNING THE GAME................................ 8 Included in this edition of Skills Of Australian Football are some photos of players who have retired. The quality of the images represents these skills superbly. A great skill learned is eternal, as are some of the greats of the game; in these photos they show us how to execute some of the basics.

KICKING ............................................. 12 SET SHOT ‘SNAP’ ..............................22 BANANA KICK ...................................24 TORPEDO ............................................28 THE HANGER ..................................... 38 GREAT MARKS ................................. 40 HANDBALL ..........................................47 PICK UP ............................................. 48 RUCK WORK .......................................54 TACKLE ............................................... 64

CHEST MARK 2 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

KICKING SKILLS KICKING .............................................10 FIELD KICKING ................................ 14 THE KICK-IN ...................................... 15 WEIGHTED KICK ..............................16 GOALKICKING...................................18 DRIBBLE KICK ..................................26

MARKING SKILLS MARKING .......................................... 30 HAND MARK.......................................32 THE HANGER ......................................36

SKILLS HANDBALL ......................................... 44 RUNNING BOUNCE ...........................50 BLIND TURN ......................................52 RUCK WORK .......................................54 THIRD MAN UP .................................58

44 HANDBALL

HANDBALL

ONE-PERCENTERS ONE-PERCENTERS........................... 60 TACKLE ............................................... 64 SMOTHER .......................................... 68 SPOIL ..................................................70 SHEPHERD/BLOCK ...........................72 BUMP ...................................................74 FENDING OFF .....................................76 STOPPAGES .......................................78 DECISION-MAKING ........................82 BODY POSITIONING ..................... 84 POSITION PLAY .............................. 86

POSITION PLAY ATTACK OR DEFEND? ..................... 98 LIST MANAGEMENT & RECRUITING............................... 100 MANAGING FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE................... 104 SKILLS COACHING ....................... 108 PRE-SEASON....................................112 A GAME FOR ALL .............................116 COACHING YOUNG PLAYERS ...... 120

COACHING

UMPIRING UMPIRING ...................................... 124

AFL CONTACTS AFL COACHING MANAGERS ....... 126 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................127

RUCK WORK

COACHING COACHING......................................... 88 GAME DAY COACHING.................... 94

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 3

XX CHAPTER TITLE

IN CHARGE: Brenton Sanderson took on the important role of Head Coach of the AFL National Academy in 2015 after a distinguished playing and coaching career in the AFL system. He played 209 games (1992-2005) with Adelaide, Collingwood and Geelong, was assistant coach at Geelong (2007-11) and senior coach at Adelaide (2012-14). PHOTO COURTESY OF BRENTON SANDERSON

4 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

FOREWORD

BRENTON SANDERSON AFL NATIONAL ACADEMY HEAD COACH

As coach of the Adelaide Crows (2012-14) and now the NAB AFL National Academy, Brenton Sanderson has come to know what is required in order to maximise your football potential.

t sounds simple enough: If you can kick the ball well, you are going to be a valuable member for your team. Easy. But you might be surprised to know that there are very few players at AFL level with elite kicking skills. For teams like Hawthorn, winner of the past three premierships (2013-15), their emphasis on precise foot skills has set them on the path to premiership success. And that success, and the selection and planning that went into that success, is why I now tell all the junior footballers who come through the AFL National Academy that they need to perfect their kicking skills before reaching draft age, as this skill will give them the best chance of being noticed by club recruiters. Recruiters are always on the lookout for highly skilled footballers. Of course there is more to football than just being a good kick, but if you cannot execute the basic fundamentals— kicking, marking, tackling and handballing—then how do you expect to be the best footballer you can be? A great example of a player I coached at the Crows who was relentless in perfecting the fundamentals was Rory Sloane. Rory was selected in the third round of the 2008 National Draft (at pick 44), and our recruiting notes at the time indicated he was a player with below average speed and was a below average kick. So for a player of his size (183cm) he needed to have other attributes that were exceptional. What Sloane does possess is an incredible work ethic and a desire to keep improving. He has

quickly become the complete player and has already finished in the top three of the Crows’ Club Championship award (the Malcolm Blight Medal) on three occasions, including winning it in 2014. Skills of Australian Football teaches you about all the important elements that go into our great game; from kicking and tackling through to the expectations of a senior coach or high performance manager, every base is covered in order to provide the ultimate football education. And it is told through the words of the people that know best: the players, coaches and development staff who make up football clubs. Regardless of what age level a coach is working with, “teaching” is critical. Whether you are coaching at AFL level, or at community level, or with the NAB AFL Auskick program, teaching players remains paramount. Our game is constantly evolving, and coaches are expected to adapt to this evolution and devise new game styles to give their teams the best opportunity to reach their full potential. In Skills of Australian Football, we are fortunate to have the insights of renowned coaching “guru”, David Wheadon, who has mentored highly respected coaches such as Kevin Sheedy, Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson and Ross Lyon. Always one to think outside the box, David’s examples on the various elements of AFL coaching will prove invaluable for any budding coach. I am a big believer in that proven adage: you only get out what you put in.

The best players in the competition are also the ones who work the hardest on the track. There is no coincidence that the competition’s elite are typically the most determined to improve. Former players such as Nick Maxwell and Brett Kirk became AFL premiership captains after starting their careers on rookie lists. Indeed, the rookie list has been the starting point for many of the game’s greats including Matthew Boyd, Dean Cox, Ben Rutten, Stephen Milne, Luke

‘Regardless of what age level a coach is working with, “teaching” is critical. Whether you are coaching at AFL level, or at community level, or with the NAB AFL Auskick program, teaching players remains paramount’ Breust, Kieran Jack, Josh Gibson, Aaron Sandilands and Danyle Pearce to name but a few. All were overlooked in the draft, but through determination and desire they found a way to become not only AFL regulars, but influential players for their respective teams. Enjoy reading Skills of Australian Football, and use it as your go-to encyclopaedia while you practise and develop your own unique skill set. And don’t forget to have fun.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 5

ACTIVE: XX CHAPTER TITLE 2015 Brownlow Medallist Nat Fyfe constantly works at his game.

6 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

INTRODUCTION DAN EDDY

The best of the best have contributed to this updated and revised edition of Skills Of Australian Football.

hey make it look easy, those footy idols of ours. Whether it’s North Melbourne’s Todd Goldstein leaping above his opposing ruckman to palm the ball down, or Fremantle midfielder Nat Fyfe’s instinct to read where the ball is going, take possession, burst away from a pack and kick the ball forward for his side, or Josh Kennedy of West Coast trying to out-muscle Hawthorn’s Josh Gibson to take the mark, or Adelaide’s Eddie Betts swooping on a loose ball deep in the forward pocket and snapping a team-lifting goal; these are just a few of our list of AFL heroes who do it better than any of the thousands of all ages who play the game each week. They must be born this good, right? Wrong. For every great mark, running bounce, lightning handball, bone-crunching tackle and spectacular goal, there is sweat, long hours in the gym, repetitive skills training, and kilometre after kilometre of aerobic training; all done to prepare themselves to achieve to the absolute best of their ability. Nothing less is expected of those who have the natural ability to make AFL lists. That is just the first step in a long journey. There is also the discipline to adhere to a strict diet, and plenty of meetings and drills and homework in order to understand complicated and constantly changing game plans. They, too, were once little starry-eyed boys and girls who dreamt of bursting through the big team banner on an AFL ground and strutting their stuff in front of thousands of people every weekend. And you know what? They all started their journeys to the AFL by learning the basic skills of the game. Skills of Australian Football is designed

to help teach players at all ages and all levels of the game: from kicking, marking and handballing correctly, through to the importance of smart running, of teamwork, and of learning different game plans which have been devised by the best coaches in AFL history. Indeed, Skills of Australian Football is your onestop-shop for everything you need to know about the world’s greatest game, Australian football. Throughout each chapter, many of the AFL’s best coaches and players have shared their insights into exactly how they train for each aspect of the game. They include Greater Western Sydney’s Dylan Shiel, Melbourne’s Bernie Vince, St Kilda’s Sean Dempster, AFL Academy coach Brenton Sanderson, the first ever female AFL assistant coach in Peta Searle, TAC Cup Under-18 regional manager Peter Francis, the former national head of umpiring in Wayne Campbell, and the 2015 Brownlow medallist in Fyfe, plus many more. Included in this edition are action photos of some of the stars of the past, including Collingwood forwards Alan Didak (kicking) and Anthony Rocca (torpedo), Port Adelaide’s Daniel Motlop (banana), Geelong’s triple premiership star Cameron Ling (handball), Brisbane’s Jonathan Brown (chest mark) and Luke Power (pick up), Adelaide’s Brett Burton (hanger), Sydney’s Jude Bolton (tackle) and West Coast’s ruck genius Dean Cox (ruckwork). Also is a team in action photo from the 2008 State of Origin match between Victoria and the All Stars, showing the best in action at a stoppage. So pure were these classic photos of these players showing off some of the most important skills of the game we could not leave them out. No matter how much the

game evolves, the best of the best in any era do it the best. We’ve marked these pix as “classics”. Furthermore, through the expert advice of renowned coaching mentor and the author of The Art of Coaching, David Wheadon, you can gain a greater understanding of the various roles of a coach, the reasons behind their different tactical moves, and the importance of the teaching of players and of coaches, not just by coaches to players, but players to players. The great Allan Jeans put it simply when he said: “If (in match practice) you’ve got five blokes trying to crumb the ball off hands, you might ask the other four, “Why did he get it instead of you? Did he read it better? Did he put himself in a better position to receive the ball? Did he time his run better?’ Make them think about why they do things and why they should have perhaps done it differently.”1 Fyfe, in particular, stresses, in these pages, the importance of constant learning and selfassessment, and commitment to improve every aspect of his game. This book, updated from the first edition, published in 2009, is designed to help you become the best player that you can be. As the dual premiership coach of North Melbourne, Denis Pagan, once said: “Remember, by failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail. If you really want to be successful, the answer lies in total commitment. It’s as simple as that.” So go on, grab your footy, take this book, and start practising. Who knows where it could lead you. 1 From Champions: Conversations with Great Players & Coaches of Australian Football, by Ben Collins and Dan Eddy: 2016, Slattery Media Group

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 7

LEARNING THE GAME Playing the game of Australian football is one of sport’s most complex endeavours. It’s a game that requires constant practice and learning, from childhood to maturity.

ustralian football is unique. Of all the major football codes throughout the world—Aussie Rules, rugby league, rugby union, soccer and American football—the indigenous Australian game, or ‘footy’ as it is more commonly referred to within the southern states at least, is the only game which provides its participants with a 360-degree range from which to work in, with no off-side rule to restrict player movement. While the game emerged in the 1850s as a form of madcap rugby, with packs of players scrimmaging around the ball, it was always intended to be a different game to rugby, and that has certainly proven to be the case. Indeed, running with the football was promoted from the start, and within a few years the tactic was altered to

8 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

force a player to bounce the ball every 10 yards (9.1 metres). Those early rulemakers must have had great foresight, as there are few more exhilarating plays in the game today than when a speedy player backs himself to run, carry and bounce the ball with a defender in full pursuit. Some of the finest midfielders in the game’s history have been masters at running with and bouncing the football. These include the likes of Brent Harvey, Keith Greig, Robert Flower, Michael Long, Doug Hawkins and Craig Bradley, and, in earlier days, the multiple Brownlow winners, Haydn Bunton, Dick Reynolds and Bill Hutchison. Another key attribute of footy which sets it apart from the rest is the high mark, a feature which began to emerge in the 1870s. The ability to leap over an opponent and mark the ball at its highest point has

captivated crowds for generations, and images of John Coleman, Alex Jesaulenko, Bob Pratt, Peter Knights and Tony Modra, and countless others, have remained enduring symbols of what makes the game so great. In school yards throughout the land, budding football stars have tried to emulate their high-flying heroes by jumping on the backs of their school mates and yelling “Jesaulenko! You beauty.” Then there are the goalkickers; those household names that have carried the expectations of supporters for decades. One thinks of Dick Lee, Gordon Coventry, John Coleman, Peter Hudson, Jason Dunstall, Stephen Kernahan, Matthew Lloyd and Tony Lockett: all champions who could be relied on to underwrite a winning score most weeks. As times have changed, and new stars

LeARNiNg tHe gAme

UP THEY GO: Early matches saw huge crowds in attendance as this VFA match at Punt Road in 1904 between Footscray (now the Western Bulldogs) and Richmond clearly shows. PHOTO COURTESY OF RICHMOND FOOTBALL CLUB

and coaches have emerged, the game has continued to evolve. From the humble amateur beginnings, and through wars and depressions, footy has remained the glue which has held communities together. The past three decades have seen the code enter into the professional era, demanding more and more time of its participants, which, in turn, has seen the physical requirements at the top level reach heights unimaginable way back in the 1850s. Today’s player needs to be both footballsmart and aerobically fit if they want to reach the highest level—the AFL—and this requires discipline in all areas of their lives. On the field, this means applying yourself at training, perfecting the fundamental skills, learning new game styles, commitment to your teammates and the coaches’ game plan, while being a good team player. For the newcomer, the chapter heads may be mesmerising—from the multiple kicks, to the many forms of marking, to tackles, bumps, tapwork, spoils, and more—the many skills surely explaining why the game is available to players of all shapes and sizes: short and stocky, long and lean. Off the field, the modern professional footballer—and this is becoming more and more evident in sub-leagues as well as the AFL—is expected to adhere to a strict diet, conduct himself according to the highest standards in the public arena, be involved in community activities, as well as find balance in his life through further study or employment so that he is prepared for when his playing days inevitably end.

Skills of Australian Football is designed to assist footballers in not only learning the various skills of the game, but also in educating the reader on the expectations that come with being an AFL player. With tips from the game’s champions, all supported by instructional photographs, Skills of Australian Football will provide you with all the grounding required in order to become a successful footballer, no matter what level of competition you reach. Aside from the skill-related sections of the book, there is also a comprehensive account of

the expectations of coaches, a look into their strategies, discussion on strength and conditioning as well as a look at recruiting methods, and dietary requirements, all of which are intended to further assist the reader in understanding the finer intricacies of the Australian game. By applying these practices and principles to your own endeavours, you will be giving yourself the very best opportunity to realise your dream of becoming an elite footballer at both junior and senior level. Good luck and get to work!

BOOMER: 2016 could see North Melbourne’s Brent Harvey take the mantle of the games-played

record holder. Harvey, 38 in May 2016, started the season on 409 games, in sight of Michael Tuck’s record of 426.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 9

01 KICKING SKILLS

BALANCED: David Zaharakis (above) and Patrick Dangerfield (opposite) display their perfect kicking actions.

KICKING It’s always been a kicking game, but in the modern era, pinpoint kicking, long and short, has become the benchmark of the premier teams.

f all the skills required to play Australian football, kicking remains the most basic and preferred form of disposal, despite the phenomenal rise of handball as an attacking force. In the modern game, perhaps more so than at any other stage in football’s history, the ability to be able to hit-up a teammate— at short or long distances—with a purposeful and accurate kick, will set you apart from those who can’t deliver with the same precision. Indeed, Hawthorn’s achievement in winning three successive premierships (2013-15) was built on the back of their remarkable disposal by foot, where players such as Sam Mitchell, Grant Birchall, Shaun Burgoyne, Cyril Rioli and Matthew Suckling carved opposition

10 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

teams apart with their superior kicking skills, matched with instinctive (and well coached) decision-making. According to former Adelaide Crows senior coach, Brenton Sanderson, who now oversees the NAB/AFL Academy, “The number one thing that junior players should be working on is ensuring that the fundamentals are ticked off; and number one is kicking. There is a shortage of really good kicks in the AFL at the moment—and we’re talking at the highest level of the game—so we need to make sure that at under age level an enormous amount of time is spent on the mechanics of kicking. That way when the players enter the pathway they are already a very good kick, because you’re not going to get drafted now if you are a poor kick and

you cannot execute a quality kick under AFL match pressure.” There are many different types of kicks, and several mechanics and skill sets are required to kick the ball correctly. Despite the advancements in football over the past three decades, and the professionalism of training routines, the one aspect of the game that has failed to improve dramatically is goal-kicking accuracy. Players who can regularly impact the scoreboard are therefore highly sought after. Hawthorn’s Jack Gunston, Greater Western Sydney’s Jeremy Cameron, Melbourne’s Jesse Hogan and West Coast’s Josh Kennedy are all standouts in front of goal. Interestingly, each has their own style, and pre-kick routine, proving there are many avenues to success.

KicKiNg

Decades ago, players were instructed to kick the ball long to a contest, and the importance of short, accurate passing was not as integral to a team’s game plan as it is in the modern game. Now, coaches are reluctant to cough up the ball to the opposition for fear of being torn apart on the turnover, and so they direct their players to find shorter targets by foot; which is why the ability to kick accurately has become so desirable. It is vital that a player finds their target so that their teammate hardly has to change stride, particularly so for a leading forward, who will more often than not have a defender breathing down their neck. But it is equally important to hit your target when bringing the ball out of defence, something that the best sides do week after week. The short kick, applied with minimal pressure, is now a significant part of a team’s system: maintaining possession, while setting up options to break open the game with speed, and accuracy. Thus several short kicks may morph into a breakout across half-back, or through the middle corridor, football’s equivalent of chess. The field kick used most regularly by players today is the drop punt, where the ball is released from the hands so that the pointy end of the ball makes contact with the top part of the boot. One kick which was popular decades ago, and which has made a comeback of sorts in recent years, is the torpedo punt. Although more difficult to perfect than the drop punt—and prone to groans from the crowd when it is hit incorrectly—the torpedo punt travels further distances, and more rapidly, if executed correctly as ball spins through the air, like a torpedo. As modern tactics have focused heavily on the zone defence, in recent years we have seen the torpedo utilised as a means of kicking the ball over the opposition’s defensive structures. Players such as Essendon’s Dustin Fletcher have rendered defences useless by bombing a big torpedo half the length of the field. Perhaps the most famous after-siren goal in the game’s history came via a massive 80-metre torpedo punt from Malcolm Blight, in 1976 at Princes Park, a kick that helped North Melbourne to defeat Carlton by five points. Add to this repertoire the trick kicks, such as the banana (or “checkside”) kick, snap shot and dribble kick, which, although harder to perfect are guaranteed to captivate the crowd if you can master them properly. Norm Smith medallist Steve Johnson (Geelong/Greater Western Sydney) is one such player who has wowed crowds with his artistry in front of goal, much like his idol from Collingwood, Peter Daicos, used to do.

A BASIC SKILL OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL Kicking is the most important skill in Australian Football. The basic skill of kicking should be taught at a young age and any faults rectified. It is important players learn the right technique while they are young. Each week most AFL players demonstrate the ability to: (a) kick under pressure; (b) pass the ball accurately to a teammate; and (c) use the ball to the best advantage of their side when kicking from a set position.

Another is Adelaide’s Eddie Betts, who makes the impossible look easy from some of the most acute angles. In truth, this skill has almost become commonplace, as players spend many hours practising to understand just how the oval ball will react when hit at certain angles. Missing, most likely forever, is the drop

POINTS TO REMEMBER 1 Line up your body with the target.

Have your head slightly bent over the ball. Hold the ball over the thigh of the kicking leg. 2 Guide the ball down with one hand. 3 Point your toes at your target – watch the ball hit the foot. 4 Follow through straight towards the target. The preferred kick among AFL players is the drop punt. Other kicks include the torpedo punt, which is generally used for long distances. On the following pages: the classic action of former Collingwood midfielder Alan Didak.

kick, once the favoured kick of full-backs. This majestic kick, when applied correctly, spins like a drop punt, and travels further, given its leverage (boot and ground); but, like the torpedo, it has a large margin for error, and coaches are no fans of any error for what should, and is, the application of the basic skill of the game.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 11

01 KICKING SKILLS

APPROACH

As he prepares to kick, Alan Didak is balanced as he runs towards his target, with his weight on his kicking leg.

12 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

WIND UP

Didak takes a long last stride to help generate power, while the non-guiding (right) arm swings out and back for balance.

KicKiNg

GREAT KICK: Alan Didak, who played 218 games (2001-13) and was a member of Collingwood’s 2010 premiership team, was renowned for his tremendous kicking action, whether kicking long or short, or with bullet passing. This sequence of photos, shot for the first edition of Skills Of Australian Football (2009), demonstrates perfectly an action all should emulate (for right-foot kickers, check out Jack Gunston’s goalkicking sequence on page 20).

IMPACT

He drops the ball vertically with his guiding hand as he is about to make contact with his boot. His support leg braces his body while the knee is tightly flexed before quickly extending for contact. The non-guiding hand comes forward, while his head is still over the ball.

FOLLOW THROUGH

Didak’s leg accelerates through impact as his body drives forward and up. Contact is made high on his instep and he follows through towards the target with his head still.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 13

AWAY: Melbourne 01 KICKING SKILLS captain Nathan Jones running free and clear and about to kick long to a target, shows the perfect style for the running field kick.

FIELD KICKING Breaking defensive lines with aggressive running and sharp field kicking opens up easy scoring opportunities.

t is the skill that we learn when we pick up an Australian football for the first time: kicking. And it remains the most important skill to master for anybody with ambitions of playing in the AFL. You do not have to be the best player in your team in order to be considered for selection, but if you are the best kick in your team it almost guarantees you a place in the side. That is how important good, accurate kicking is to any coach. “We work on our basic skills—kicking, marking and handballing—every day because, essentially, if you can’t do them correctly you can’t play footy,” says Greater Western Sydney (GWS) young gun, Dylan Shiel. What sets good players, and good teams apart—particularly at the highest level, where just a few per cent advantage in any area is seen as a massive margin—

14 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

is the ability to gain possession of the ball and then dispose of it cleanly by either hand or foot. In recent years Hawthorn, under coach Alastair Clarkson, and with the technical aid of biomechanical skills specialist, David Rath, has become the standard-bearer; the Hawks consistently show how to utilise tremendous field kicking in order to retain possession and set up attacking drives from deep in their own defence. To Clarkson’s credit, he recognised early in his coaching career that good foot skills equated to winning football, and so, through much repetition the Hawthorn players set about building up their individual kicking skills. Training under Rath—who joined the Hawks in 2005, the same year as Clarkson, having previously spent eight years at the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra—involved the players kicking

the ball into a soft screen which showed recordings of actual in-game scenarios: not dissimilar to ones found in golf stores, or in various halls of fame throughout the world. It meant that the players were having to make real-time decisions on where best to kick the ball, while, at the same time, concentrating on kicking in a technically correct manner. Rath would then slow the vision of their kicking style down to as much as 200 frames per second in his endeavour to refine and perfect each individual’s kicking technique. “Early on [in my career] we were good at getting the ball,” said Hawthorn’s 1999 Brownlow medallist, Shane Crawford. “[But] we just kept giving it back. But when Clarko came in we looked at a lot of video, analysing how to fix things … Hawthorn has gone from a side which turned the footy over a lot to a side

FieLD KicKiNg

quite amazing in the way it uses the footy and dissects the opposition.”1 Indeed, all clubs now want to “kick like Hawthorn.” According to Shiel, the most difficult aspect of beginning to train at AFL level is performing your skills under intense AFL match-like pressure. “A lot of guys come into the AFL really good kicks, but because the pressure is so intense at AFL level they all of a sudden start missing the kicks that they would have made as a junior,” Shiel explained. “They can take quite a while to adjust to the speed of the AFL, and it’s not necessarily the skill of the kick that they need to work on; it’s performing it under pressure. So at training we try to emulate the kind of pressure that you would find yourself in during a game, and the coaches try to design a lot of training drills around what would happen in games. It’s all about training the skill under intensity.” It is similar at Melbourne and St Kilda. “What we practise the most is not just field kicking, but kicking under pressure in pressure situations,” said ball-winning Demon, Bernie Vince. “The more repetition of that we can get, the better we seem to get at it. There is a really high importance now in footy on being able to retain the ball, and as you step up in every level of footy you get less and less time to dispose of the ball. A lot of people coming into the game can kick, so it’s more about the time you get to make the split-second decisions when you have the ball that become important. You’ve got a thousand things running through your mind, and you’ve got maybe one or two seconds to decide how you’re going to dispose of the ball, so the more that you can practise those situations the better. The great players can make decisions really quickly and execute their skills really quickly as well.” Said St Kilda’s Sean Dempster: “I’d say field kicking takes up 80 per cent of your skill training. Any sort of drill we do, even something as basic as kick-to-kick lane work or if people need to do extra work outside of that, is predominantly using kicking at some point. At St Kilda we have a big gymnasium and basketball court, and we can go in there any time we want and kick the ball around. So there’s a massive emphasis on field kicking. You not only have pressure coming at you in a game from front on, you also have perceived pressure where someone might be coming from behind and trying to chase you down, which means you need to hurry up your skill, and so we work a lot on executing under pressure.” 1 Shane Crawford’s quote was sourced from Jay Clark’s article on www.news.com.au, 21 September 2012. See: http://tinyurl.com/jgoec5j.

The first, and most important key to kicking well is to have a sound technique. No matter what your natural action may look like, at the core of any good kick is the position that the ball makes contact with your foot: it is what coaches call “impact”. If you get the impact of your kick right, you can then begin to work more on your ball grip, approach to the intended target, leg swing and follow through. Although any of the latter four can vary depending on each and every situation throughout a game, what never changes is the importance of the impact your kick makes.2 If your kick is

impacting in the right area of your boot, and the ball is reaching its intended target, you are doing your job. That way, when the pressure inevitably comes your way, you will feel confident that you will still be able to dispose of the ball quickly and cleanly. It all comes back to control: having control of your kick by ensuring that it impacts the boot correctly, and that you hit your teammate with the kick.3 At Hawthorn, that is a non-negotiable if you want to break into their starstudded line-up.

2 For further insight into the art of kicking, visit the AFL Community website, particularly the “Kicking Guide for Coaches” section at: http://tinyurl.com/hegn7am.

3 To listen to former Essendon champion, Matthew Lloyd, explain how to practise dynamic field kicking, watch: http://tinyurl. com/gq9ojkr.

THE KICK-IN

ot so many years back, after a behind had been scored, it was the full-back’s job to roost the ball long to a pair of ruckmen. Not so these days. A behind is not just an addition to the scoreboard, it’s an opportunity for the attacking side to set up scoring opportunities, which means the designated kicker must have exquisite skills, to go long or short, or to break clear of the square, and run into space to clear the zone. Former Melbourne coach Mark Neeld says the kick-in player must not only be a great kick, but a superior, and speedy, decision-maker, and one with the courage of his convictions. “Most clubs will instruct the player who has the ball to do a ‘fast play’ if he can, and the player needs to decide straight away whether he can take on the man

on the mark and beat him, or to take the kick from the end of the square. “Teams will have designated kickers for different types of set plays, and you have to have that steely nerve to hit a player with only five metres of space each side.” This, he said, requires committed practice including whole ground activities with two sides, and practise penetration of multiple zones. “If we want a short kick to pinpoint through the zone, we’ll use a particular player. If we’ve decided the other side is susceptible at the back of the zone, we’ll use a bloke who can kick the ball long and flat. Or if there’s a team with short wingmen, we’ll use someone who can put the ball up long and high to allow a tall centre half-back or ruckman to come over the top.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 15

01 KICKING SKILLS

WEIGHTED KICK Providing teammates with uncontested marking opportunities is a benefit of the perfectly weighted kick, particularly when setting up in the back half.

n 1949, a young John Coleman burst onto the football scene like no other before or since, when he kicked 12 goals for Essendon in his debut match. Over the next six seasons Coleman thrilled crowds with his fast leading, high marking and accurate goalkicking. He was fortunate to be playing in the same side as triple Brownlow medallist Dick Reynolds and two-time medal winner, Bill Hutchison, who, along with a number of fleet-footed on-ballers, fed Coleman time and time again. Soon, however, defenders began to double-team Coleman to try and quell his influence on a game, and so his teammates needed to find other means to get the ball to their full-forward when his lead was blocked. According to Hutchison’s son, Bruce, Coleman would signal to his father to kick the ball above the head of his opponent, allowing Coleman to use his incredible leap and timing to jump above all others and mark the ball. On other occasions, Coleman would instruct his teammates to kick into space, allowing him to utilise his great speed to get to the ball ahead of his opponent. In Coleman’s favour was the fact that Hutchison, in particular, was one of the most skilful players in the competition, and his ability to weight his kick to a teammate’s advantage set him apart from the rest. Fast forward five decades and another Bomber in Mark McVeigh, wearing Coleman’s famous No. 10 guernsey, was delivering his own weighted kicks to another champion full-forward in Matthew Lloyd. McVeigh, along with his brother Jarrad (who captained the Sydney Swans to their 2012 premiership), had perfected the weighted kick as youngsters during hours and hours of training at their family home in Terrigal, on the New South Wales Central Coast. Their father, Tony,

16 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

a former player with Williamstown (in the Victorian Football Association, now VFL), had painted a target on their trampoline, and the boys would practise lobbing the ball so that it landed on the target. Then, by turning the trampoline on its side, they would practice their passes by aiming to hit the target from various angles. “Jarrad and I did that nearly every day,” Mark McVeigh said. “I wasn’t always a great kick and I worked very hard at it.” By the time he was drafted to Essendon, McVeigh realised that he was a good exponent of what is commonly known as ‘the weighted kick’, and with the wide expanses of the MCG and Etihad Stadium he was able to

‘ the key to weighting your kick to the advantage of your teammate is to use the drop punt like you would for a normal pass by foot, but give it more ‘air time’ to allow the recipient to run onto the ball’ weight his kicks to allow his teammates to run on to them. “I can use Matthew Lloyd as an example,” McVeigh says. “If he calls for it over the back, then I’m going to weight it over the back, so he can run on to it and give himself room from his opponent. If he thinks he has got a metre on his opponent, I’ll sit it up, so he can run on to it.” The choice of delivery is often dictated to by the player you are passing to, and whether they have space in front of them to run into, or space behind them to turn to. In the 1960s, Bomber centre half-forward Ken Fraser used to love having space across the half-forward line, knowing that his centreman, Jack Clarke, would weight his kick perfectly to allow Fraser

the time to mark the ball. Whereas, at Hawthorn during the late-1960s and early 70s, Peter Hudson was adept at nudging his opponent under the ball and then doubling back towards goal; his Hawthorn teammates, experts in the craft like Bob Keddie, Peter Crimmins and Leigh Matthews, knew to weight their kick to the back of Hudson to allow him to utilise his uncanny judgement and agility in being able to turn and run onto the ball. The key to weighting your kick to the advantage of your teammate is to use the drop punt like you would for a normal pass by foot, but give it more ‘air time’ to allow the recipient to run onto the ball, whether leading towards you or doubling back and running into space. Having the judgment to know the right angle to shoot to is, of course, a fundamental of the art. The Hawthorn players under Alastair Clarkson are masters at weighting their kicks to the advantage of their teammates, whether coming out of defence and finding a speedy winger like Isaac Smith or Bradley Hill in space, or passing the ball to a leading forward like Luke Breust or Jarryd Roughead. To learn from the best, watch the likes of Sam Mitchell, Grant Birchall, Shaun Burgoyne, and Matt Suckling (now at the Bulldogs). None of this comes without hard work at training—not just by the kicker but the receiver. Those in front of the ball need to know the skills of those delivering, and time their runs to perfection, keeping their opponents in no man’s land. To master this basic craft, it would be wise to follow the lead of the McVeigh brothers and set up a target at home to kick to. Or, ask a friend to run into space, while you practise getting the correct ‘air time’ on your kicks so that they barely have to break stride when receiving the ball. Both you, and the receiver will benefit.

AIMING: Hawthorn captain Luke Hodge is a great exponent of the weighted kick.

WeigHteD KicK

TEACHING POINTS 1 The weighted kick uses the same kicking technique as the normal drop punt. But the aim is to give the kick more ‘air time’ and land it where a teammate is either already positioned or could run on to it.

2 The kick is not so much about power, but more about ‘touch’. The player calling for the ball should be able to run to the position where the ball will land and mark it without losing momentum.

3 It is important players aim for a position on the ground to land the ball.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 17

01 KICKING SKILLS

SHOOTING: GWS skipper Phil Davis is better known as a defender with just 6 goals from his 76 games (pre-2016), but all players need to practise goalkicking.

GOALKICKING The most important kick of all is that which maximises a team’s score. The best all have different techniques, but accuracy is improved by practice, practice, practice.

o aspect of the game drives as much debate as does the act of goalkicking. It remains as important today as ever—that a player converts the good work of their teammates by kicking goals. Indeed, only one Grand Final in VFL/ AFL history (1968) has been won by the team kicking fewer goals than their losing opponent: in 1968, Carlton managed 7.14 (56) to Essendon 8.5 (53). The most efficient goal-kicker in VFL/ AFL history is Hawthorn’s Peter Hudson (5.64 goals per game). Hudson preferred the flat punt when kicking for goal, as he felt that there was more of the ball to connect with the boot. More recently, Essendon’s Matthew Lloyd (who shares a 69 per cent career goal-scoring accuracy with Hudson) preferred the drop punt, a kick that most players today use when

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lining up for a deliberate set shot on goal. According to former Hawthorn champion, Jason Dunstall, the man with the third-most goals in VFL/AFL history (1254 at 66 per cent accuracy), Hudson’s style was difficult to replicate. “The thing with ‘Huddo’ was he had such a unique style and he kicked it differently from everybody else. That style wasn’t something you could impart to others because he was kicking flat punts. That’s bizarre! I find it difficult to understand how he could kick it so accurately using that kick. I don’t think it is a kick that the modern players could grasp. I would have thought you would be prone to kicking more floaters with that style of kick, but ‘Huddo’ bucked the trend, didn’t he?” One key to kicking accurately is to guide the ball onto your boot with the same hand as your kicking foot (for a

right-foot kicker, guide the ball down with your right hand onto your right boot). One of the finest exponents of this was St Kilda and Sydney champion, Tony ‘Plugger’ Lockett, who kicked a VFL/AFL record 1360 goals. “I always thought Tony Lockett was the best full-forward going around,” Dunstall said. “His routine was short and simple, and he had a beautiful follow-through. All the things I tried to practise he already did! It was a short, straight run-up and he had a beautiful transition hand-to-foot and he would kick through the ball like he was trying to kick darts. ‘Plugger’ was as good a kick for goal as anyone going around.” As Dunstall alluded to, one of Lockett’s (as well as Dunstall’s, Hudson’s and Lloyd’s) strengths was the way he approached the goals straight-on and kicked through the ball, as opposed to

gOALKicKiNg

stabbing at it and not performing a follow-through with his kicking foot. “You really only want to think of two things—maximum—when lining up for goal,” Dunstall said. “Anything more than two and you start confusing yourself. Mine were always to make sure that the running was straight and that I followedthrough on the kick. I wanted to kick 90 to 95 per cent of my full distance every time, rather than when I was 20 metres out from goal and just kick it 30 to get it over the line. I would still aim to kick it 45 metres in order to maintain my routine.” “You must run straight at a target,” Hudson says, “so pick a target. Your target shouldn’t be the goal umpire because he moves; it needs to be a stationary target. Run straight towards the target, drop the ball, and watch it from your hand and onto your boot. Then follow-through straight.” When Lloyd was struggling for accuracy early in his career, he was instructed to watch how Lockett kicked for goal. “I was never a great kick growing up,” Lloyd said. “Darren Bewick (former teammate), who was a great kick for goal, always used to say to me, ‘you float the ball too high so start kicking through the footy more.’ I used to stab at the footy too often, and that was a sign of being nervous. Then in 2000, [assistant coach] Robert Shaw got up in front of the group one day, pointed at me and said, ‘Lloydy, you’ll cost us a big game one day because I don’t reckon you practise your goalkicking anywhere near as much as a Tony Lockett or Jason Dunstall would.’ “I had a good think about what he said, and at that stage I was on the verge of kicking 100 goals, and it hurt me a bit to be told that. I had kicked a lot of points however, and, so, over the off-season, David Wheadon (whose highly soughtafter insights on various elements of football are included in this book) spent a lot of time with me and we developed a goalkicking routine ... I also began throwing grass into the air because it was so blustery out at Windy Hill (where Essendon trained during Lloyd’s career). “David put Lockett on one half of a split-screen and myself on the other, and he said, ‘Have a look at your ball drop and how high it is compared to Lockett’s.’ I was dropping the ball from too high, which gave the ball more of a chance to move around before it reached my foot. Whereas Lockett was more hunched over the footy as he came in to kick. Closing down that gap between dropping the ball and the ball hitting my boot was crucial to my improved accuracy. I went from being a 64 per cent kick for goal in season 2000 to 74 per cent the following

GOALKICKER: Tiger full-forward Jack Riewoldt has led Richmond’s goalkicking each year from 2010, averaging 63 goals per season in that period.

ROUTINE THE KEY Kicking for goal is one of the most important skills a footballer can master. If a player can have a consistent routine, this will help in his ability to kick successfully.

year.” Lloyd kicked 109.60 in 2000, and improved to 105.36 in 20011.”2 Wheadon, who has been an important back room coach and mentor to several 1 Matthew Lloyd’s career and accuracy: 1995 – 7 goals, 6 behinds, 54%; 1996 – 18 goals, 7 behinds, 72%; 1997 – 63 goals, 33 behinds, 66%; 1998 – 70 goals, 38 behinds, 65%; 1999 – 87 goals, 40 behinds, 69%; 2000 – 109 goals, 60 behinds, 64%; 2001 – 105 goals, 36 behinds, 74%; 2002 – 47 goals, 29 behinds, 62%; 2003 – 93 goals, 30 behinds, 76%; 2004 – 96 goals, 39 behinds, 71%; 2005 – 59 goals, 29 behinds, 67%; 2006 – 13 goals, 3 behinds, 81%; 2007 – 62 goals, 31 behinds, 67%; 2008 – 62 goals, 16 behinds, 79%; 2009 – 35 goals, 27 behinds, 56%. 2 To view Lloyd’s 100th goal for the 2001 season, watch this YouTube clip: http://tinyurl.com/gluppsk.

VFL/AFL coaches3, believes a lack of proper coaching in the art of goalkicking during a player’s formative years is a significant factor in inaccuracy at the top level. Also, the fact that there is a greater focus on a player taking a set-shot kick at goal, a skill different from almost every other skill that is performed during general play where players act more on instinct. “During a set shot everybody on the field and in the crowd concentrates on just one player,” Wheadon says. “The pressure comes from within—how the kicker views the situation. The change in the game from fast to slow often causes psychological

3 David Wheadon, who played 19 games for Collingwood from 1968-70, worked for and with 11 coaches who have won 17 premierships, and has been a member of the coaching staff of three AFL premiership teams: Essendon (1993), and Geelong (2007, 2009).

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 19

01 KICKING SKILLS

HAWTHORN’S Jack Gunston is one of the game’s most reliable goalkickers using an individual kicking action based on a classic technique. In 103 games to 2016, he’s kicked 220 goals, 112 behinds, with an accuracy of 66 per cent.

PREPARATION

Jack Gunston is facing directly towards the goal and has picked out a target through the goals. He holds the balls with his hands placed either side and his fingers comfortably spread. After carefully measuring his run up, to a position well short of the player on the mark, he starts his approach in a relaxed manner. Note that Gunston holds the ball with his left hand slightly lower and his fingers beneath the laces. Many players prefer to hold the ball balanced on each side of the laces with fingers pointing down. Former Carlton fullforward Brendan Fevola preferred one hand high, and one low.

challenges, and an increased focus on the individual attempting to score a goal can be very threatening.” “With goalkicking a lot of it is above the shoulders and some of the best field kicks in the game struggle when they get put in front of the big white sticks,” Dunstall says. “Field kicking is instinctive: you do it without thinking. You see a target and go ‘bang’. But when all of a sudden you have the time to sit back and think about what you’re doing you begin to think about the what-ifs associated with kicking or missing the goal. So the mind then starts playing a few tricks and a good kick can look pretty average as a result.”

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APPROACH

He is accelerating his run-up in preparation to kick, continuing in a straight line towards the goals. He stays relaxed and avoids excessive movements of the ball, aligning it over his kicking leg in the last stride.

Lloyd agrees: “I am shocked with how little goalkicking is practised at AFL level,” said Lloyd. “Clubs seem more focused on a player not breaking down at training more than getting more specific work into them, such as extra goalkicking practice. It’s not about kicking 100 balls the wrong way; it’s about doing 30 or 40 the right way.” In that regard, it is unimaginable for a top class golfer not to practise their short game, and putting from various lengths and with various borrows. Lloyd has a theory on how to work on what Wheadon calls the “psychological challenges” faced when lining up for goal. “Myself, Scott Lucas and Angus Monfries

used to have a competition twice a week at Essendon where we’d kick 40 balls for goal with a man on the mark and with verbal pressure, and we all improved our kicking because of it. But because of player training loads now, that sort of thing doesn’t happen as much, and as a consequence we are not seeing players improve their accuracy in front of goal.” Dunstall is with Lloyd on the importance of practice: “I did a lot of practice on my goalkicking,” he said. “Whereas it’s very different now because they train all the time. We had time after training and we also had optional training nights, so I’d spend time goalkicking on Tuesday night

gOALKicKiNg

RELEASE

Gunston is watching the ball and has taken a typical long last stride before the kick, leaving his kicking leg behind. His non-guiding (left) hand has come off the front of the ball and is swinging up and back to assist with balance. His right hand has stayed on the ball for as long as possible to control its path and positioning.

after training and also on the optional Wednesday night, and then I’d also do it on the Thursday night after training. So I was having three sessions a week where I worked on my goalkicking. But a lot of the players today don’t because they’re not allowed to load up the quads that much on top of the training they’ve already done.” Wheadon’s 2014 book The Art Of Coaching (Slattery Media Group), covers the art of goalkicking in a detail not previously explored. Wheadon’s key philosophies are based on the fundamental of his coaching philosophy: it’s all about teaching. Some of the key points for coaches are:

IMPACT

Gunston’s head is perfectly positioned over his support leg, which is firmly planted and bracing his body. His body is square to the goals and balanced and is driving forward and up into the kick. His ankle and foot are fully extended and firm through impact and his toes are pointing towards the target.

• teach—don’t just organise goalkicking drills; • understand how players learn; • work closely with the player and understand what motivates him, and thus understand the best way to teach him; • simplify the task to a few key points; • make goalkicking practice as gamelike as possible; • encourage players to be brave, and examine how others succeed in other target sports; • create opportunities for players to teach themselves. For players, working with coaches as

FOLLOW THROUGH

He has watched the ball closely and his head has remained still. He has followed through fully, with his kicking leg continuing to extend towards the target. The follow through reflects what has gone into the kick and a poor follow through may result in inaccurate kicking, less distance or possibly injury. For shots closer in to goal, Gunston prefers to kick the ball lower, with a shorter follow through, in much the same manner as a golfer pitching low into the wind.

per the Wheadon model, the keys are to practise an appropriate routine, keep it simple, run straight at the target, watch the ball onto your boot and kick through it—and don’t stab at it, no matter how close in to goal you might be. Managing the mind and overcoming fear is another matter altogether. As with all skill-based exploits, watching the best of the best is always beneficial; of the current AFL players, keep your eyes on Melbourne’s Jesse Hogan, Greater Western Sydney’s star forwards Jeremy Cameron and Cam McCarthy, as well as Hawthorn’s sharpshooters Luke Breust and Jack Gunston.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 21

01 KICKING SKILLS

HITTING THE TARGET Snap kicks are generally used when shooting for goal from a tight angle or around the base of a pack such as in a stoppage in the forward 50, or crumbing near the goals. Steve Johnson created a new form of the ‘snap’ using a side on approach to a set shot, and curling the ball on a right to left arc.

STEVE JOHNSON was a star goalkicker for Geelong,

booting 452 goals from 253 games. He joined GWS in 2016.

SET SHOT ‘SNAP’ Few players in the game’s history can call a kick their own: Steve Johnson brought the around the corner kick into the mainstream after working it out as a youngster.

teve Johnson’s sublime skills in front of goal are no accident. They are the results of hard work from the first time he picked up a football as a youngster in the Victorian town of Wangaratta. Many have marvelled at the former Cat’s ability to kick the miraculous goal, something he did countless times for Geelong during their recent premiership

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era and is likely to replicate with new club Greater Western Sydney. “It’s something I’ve practised all my life, since I’ve kicked the footy when I was five years old,” Johnson said. “I would kick the footy at school during lunch time, then I’d kick it after school, and I trained at Wangaratta as much as I could as well, so I was always working on different ways to win the ball and score goals.”

At training, Johnson tries to simulate match conditions when practising snap shots, so that it comes naturally in a game. “We do it under a lot of pressure, so when it comes to a game situation you can perform under pressure,” he explained. “In order to be able to kick goals, or execute your skills under pressure, you need to train under pressure, and goalkicking is a big part of that. It’s well known that

Set SHOt ‘SNAP’

PREPARATION

Steve Johnson is preparing to shoot from a tight angle near the boundary line and is using a snap kick. He is side on to the goals and the ball is held across the body, with the right hand forward and the other end of the ball pointing towards the target. He is looking at his focus point behind the centre of the goals.

APPROACH

He has opened up the target and gained momentum for the kick. He guides the ball down with his right hand so it will fall at an angle across his foot. His non-guiding arm is moving up and backwards off the ball for balance.

WIND UP

Johnson is in the classic wind-up position for all kicks, with a long last stride on to his support leg. He has his back extended, hip rotated back and extended and leg flexed behind. He is watching the point of contact on the ball throughout.

IMPACT

He kicks well in front of his body and has contacted the right end of the ball (away from the goals), producing a spin on the ball so that it curves through the air towards the centre of the goals.

FOLLOW THROUGH

The follow through continues in a straight line through the kick as the ball travels to the goals. This is the one instance when the follow through does not go directly towards the target. If it is a set kick, there will be time for only about two steps before the kick because the umpire will call play on as soon as he steps off the line.

I like to snap the ball across my body, and I have kicked thousands of goals at training under no pressure to perfect that art. But equally important, once you have the technique down pat, is to then practise those skills under pressure.” Johnson is an expert at most things to do with goalkicking, with his specialities the angled kick, the banana and the dribbling kick on the run from an acute angle, much like his hero as a youngster, Collingwood legend Peter Daicos. “In his day he was clearly the best in the AFL at the snapshot kicks for goal, and the banana kicks and all those different tricky attempts on goal, and I have no doubt I tried to emulate him in some way, and that carried through to when I got to AFL level,” he said. “If you kick a dribble goal from the lefthand pocket, you want to kick a banana with your right foot. If you can get the ball dribbling end over end, you want to get

the ball bouncing the first time a metre or two in front of you, so it starts in the right direction. A lot of the time people have the problem of trying to kick it about five metres in front of them. By that stage it loses the right sort of spin on the ball and it can dribble anywhere.” Johnson has pioneered the way that players now line up for goal on an angle. “When having a set shot from an angle, instead of pretending you’re going to kick a drop punt and then kicking a snap, I find it’s better to position yourself to kick the snap, so you’re not under as much pressure,” he explained. “It’s important to be balanced, and so if you are walking in as if you are going to kick a drop punt, then at the last minute you move off that line and angle your body away from the goal you have lost some of that balance. “By standing side on to the goals you are already in a great position and you don’t

need to run around on the angle, like you would if you were intending to kick a drop punt. You are still able to take a couple of steps before you kick, but you will have better balance than if you changed your angle on your approach. That idea first came about when I was growing up in Wangaratta, where I would stand on the boundary line and take snap shots at goal from a standing start. I eventually introduced it into my game at AFL level, and I have noticed that a lot more players throughout the League are doing that now.”1 Johnson is one of many players who have thrilled fans with their ability to kick the impossible goal. Others include Adelaide’s Eddie Betts, Hawthorn’s Cyril Rioli, Richmond’s Jack Riewoldt and West Coast’s Mark LeCras. 1 Watch Steve Johnson’s short film on how he performs the snap shot: http://tinyurl.com/hre6h5v.

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01 KICKING SKILLS

DANIEL MOTLOP could make the ball

talk during his 130 games with North Melbourne and Port Adelaide. He was a superb exponent of the banana kick.

BANANA KICK Whether it was invented in South Australia as a ‘checkside’ or Victoria as a banana, this quirky kick has become a basic skill for all goalkickers.

n South Australia, the State, it is known as the “checkside”, or, according to legendary Sturt coach, Jack Oatey, the “backscrewie”; while in Victoria it is more affectionately known as the “banana”. However you say it, and whoever invented it—South Australians are adamant it is their invention—there is no denying that the banana kick for goal is one of the most exciting in football and one that takes tremendous skill to be able to execute it correctly. South Australians remember one of football’s

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most skillful players, ever, in Lindsay Head, kicking deliberate checkside goals on a regular basis. So accurate was Head that champion player and coach and Hall Of Fame member, Neil Kerley, claimed “he could kick a pea on the run up a chook’s bum and not ruffle a feather!” And that best sums up the skill required to successfully kick a banana goal. In recent years, South Australia, or, more particularly, the Adelaide Oval, has become the AFL’s home of the banana, with exciting small forward, Eddie Betts, making the kick a weekly occurrence,

leading footy followers to name the right forward pocket at the cathedral end of the ground the “Eddie Betts Pocket”.1 Betts had been performing his magic at Carlton before moving his act to the Crows, and has won the Goal of the Year with a banana kick at both clubs (2006 at Carlton and 2015 at Adelaide). He is football’s new “checkside champion”, a title first bestowed on Sturt rover, Peter Endersbee, who famously drilled two checkside goals 1 Watch Eddie Betts explain how he does it at: http://tinyurl.com/jqr7zaa.

APPROACH

Holding the ball in the classicBANANA “reverseKicK torpedo” grip, Daniel Motlop has started his run-up from tight on the boundary and moves to open up the goals on his right. As in all kicks, he keeps his head still and watches the ball throughout.

GUIDE DOWN

During the second last step he has started to guide the ball down with his right hand, so that it drops at an angle across the foot. His left hand is looping up and back from the ball.

BRACE

The ball is falling at an angle across his body towards the impact area. He begins to brace with his support leg as the flexed right knee is accelerating towards the contact point.

IMPACT

While bracing on his left leg as the ball drops towards impact, Motlop accelerates his kicking foot towards the ball and makes contact under the left end of the ball.

FOLLOW THROUGH

The kicking foot follows through in a straight line (not towards the target in this case) as the ball begins to spin rapidly sideways which makes it curve in flight towards the target.

from the same pocket in the 1968 SANFL Grand Final.2 The commentator at the time called the kick a “back-screw punt”. In performing the banana kick, Betts, as did Endersbee, holds the ball like he is going to kick a reverse torpedo, and aims for his boot to make contact with the “S” of the “Sherrin” name on the football. His kicking leg then follows through in a straight line, as opposed to aiming directly at the target, which allows the ball to spin rapidly sideways in the air. And as we have seen time and time again, he rarely misses! Former North Melbourne forward, Daniel Motlop, says that the kick has an element of luck to it, and he, along with more and more players, find that performing the kick so that it dribbles along the ground—and bends around if there is enough momentum—can be even more reliable if executed correctly. It can take away any effect that the weather can have on the flight of the ball. However, in wet conditions the kicker requires 2 Watch Peter Endersbee’s two checkside goals here: http://tinyurl.com/jfea8wj.

a different mindset as the ball will not bounce as high or roll as far as it would in dry weather conditions. Like with any football skill, everything takes practice. And Betts, Motlop, former Geelong forward Ronnie Burns and classy Collingwood speedster, Leon Davis, all spent hour upon hour at training, perfecting the kick. As did renowned goal-sneak, Steve Johnson. By practising and learning exactly where your foot should connect with the ball in order for it to curl around—either in the air or along the ground—you have more chance of being able to perform the banana under extreme pressure. Indeed, Hawthorn supporters will never forget Luke Hodge, off just one step and with players pressuring him near the boundary line in the left forward pocket at the MCG, kicking the impossible goal early in the second quarter of the 2015 Grand Final. It brought the house down, and will be a highlight that gets replayed for many years to come.3 3 Watch Luke Hodge light up the MCG with a miracle banana goal at: http://tinyurl.com/h6uzuks.

THE GRIP: The ball is held like a reverse torpedo punt, with the right hand forward for a right-foot kick.

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01 KICKING SKILLS

DRIBBLE KICK It’s Australian football’s version of ‘Bend it like Beckham’, and hardly a game goes by without an extraordinary goal via the dribble kick, a kick which can be traced to the great Collingwood forward Peter Daicos.

ormer champion goalkicker for the Brisbane Lions, Jonathan Brown, says that the dribble kick has “become a very important part of a player’s repertoire because it’s very hard to take a mark in the forward line.” Meaning, that forwards need versatility—to be ground players as well as targets. Indeed, as clubs’ device various defensive strategies in order to try and block up an opponent’s forward line, the opportunistic goal that is scored by, for example, a ball spilling from a pack into the hands of a smaller, crumbing forward—or often a tall who plays small—is something teams are needing to utilise more and more in modern football. Enter the dribble kick. “These days, if you can get two or three goals that you couldn’t in the past because you didn’t know how to do those snap goals or those

dribble goals, it’s a huge thing for your team,” Brown said. Between 1979 and 1993, Collingwood’s Peter Daicos—affectionately dubbed “The Macedonian Marvel” by Lou Richards, and then the Collingwood army, a nickname that combined his family heritage and his astonishing goalkicking ability—gave the Magpies’ opponents nightmares prior to a match, so difficult a match-up was Daicos for any sized defender. In his 250-game career in Black and White, Daicos kicked 549 goals, many of which would later be replayed time and time again because of the degree of difficulty. Whether from tight in the pocket in the 1990 Grand Final, or by purposefully dribbling a ball through for a goal while being tackled by a desperate full-back, no goal was impossible when the ball was in Daicos’s magical

DRIBBLERS: Trent Cotchin (above) and Dustin Martin (opposite) aiming for goals with dribblers.

26 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

hands.1 Daicos introduced the skill, today’s players have taken that basic bounce, dribble, bounce, swerve to new levels, with long and competitive training sessions. In Daicos’s era, few players were talented enough—or, at least were not bold enough— to attempt the impossible goal time and time again. However, the flow-on effect of what he was able to do with the ball would later reveal itself through the next generation of AFL players, such as Collingwood’s Alan Didak, Brown’s Brisbane teammate, Jason Akermanis, St Kilda’s Stephen Milne, and Greater Western Sydney’s Steve Johnson; indeed there would not be a forward in the game today who would not be highly skilled at the dribble goal. While far from ho-hum, it’s rare that a game goes by in which a dribble goal is not cheered home. Daicos’s influence had a big impact on one of today’s magicians, Steve Johnson. “I grew up barracking for Collingwood,” he said. “In the early days my idol was Peter Daicos. When I first started playing footy in Wangaratta [in northern Victoria], I was one of the smaller guys out there, and I was usually playing in teams with my older brothers, so playing two or three years above my age group meant that I needed to be smart about how I found the footy. I realised that I had to be that sneaky player on the outside who roved the ball off the pack. That’s what Daicos did, and so I loved watching how he went about his work. “I can see how there are similarities in the way Peter Daicos played and how I played at Geelong. In his day he was clearly the best in the AFL at the snap-shot kicks for goal, and the banana kicks and all those different tricky attempts on goal, 1 To watch the “The Macedonian Marvel” in action, see: http://tinyurl.com/grbx4z9.

DRiBBLe KicK

and I have no doubt that I tried to emulate him in some way. And that carried through to when I got to AFL level.” Despite Johnson’s marvellous goalscoring feats over many years, North Melbourne forward, Drew Petrie, is another fan of Daicos. “Daics is still the best. Anywhere in front of goals, or any angle, Daics had the ability to kick goals. He’s definitely the best that I’ve seen at it.” While some past players have voiced their disapproval of the dribble kick as a reliable way to score a goal, particularly a growing habit of players running straight into goal, and preferring a low, bouncing, running ball to the straight forward drop punt—such as Hawthorn goalkicking champion, Jason Dunstall, via his weekly ‘Bounce’ program on Fox Footy during the football season—the fact of the matter is, teams today are far more open to their players attempting to dribble the ball at the goals, on one proviso: that there is no clear option for that player to first centre the ball to a teammate in a better position. “The defenders, and teams, defend the corridor really well,” says Hawthorn’s four-time premiership player, Jordan Lewis. “So you need to

have a few tricks in your bag and be able to kick those (dribble) goals when needed to.” At Hawthorn, Lewis’s coach, Alastair Clarkson, puts an emphasis on players such as Cyril Rioli, Luke Breust and Jack Gunston attempting dribble kicks at goal, fully aware that there will be moments in a tight game where, out of nowhere, his players will need to pull a rabbit out of the hat and score a miraculous goal in order to get the team over the line. Rioli, in particular, much like Eddie Betts at Adelaide, has spent so many hours against the boundary in both the left and right forward pockets, practising dropping the ball onto his boot at such an angle that it bounces end on end and curves around and through the goals at the last second, that he makes it look easy. Johnson’s advice to those wanting to carry the torch for the next generation of freak goalkickers, such as Rioli and Betts, is “to practise the kicks down at your local park or footy ground, and you’ll see that the kicks are not actually that hard to do. Once you’ve practised them, you feel confident to go out there in a game and put them into practice.” “It all depends on how you hold the

footy,” says Melbourne captain, Nathan Jones. “It’s something you’ve got to do, and practise, and just read how the ball bends because, depending on the way you kick it, you can obviously make it bend sharper or bend less while dribbling along the ground.”2 The last word is saved for the master himself, Peter Daicos, who later developed his own football, ‘The Goalmaster’, to teach kids how to hold the ball and kick it correctly. “Why was I so lucky, so often? It took practice, practice and more practice…With more practice, you will develop your ball skills; especially your kicking skills…They say that I was lucky. Yeah, and the more I practised, the luckier I got.”3 2 Quotes from Jonathan Brown, Drew Petrie and Nathan Jones were all sourced from “The Art of the Dribble Goal” on YouTube. See http://tinyurl.com/jr37n5y for more commentary by AFL players on the art of the dribble kick. 3 Peter Daicos quotes sourced from: ‘Peter Daicos Presents: “How to Kick Like a Star with GoalMaster”’ (parts one and two) on YouTube. See http://tinyurl.com/zpwt6x7 for part one, and http://tinyurl.com/jfqlonl for part two.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 27

01 KICKING SKILLS

SHOWING HOW: Anthony Rocca was a superb kicker of the torpedo during his 242 games with Sydney and Collingwood (1995-2009).

TORPEDO Rarely used these days, but when it is, the torpedo elicits ‘oohs and ahs’ from the crowd. It’s a kick that can be hit or miss, but when done effectively it can travel huge distances.

ew people who were at Princes Park in round 10 of 1976, to watch Carlton take on North Melbourne, will forget the moment that North’s Malcolm Blight lined up for goal from 65 metres out after the final siren, his side trailing by one point. As unlikely as it seemed, Blight felt that he could get the distance. “I thought I might have got there with a drop punt,” Blight said in his biography.1 On further assessment, however, Blight realised that his best chance of scoring was with a torpedo, which, if

kicked correctly, had been proven to travel greater distances than the ‘easier-to-kick’ drop punt. Blight’s kick would enter football folklore, along with the commentary of Channel 7’s Michael Williamson, who said: “It’s not over yet, what drama here at Princes Park .. Malcolm Blight, it’s a big kick, it’s a mammoth kick…”2 Blight’s kick was later measured by students at the nearby Melbourne University to have travelled 75.8 metres,3 North had won by five points, and Blighty was destined to be asked about “that kick” more than any other

moment in his remarkable football career.4 While Blight had mastered the torpedo kick on that famous occasion—and, was known to continue his mastery of the kick well into his coaching career at Geelong (1989-1994), much to the chagrin of his players—it has gradually been phased out of the modern game, due in most part to the lack of consistency in execution. Put simply: it is easier, and safer, to kick a drop punt than it is to kick a torpedo, particularly on the run or under pressure. But does safer mean that the torpedo is officially extinct?

1 Tim Watson and James Weston, Malcolm Blight: Player, Coach, Legend, Richmond: Hardie Grant, 2011, p. 62.

2 Ibid.

4 Watch Blight’s last quarter heroics against Carlton, including “that” goal, at: http://tinyurl.com/z9tv7ye.

28 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

3 Ibid., p. 63.

RUN-UP

Anthony Rocca holds the ball with the torpedo tORPeDO grip during his six-step run-up. He brings the ball up with both hands to the position from which he will guide the ball down. His head is still and he is watching the ball throughout the kick.

GUIDE DOWN

He guides the ball down in line with his kicking leg with the same hand as his kicking foot. The ball is guided down at the same angle as it is held in the grip. His non-guiding hand is swinging up and back in a loop from the front of the ball for balance.

BRACE

He is releasing the ball during the longer last stride (to increase power). The knee of his kicking leg is flexed to allow a quick and strong extension of the leg and acceleration of the foot into the kick. His non-guiding arm is swinging through in line with his kicking leg.

IMPACT

Rocca’s support leg is acting as a brace to transfer momentum from his body to his kicking leg. His body drives forward and up from his support leg and his kicking leg accelerates through the point of impact with the ball. His head remains still.

FOLLOW THROUGH

After his kicking foot has accelerated through the point of impact, it continues in a straight line towards the target.

“The torpedo is such an inconsistent kick to get correct, and maybe it’s more difficult because we don’t practise it anymore,” said St Kilda defender, Sean Dempster. “People aren’t confident to hit it correctly and know that it’s going to go to a certain spot.” The players may be wary, but bit by bit the big torpedo is edging its way back into the game. Unlike a drop punt, where the ball is held in a vertical position, for a torpedo one holds the ball opposite to how they would hold the ball for a check-side, or banana kick; that is, at a 45-degree angle across the boot. “I think the key is just not kicking it too hard, “says former West Coast Eagle defender, Beau Waters. “The guys who are best at torps have just got beautiful timing; they’re not necessarily the biggest or the strongest guys in the competition. They just hit the ball perfectly, nice fluent swing: it’s like a golf swing.” Dempster concedes that “every team is working on how best to get through the press, and it’s probably the hardest thing in football to do at the moment.” With this in mind, if teams can find a specialist torpedo-kicker their options to “get through the press” will suddenly increase. Perhaps the torpedo is best saved until

your side trails by a goal or more with little time remaining on the clock. Then, it becomes a case of rolling the dice, much like in ice hockey where, if a team trails with a couple of minutes remaining they generally “pull” their goalie and insert an extra attacker in the hope of creating a goal against the odds; knowing full well that if the puck gets turned over, the opposition has a good chance to score and they would lose the game anyway. “It can be such an attacking move,” says Melbourne’s Jack Grimes. “I think, definitely, we’ll see it more and more when teams are just down towards the end of a game, by less than a goal or so, and they’re trying to win the game. Just to go for that torp down the middle and get it as far as you can, then go straight down the guts [and score].”5 “If you can execute the torpedo nine times out of 10, then I think there is still a place for it in the game,” says former Adelaide Crows coach, Brenton 5 To watch your favourite AFL stars discussing the art of the torpedo, see: http://tinyurl.com/zar5og9. Quotes from Beau Waters and Jack Grimes were sourced from this video.

Sanderson, who now oversees the AFL National Academy as Head coach. “But it’s not a skill that’s practised much now at AFL clubs. There is not a skill acquisition focus on it. There are still players who will pull the trigger on it occasionally, but the window for error is just too high, which is why I don’t think we will see much of it in games. You might see it in the fourth quarter of a game when a player is kicking in from full-back (similar to the ‘ice hockey factor’ previously mentioned), but there doesn’t seem to be more than two or three players now who can execute it consistently enough to justify using it as a genuine weapon.” Indeed, the elite players in the AFL Sanderson was referring to include Western Bulldog’s Matthew Suckling, West Coast captain Shannon Hurn, and Geelong’s Jimmy Bartel, all capable of roosting a big torpedo if the circumstances allow it. But few players of recent years have got more distance with the torpedo kick than Collingwood’s Anthony Rocca, who regularly launched big bombs at goal from outside the 50-metre arc. “I used to kick torpedos for fun,” Rocca said, “but now it is a pretty rare kick in the AFL.”

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 29

02 MARKING SKILLS

MARKING A highlight of the game since its inception,the ‘mark’ is a mix of aerials and bravery, with the ‘hanger’ one of the game’s signature images.

ustralian football is unique for a number of reasons: the running bounce, the fact that there is no offside rule which means that players are free to run all over the ground, and the mark—especially the high mark—which has always been popular with players and supporters alike. But the mark was not a feature of the game in the early years. It evolved, with a “revolution” occurring in the 1880s when Essendon’s Charles “Commotion” Pearson (named after the 1884 Melbourne Cup runner-up, Commotion, owned by Pearson’s uncle) began leaping onto the backs of opponents to claim rarely-beforeseen overhead marks. One newspaper reported on the occasion: “While Mr Pearson takes risks with his rocket-like leaps into the air ... this may be a new revolution in high marking. What a thrill the game would become as a spectacle if all players tried out this new idea.” The high mark is one of three marks available to the player: Aside from the high mark, or “hanger”, there is also the chest mark and the hand mark. The chest mark should be the safest of all marks, particularly when attempted if there is little or no physical contact either while on the lead or in wet conditions. When an opponent is able to attempt a spoil from behind or in a pack situation, the hand mark becomes an important means of being able to reach for the ball with outstretched arms, rendering any spoiling attempt ineffective. But there is more room for error as the ball can slip through fingers if not held correctly. This risk is even greater in wet conditions. While the majority of marks in any one game are taken with either chest marks or hand marks, there is no doubt that the most spectacular of the three is the high

30 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

mark. Indeed, some of football’s most iconic images have been those captured by photographers with a player in full flight, leaping over an opponent, or opponents, to take the seemingly impossible mark, the earliest being those involving the great Dick Lee (Collingwood’s sharpshooter who won the club’s goalkicking 11 times, before passing the baton to Gordon Coventry in 1922). Essendon’s John Coleman performed the feat almost on a weekly basis in the late 1940s and early 1950s, just as South Melbourne’s Bob Pratt had done in the 1930s. In the 1970s it was Hawthorn’s Peter Knights, in the 1990s it was Adelaide’s Tony Modra, Geelong’s Gary Ablett and Richmond’s Matthew Richardson, while in more modern times we have seen Adelaide’s ‘Birdman’ Brett Burton, North Melbourne’s Drew Petrie, Port Adelaide’s Jay Schulz, Melbourne’s Jeremy Howe and St Kilda’s Josh Bruce continue the tradition of bringing crowds to their feet whenever the ball is kicked in their vicinity. As a show of strength, the chest mark and hand mark have been performed consistently by power forwards Wayne Carey (North Melbourne, Adelaide), Jonathan Brown (Brisbane) and Nick Riewoldt (St Kilda). Chest marks, in moments of extreme peril by Brown and Reiwoldt go down as not just a pair of the greatest marks of all time, but surely the most courageous. But while Brown would crash packs and hug the ball to his chest, for the most part coaches try to promote their players taking the mark out in their hands, where there is less risk of a spoil being performed. Champion leading forwards such as Dunstall, Essendon’s Matthew Lloyd and St Kilda and Sydney legend, Tony Lockett, all had vice-like grips when the ball was

GREAT MARK: There is

nothing St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt can’t do, but his marking—high, low, brave—may be his greatest skill.

mARKiNg

kicked into space for them to run on to. Of the current crop of forwards, Greater Western Sydney’s Jeremy Cameron, Richmond’s Jack Riewoldt and Josh Kennedy at West Coast are all sure bets to pull in a mark, whether on their chest, out in their hands on the lead or by jumping onto the backs of their opponents. But the mark is not restricted to the forwards alone, as many of the game’s finest defenders now back themselves to out-mark their opposition. Where once it was the defender’s job to punch, spoil and bring the ball to ground, today coaches build their game plans around the ability of their defenders to intercept mark and quickly rebound the ball from defence into attack. In the 1970s, North Melbourne’s David Dench was a star at the art of marking and rebounding the ball, so too, Geelong’s Matthew Scarlett in the 2000s, while North’s Scott Thompson, Essendon’s Cale Hooker and Hawthorn’s triple premiership duo of Brian Lake and Josh Gibson were, and are, masters of the art. Lake’s capacity to sit back four deep in a pack and take a mark, apparently uncontested, remains a lasting memory of his grand career.

CONTESTED MARKS: Collingwood’s Travis Cloke has been one of the game’s most dangerous forwards due to his great capacity to take contested marks.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 31

02 MARKING SKILLS

HAND MARK The prominence of the hand mark can be traced to the coaching era of Ron Barassi (1965-95), who recognised that marking in front of the body reduces the chances of a defender’s spoil.

ne of the training drills that coaching legend, Ron Barassi, demanded as a non-negotiable throughout his 515 games in charge of Carlton, North Melbourne, Melbourne and Sydney, involved getting his players to kick a ball hard and low at a teammate, who was then expected to mark the ball cleanly out in his hands. Barassi was a stickler for the basics of football, and marking the ball in outstretched hands was one way he knew that his players could gain an advantage over their opponents. The hand mark, when taken cleanly, renders your opponent helpless, particularly if you position yourself in front of your opponent and mark the ball with arms at full stretch; he will have no way of reaching around you to spoil. Barassi, a former Melbourne premiership captain, would be proud of the Demons’ latest big-name recruit, Jesse Hogan, who was awarded the Ron Evans Medal as the AFL Rising Star in 2015. From his opening game against Gold Coast in round one of 2015, Hogan looked a ready-made player, with his strong marking and accurate kicking setting the scene for one of the most memorable debut seasons played by a key forward. Using his strength, Hogan out-marked many of the game’s best defenders, including Richmond star Alex Rance, and it was his ability to take marks cleanly in his hands, as well as his tremendous timing when leading for the ball, that made him such a dangerous prospect from as early as that first game. But Hogan is constantly wanting to improve. “My running and strength is something I’ve been working on and I’ve put on a little bit of weight, so running with that is going to be a little different for me,” he said. “I’m working a lot more on my marking and trying to take it

32 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

to another level .. I’m just working on anything and everything just trying to improve.” Not since the days of David Neitz, David Schwartz and Garry Lyon has Melbourne had such a promising forward target. Indeed, Hogan’s 134 marks in his first 20 games (at an average of 6.7 per game) is 54 marks more than the great Wayne Carey had pulled in after he had played 20 games for North Melbourne (being aware that changes in game plans have seen many more uncontested marks than ever before). And, of all the great power forwards of the past 15 years (Nick Riewoldt, Jonathan Brown, Matthew Pavlich, Travis Cloke, Lance “Buddy” Franklin, Jack Riewoldt and Tom Hawkins), Hogan is

the only player to average more than two contested marks per game. The key to Hogan’s fine marking, aside from his height, is his ability to meet the ball at its highest point with outstretched arms. He judges the ball so well in the air, and makes such great body position that he almost always finds himself in the prime spot to take a mark in his hands. And when the ball reaches his hands, he seldom lets it go. That vice-like grip, in any weather conditions, is obviously a key ingredient to being a good hand mark. Many champion hand-marking players had those attributes. Richmond’s Matthew Richardson, for one, knew the importance of taking the ball out in his hands. “The defender has less chance

HANDS FIRST: Hawthorn’s Jack Gunston (above) and Adelaide’s Eddie Betts (opposite), show the technique of marking in front of the body.

HAND mARK

of being able to punch it away,” he said. “The idea is to keep the ball as far away from the defender as you can.” Hogan has entered the AFL during a period in which the interpretation of the Law which penalises players for “chopping the arm” of an opponent who is trying to mark the ball has been tightened. Where previously a defender could punch the arm of a marking forward to hinder their chances of holding onto the ball, nowadays if the same action is performed the player attempting the mark will be awarded a free kick. “The umpires are so harsh on any contact with your arms,” Richardson said. “As a forward, if you try to take the ball

out in your hands and your arms are fully stretched, the defender hasn’t got much hope other than to chop your arms and then you’re going to get a free kick.” Even with this advantage, one senses that had Hogan played under the older, more flexible interpretation that players like Carey, Carlton captain Stephen Kernahan and Hawthorn stars Jason Dunstall and Dermott Brereton played under, he would still have marked many more than he spilled.1 1 To watch how to correctly take a hand mark, see the following AFL Skills video: http://tinyurl.com/z7qj5hp.

EYES ON THE BALL Eddie Betts has his body in a direct line with the flight of the ball. His eyes are focused on the ball and, with extended arms, he is in a good position to reach the ball before an opponent attempts to spoil. His fingers are outstretched, pointing upwards in the ‘W’ position. Once he has secured the ball, Betts will pull it down towards his chest to protect it, his eyes remaining focused on the ball as he completes the mark.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 33

02 MARKING SKILLS

APPROACH

Jonathan Brown sprints on the lead straight towards the kicker and watches the ball intently as his body moves directly in line with the flight of the ball.

PREPARATION

As Brown reaches the last two steps towards the ball, he brings his arms up in preparation to take the mark. Note his hands and forearms are ready to go under the ball.

CHEST MARK The simplest mark of all, but one that requires a strongly-held front position, and a decision — on the chest or in the hands. Waiting for a chest mark increases the chances of a defender making a successful spoil.

or a big, power forward, there is nothing more exciting than seeing your teammate racing through the centre of the ground, about to kick the ball in your direction. In an ideal world, you won’t have to break stride as their kick lands smack-bang on the middle of your chest; just like you practised at training, over and over again.1 1 To see how it is done, from the unlikeliest of teachers, watch former umpire Peter Carey taking a chest mark during play: http://tinyurl.com/hhyelc3.

34 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

In Hawthorn’s glory days of the late-1980s and early ’90s, Jason Dunstall would lick his lips any time he saw Darrin Pritchard or Darren Jarman or John Platten heading towards him with ball in hand. The chest mark is seen as the safest, most risk-free way to accept a footpass. Close your eyes and think of two recent forwards in North Melbourne and Adelaide superstar, Wayne Carey, and triple premiership winning Brisbane Lion, Jonathan Brown, and no doubt you can conjure up images of the two hugging the ball tightly to their chest as

they impose themselves on yet another contest. Both would break packs and mark on their chest, and teammates knew to turn and head toward the goal-square whenever the ball was safely in either of their hands. For Dunstall, Carey and Brown, and other star forwards such as St Kilda and Sydney legend, Tony Lockett, Essendon’s Matthew Lloyd and Hawthorn champion, Peter Hudson, who were all matched up against the biggest and strongest defender the opposition could throw at them, the ability to mark the ball would, more

cHeSt mARK

DROPPING DOWN

As the ball gets close to his body, Brown continues to move forward while dropping down to ensure the ball will be taken at chest height. His fingers and hands are extended with palms up and his elbows are beginning to tuck into the side.

often than not, come down to a test of strength. “For a lot of us younger guys coming through watching footy in the ’90s, if you’re a strong type of player, you certainly took a leaf out of Wayne Carey’s book,” Brown said. “That was one of his many strengths.” Said Carey, “I tried to take three or four marks a quarter. Twelve marks is a good day. They were different grabs back then, too—mostly contested.” Although coaches prefer their players to mark the ball out in their fingers, away from the chest so that it is harder for a defender to reach across and punch the ball away, the chest mark remains one of those skills that every player—no matter their position on the ground—should have in their armoury. Particularly in wet weather. “Once a week we [would] try to work on our one-on-one contested marks with one of the defenders,” Brown explained. “There would be a lot of contested marking situations, marking in your hands and on your chest.” Said Lloyd, “I always told my teammates that I just wanted a oneon-one opportunity with my opponent and that they didn’t have to give me the

THE MARK

Brown takes the ball in his hands and forearms and guides it into his chest. The mark is completed by hugging the ball tightly to his chest with his elbows tucked in to ensure that the mark cannot be spoiled.

perfect pass. I just wanted them to kick it in quickly because I felt that, on my day, I could match it with anybody one-out. I had periods during my career where I felt invincible and other days where I didn’t feel so good. The words of my Dad were always ringing in my ears, that if I worked hard enough and got to enough contests I’d, more often than not, go all right.” Hudson, too, said that he craved a one-on-one contest because he knew his strength would win out. “I loved playing on blokes who wanted to push and shove and play side-by-side or right behind me because I knew where they were without even having to reach for them,” he said. “I was as happy as Larry when they did that because I could control the situation more, and keep them away from the ball with my bodywork.” Not known for his high-flying, Hudson’s ability to nudge an opponent out of the contest by using his strong hips, then hold his ground and take the chest mark, became a key to his game. Like Lloyd, Carey admitted that it was his willingness to want to get to as many contests as he could that allowed him to

take more marks and impact more games. “I got to as many contests as possible. That’s the main job of a centre halfforward; and once you get there, provide a strong contest.” Back in the 1990s, the game required more one-on-one contesting than it does now. Today, the amount of uncontested marks in a game has gone through the roof, which is why the chest mark remains as important as ever. A spilt chest mark can result in a turnover for your side, which is where most goals by the opposition are generated from each week: turnovers. Like with any skill in the game, keeping your eye on the ball until it is on your chest is paramount to ensuring you control the chest mark. That way, your coach is happy, your teammates are happy, and you’ve got possession of the ball which means that the game is in your control.

CHAMPION: Brisbane’s power forward Jonathan Brown (above) used his bulk and strength to hold front position many times in his 256 games with the Lions, taking many chest marks ahead of his hapless opponents.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 35

SKY 02 HIGH: MARKING SKILLS

Callum Ah Chee shows his class with this hanger representing the AFL Academy against the Northern Blues at the MCG in 2015. Ah Chee was chosen at pick 8, by Gold Coast Suns in the 2015 AFL National Draft.

36 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

tHe HANgeR

THE HANGER The excitement machine of Australian football, that moment when a player soars above a pack and takes a big mark — a mix of defying gravity and clean hands.

hey remain the most famous three words ever yelled by an Australian football commentator: “Jesaulenko! You beauty.” It was late in the second quarter of the 1970 Grand Final, when Channel 7’s Michael Williamson captured the pure excitement of the moment when Carlton’s Alex Jesaulenko leapt over Collingwood big man, Graeme ‘Jerker’ Jenkin, to take what would later be declared the ‘Mark of the Century’. So famous was Jezza’s mark that it would later be celebrated in an advertisement by Toyota.1 Indeed, both Williamson and Jesaulenko—who remain the best of friends—are asked more about that mark than anything else they did in their respective (and glittering) media and football careers. And even today, in school yards and parklands across Australia, kids will yell, “Jesaulenko! You Beauty”, whenever they take a ‘speccie’ during a game of kick-to-kick. The hanger—the simple descriptor for the Jesaulenko moment of genius— is what sets Aussie Rules apart from any other football code. The anticipation felt by everybody watching on, when the ball hangs in the air and a player has time to run and leap over another player… there remains nothing like it. Those who can judge, time, and perform the hanger correctly become fan favourites. Aside from Jesaulenko, when one thinks of great aerialists, some players who spring to mind include two former Adelaide high-flyers in Tony Modra and Brett ‘The Birdman’ Burton, Collingwood’s Ross ‘Twiggy’ Dunne, Peter Knights from Hawthorn, North Melbourne’s Phil ‘Snake’ Baker, Melbourne’s Shaun Smith, Carlton’s Peter Bosustow, Sydney sensation Warwick 1 View the Toyota commercial featuring Alex Jesaulenko, Stephen Curry and Dave Lawson at: http://tinyurl.com/hpuf86g.

Capper, Tigers Royce Hart and Michael ‘Disco’ Roach, the spectacular Cat, Gary Ablett senior, and St Kilda and Essendon’s versatile Brendon Goddard. The Grand Final in the last 50 years has been a great platform for the hanger: the 1977 draw is renowned for the magnificent pack mark and goal by Dunne to level the scores with seconds on the clock; Knights, moved forward after suffering a knock to the head, in 1978 took a speccie when the game was tight; in the same game, Baker, with coach Ron Barassi’s half-time instruction to his team—“Long bombs to Snake”—ringing in their ears, soared above a pack of Hawks to take one of the great Grand Final marks; in the 2010 drawn Grand Final, Brendon Goddard’s mark in the square, and goal to put the Saints in front mixed brilliant with extreme pressure and need. From earlier times, the likes of John Coleman, Bob Pratt and Dick Lee were all regularly photographed soaring high into the air in pursuit of the leather ball. While today, it has become almost a week-by-week occurrence to see Jeremy Howe (Melbourne and Collingwood) take the mark of the round. And then there was Bosustow. Recruited to Carlton from Western Australia in 1981, ‘The Buzz’, as he referred to himself, caused a sensation from his very first game by leaping over opponents, kicking goals and running down players in a tackle. The Buzz had it all, but it was his high marking for which the Carlton supporters remember him. “I was a high-jump champion and, because of that high-jump background, I knew how to land properly, and that was a big part of my ability to take a great mark,” Bosustow said. “I took the ‘Mark of the Year’ and kicked the ‘Goal of the Year’ in the same year (1981), plus we won the premiership that year.”

Jesaulenko admits that he, too, was good at high jump, which was an attribute he was later able to utilise when attempting a hanger. “At school I loved high jump, long jump and hop, step and jump, so I had strong legs. But I didn’t do anything specific at training. I mainly worked on the touch of the ball. I’d get someone to kick the ball at me as hard as they could from 10 metres away and I had to mark it. As for my timing when going for marks, I deliberately worked on that. That’s something we did in our training in Canberra, the end-to-end kicking. You’d fly for it and jump on people’s backs, and when I got to Carlton in 1967 we would continue to do that. There’d be one ball and if you wanted a kick you had to get it somehow.” Bosustow recalled that “the grounds we played on were terrible compared to today,” before going on to say: “I often think to myself, how good would I have been if I’d played on the carpets they play on today? Plus, it’s too sanctioned now and too robotic. The thing I’m most disappointed about is the lack of high marks. I’m still seeing footage of my big mark more than 30 years after I took it, which is great for me, but teams don’t kick the ball down the ground now like they used to, so we aren’t seeing the one-on-one contests like when I played.” For, Burton, The Birdman, it was during his school years where he first practised running and jumping at the football, endeavouring to mark the ball at its highest point, which made it difficult for opponents to spoil the mark. At home, Burton would kick the ball in the air to himself for hours on end, determined to perfect his leap and his timing so that it became instinctive during a game. Burton’s practice eventually paid off. Having been small for his age, he had always been instructed by his junior

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 37

02 MARKING SKILLS

WELL NAMED: Adelaide’s

Brett Burton had one of the game’s most appropriate nicknames, as ‘The Birdman’. This classic sequence was just one of dozens of hangers he took during his 177 games for Adelaide (1999-2010).

THE JUMP

Brett Burton runs in to bring his body in direct line with the flight of the ball. His eyes are focused firmly on the ball and he has jumped powerfully off his take-off (left) leg to launch himself towards the ball.

38 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

THE SIT

On making contact with his opponent with his legs, Burton is extending them to push his body upwards to gain extra height. He is moving into perfect position to take the ball as high as he can.

EYES FOCUSED

With his eyes still firmly focused on the ball and head still, he has brought his hands together in the classical “W” position with thumbs almost touching and fingers outstretched. His arms are extended towards the ball.

tHe HANgeR

FLYING HIGH: Jeremy Howe’s signature tune during his 100 games with Melbourne was his high-flying marks, one out, or in packs. Collingwood fans will be hoping he can bring this exciting skill to the Magpies, his club from 2016.

THE MARK

He has taken the ball slightly in front of his face with arms extended and has flexed slightly at the elbows to absorb the force of the ball as it is firmly gripped with the fingers. He has started to pull the ball down to his chest.

coaches to stay down and crumb the ball off the pack. But, at 19 he experienced a growth spurt, which gave him the confidence to be able to outmark anybody. That confidence saw him selected in Sturt’s SANFL team in 1998, where, playing at centre halfforward he finally had a licence to fly for his marks. The Birdman was away. “For me, it’s really about timing,” said Burton, who was drafted to Adelaide at the end of 1998. “What I tell myself is when you see the ball, hold yourself back, then go late and try to take the ball at its highest point. When I go for a mark, I don’t necessarily try to take the biggest mark or a screamer. I always just watch the ball and try to take it at its highest point.” Burton admits that he takes little notice of who is around him when he sets himself for a mark because, “you can’t tell them to stay put so you can jump on them.” For Jesaulenko, Bosustow and

Burton, it was the possibility of taking a hanger that first attracted them to the game. Said Jesaulenko, “At 14 years of age, I ended up watching Aussie Rules and loving it for the uncertainty, and jumping on people’s backs, doing strange things like bouncing the ball and running, that all interested me.” Burton agrees. “For me, the hanger is one of the reasons you play footy,” he said. “It is exhilarating; you get a big buzz out of it. You can hear the crowd noise when you go up and, if you take it, it gets even louder.” And as for The Buzz? “Yeah, okay, Bosustow was known for taking the big high mark and for his great goalkicking,” he began. “But it’s very, very good to have the third leg of that trio which is the one-percenter. I was a very, very big team player and I think Carlton people appreciate me more as that sort of player. But make no mistake, The Buzz was a superstar!”

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 39

02 MARKING SKILLS

LEGEND: John Colemanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

marking is legendary, as is the man himself, appointed as an official Legend of the game in the inaugural Australian Football Hall Of Fame induction in 1996.

40 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

tHe HANgeR

JESAULENKO, YOU BEAUTY! Alex Jesaulenko’s famous mark in the 1970 Grand Final over Graeme Jenkin remains etched in folklore via Mike Williamson’s famous call. Jesaulenko was elevated to Legend status in the Australian Football Hall Of Fame in 2008.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 41

02 MARKING SKILLS

MARK OF THE YEAR: Essendon’s Gary Moorcroft was a jack-in-the box during his 95 games with the Bombers, and took the Mark Of The Year over the Bulldogs’ Brad Johnson in 2001.

42 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

tHe HANgeR

FLYER: The Eagle is flying. Nic Naitanui took the Mark Of The Year in 2015; although not a regular marker around the ground, Naitanui’s leap sees him often take big pack marks.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 43

03 SKILLS

HANDBALL Once an instrument of defence only, handball is now one of the game’s most attacking skills, allowing players to find the best team option rapidly.

s the Carlton players slumped on their benches in the Melbourne Cricket Ground dressing rooms at half-time of the 1970 Grand Final, their coach, Ron Barassi, with his team trailing Collingwood by 44 points, posed the question to his dejected players: “What do you think our handpasses are?” When the response was “25 or 30” for the half, Barassi shouted: “A lousy, stinking, rotten 16!” He then gave the direction to all his players to play on at all costs, utilising handball as a means of moving the ball quickly which, he hoped, would render Collingwood’s tall, marking players ineffective. “We could not get the ball over their heads,” recalled former Carlton defender, John Goold, who played halfback that day. “So at half-time, that’s when the handballing across goal and running the handballs out of defence from 30 or 40 yards and then kicking the ball long over their heads to remove their bigger guys from the play, came into being. And that was, I believe, the most significant thing that caused Carlton to turn that game around.” And turn it around they did. In a remarkable second half, the Blues, using handball as a means of attack, and at keeping the ball moving at all costs, ran all over the shell-shocked Magpies, outscoring them by 13 goals to four and recording the most famous victory in Grand Final history: 17.9 (111) to 14.17 (101). But although handball has been credited for Carlton’s success on that day, the fact remains that the skill was only performed on 73 different occasions by both teams combined (40 by Carlton and 33 by Collingwood). Compare those statistics with the 2015 Grand Final, where there were a combined 329 handballs between the Hawthorn and West Coast players

44 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

(166 by Hawthorn and 163 by West Coast), and one sees just how prolific the use of handball has become in the 45 years since 1970. The use of handball—where one holds the ball in one hand and punches it with the top of the fist of the other hand1– has been a fundamental skill of the game from its inception in the 1850s. However, for decades coaches were reluctant to use it as an attacking force during a match, directing their players to kick long to a contest and only handball when in trouble and about to be tackled. The first coach to fully appreciate that handball could be used as an attacking weapon was Len Smith (Fitzroy coach 1958-62, Richmond 1964-65), the older brother of the AFL’s Team of the Century coach, Norm Smith. Len Smith’s attacking style of coaching— at one stage he taught his players to flick the ball with an open palm, which saw his teams move the ball on at an even quicker pace, however the “flick pass” was soon outlawed from the game— helped to change the way the game was played, and by the 1970s all clubs were using handball as both an attacking and defensive tool. Indeed, Carlton’s 1979 premiership side, which was blessed with a ‘mosquito fleet’ of speedy players, ran oppositions ragged by handballing and running on at all costs. Incidentally, Carlton’s coach that day was Alex Jesaulenko, who had played under Barassi in that 1970 decider. Barassi admits that he was taught all he knew about handball from Len Smith. Hand skills are crucial in so many areas of Australian football. From ruck play to picking up the ball off the ground, bouncing the ball and jumping for a high 1 Watch this AFL Skills Guide video on the correct way to perform the handball: http://tinyurl.com/zcpxwn7.

mark, the player with good, clean hands has an advantage over an opponent who doesn’t control the ball as well. But it is handball, above all other hand skills, which remains the one component that can set the benchmark for a successful side. And it is a skill which can be performed by anyone, of any shape or size, because, unlike kicking, a handball is not affected by ball-drop or of needing to hold the ball in a specific way. Coaches and recruiters cast a keen eye over

ATTACKING WEAPON In today’s modern game, handball is a major attacking weapon as players run the ball from defence into attack. It is a skill that needs to be practised regularly and, by watching great handball exponents such as Matt Priddis, Josh Kennedy (Sydney) and Sam Mitchell you can improve your game.

TEACHING POINTS 1 The ball must be gripped lightly with the platform hand and hit with a clenched fist.

2 The punching fist is formed by placing the thumb outside, not inside, the fingers.

3 The stance is nearly side-on to allow the punching arm to swing through freely. Knees are slightly bent to maintain balance.

4 For a right-handed handball, the left foot is forward and vice versa for a left-handed handball.

5 The punching arm is also slightly bent.

HANDBALL

PRESSURE: Gary Ablett junior is a master at keeping his hands free no matter what pressure is applied, allowing him to find the best handball options for the benefit of a free teammate.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 45

03 SKILLS

STOPPAGE KING: 2014 Brownlow Medallist Matt Priddis is one of the game’s best under pressure, always able to find a delivery—by hand or foot—to his team’s advantage.

anybody who has quick, clean hands, and who can bring their teammates into the play by cleverly delivering a handball. According to AFL Legend and former North Melbourne rover, Barry Cable, one of his greatest strengths was his ability to cleanly gather the ball when it was in dispute and, utilising his superb vision and timing, fire out a handball to a teammate in a better position. Former Geelong, East Perth and West Perth ruckman and fellow AFL Legend, Graham “Polly” Farmer, despite standing some 23 centimetres taller than Cable, was equally effective at handballing in such a way that he opened up the game for his teammates. Famously, Farmer, in a photo ‘op’, could handball a football through a slight opening in a car window at the car yard where he worked, which demonstrated his tremendous accuracy. And countless players since the 1960s have appeared on various television programs where they have attempted to win the handball competition by handpassing at a moving, spinning target. Indeed, “Lou’s Handball”, named after former Collingwood premiership captain, Lou Richards, remains a highlight of Channel 9’s Sunday Footy Show, long after Richards had retired from the small screen. It is somewhat ironic that three of the finest technicians, and quickest distributors of handball in the past 20 years, are anything but the quickest runners on their teams. Dual Brownlow medallist, Greg Williams, and former Hawthorn and Geelong premiership captains, Sam Mitchell and Cameron

46 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

Ling respectively, would never have won a Grand Final sprint, but when it came to handballing there were few quicker than the three champions; all were equally adept at delivering pin-point handballs from either their left or right hand, and over distances as long as 15-20 metres. “During my teenage years, I made sure I learned how to handball with both hands and kick with both feet,” Ling said. “No matter how bad I was when I was younger, I used to handball on my left hand and get better and better at it—same with my right foot. When I moved into under-13s, under-15s and under-18s, it was more about doing everything as quick as I could. I tried to train myself under a bit of intensity, as if you were in a game.” Ling admits that he would do “a lot of close-in, quick hands sort of stuff” as well as “flicking up ground balls to someone running past” because, as he explained: “You’ve got to be able to take the ball cleanly in your hands and dish it off with a quick handball to a teammate.” Williams once said that, “I handball so much simply because I can’t run out of a pack .. My job is really to get the ball out to guys like [then Geelong teammate] Andrew Bews who will be running past.” So critical was Williams to Geelong’s fortunes that his captain at the time, Michael Turner, described him as “the most important player in our side.” Indeed, Williams earned the nickname “Diesel” because he was “slow and reliable” like a diesel engine. Mitchell, too, earned his nickname “The Extractor” because of his exceptional

work by hand in close. In a Hawthorn team full of star power, a team that has won four premierships in eight seasons (2008, 2013-15), Mitchell has remained a constant driving force in the middle of the ground, where his superb timing and touch has enabled him to become the one Hawk that all teams try to negate with a tagger. Like Cable did in the 1970s, Mitchell has that key ingredient of being able to bring a teammate into the game by putting a handball in just the right place by releasing the ball at just the right time. Some argue that the overuse of handball in modern football, and the tactic of keeping the ball off the opposition, has detracted from the overall spectacle of the game. Also, those with an appreciation for the finer craft of handball bemoan the fact that, unlike the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s where players used a more powerful handball which spun in a similar way to a drop punt kick—end over end after the fist made contact with the seams of the ball at one end—today’s players just look to shovel the ball up and out of what has become a much more congested area around the contest. It is no coincidence then that those who are able to gather the ball in heavy traffic, sum up the situation quickly and deliver a pin-point handball with either hand, remain a critical member of their side and a fan favourite. Each of Mitchell, Simon Black (Brisbane 1998-2013), Matt Priddis (West Coast), Jobe Watson (Essendon), Scott Thompson (Adelaide), Josh Kennedy (Sydney), Gary Ablett (Geelong, Gold Coast) and Scott West (Western Bulldogs, 1993-2008) have been or remain the centre-point for many a foray forward.

IN CONTROL: Bob Murphy controls play from the back half for the Bulldogs, setting up his team with a potent mix of hard running, pinpoint kicking, and sharp handball.

HANDBALL

FROM THE ENGINE ROOM: Geelongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s triple premiership player and 2011 captain, Cameron Ling spent much of his playing days in the heat of the battle. This photo, from the first edition of Skills Of Australian Football (2009), shows not just the commitment of Ling in action, but also the classic technique of handball: positioning and aim, clean hit with clenched fist, strong follow through. Ling, who played 246 games for the Cats, from 2000-2011, has since forged a career in the media as a commentator and analyst.

POSITIONING

Cameron Ling is well balanced, with his body in a side-on position His weight is moving forward over his right leg and his eyes are focused on the target. Both arms are slightly bent and the ball is pointing towards the target. The fist of the punching hand is driving towards the end of the ball.

IMPACT

The eyes are still focused on the receiver and his weight is continuing to move forward. The striking fist has sent the ball in a direct line towards the target with some backspin (similar to a drop punt kick).

FOLLOW THROUGH

The punching hand continues to follow through towards the target and the stable head position has been maintained throughout. Ling is continuing to run on to follow up the handball and support the receiver.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 47

03 SKILLS

TRIPLE PREMIERSHIP PLAYER: Luke Power

PICK UP

was a significant part of Brisbane’s superior midfield during his 302 games for Brisbane (282) and GWS (20) from 1998-2012. Not a long kick, he was a superb decision-maker.

It seems a simple skill, but it’s one that requires practice and a cool head — one hand or two? The answer is whichever allows a player to run hard, without breaking stride.

here is an art in being able to bend down and pick up a bouncing, rolling football, while, at the same time, managing to stay on your feet and maintain your speed. Champions such as Geelong’s Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield, Carlton’s Dale Thomas and West Coast’s Luke Shuey are all top-class playmakers who can cleanly gather a ball while under pressure and without losing a stride. So, too, were former stars as St Kilda’s Robert Harvey and Brisbane’s Luke Power and Jason Akermanis. But while all of these players have the ability to gather the ball in with one hand, the best way to learn how to pick up the ball while moving is to gather a stationary ball with two hands. Only then, once you feel confident in being able to repeatedly pick up the ball in two hands, should you switch to practising the skill with one hand. According to Power, the best way to ensure that you watch the ball into your hands is “to keep your eyes on the ball and keep your head as close to the ball as possible. If your head is further away, it is difficult to take the ball at one-touch.” Then, as dual-Brownlow medallist, Harvey, explains, with your eyes focused on the ball you enter into a slightly crouched over position, approaching from the left-hand side for a right-hand dominant player. “Lower your body with both knees and by bending at the waist” then, importantly, “learn to brace yourself in this position in case of a bump. Pick up the ball using your right hand to the rear of the ball and your left to the front.” Harvey’s advice is to begin the drills by walking towards a stationary ball, then progress to a jog as you become more comfortable, then approach the ball on the run. “Remember to practise approaching the ball from the other side, so that you

48 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

TAKING THE BALL A one-handed pick-up is normally used only when the ball is still or moving slowly. A two-handed pick-up is always safest in ensuring clean possession and is critical if the ball is moving, which is usually the case during a game.

learn to use both sides of your body.” With a moving ball, the key is to firstly keep your eye on the ball at all times, then, instead of approaching from the side, aim to get your body behind the ball so that it doesn’t bounce past you. “Make sure that your palms are open and facing the oncoming ball,” Harvey said.1 While Power admits that it can be quicker to pick the ball up with one hand, the percentage option—that is, the safer option—is to use two hands, particularly in wet conditions. The minute you take your eyes off the ball you run the risk of fumbling it. A great way to work on your overall ball-handling skills is to have a football in your hands as much as possible. The more you can handle the ball, toss it to yourself, and learn to gather it on the run, will ensure that you gain a greater understanding of the various ways that the ball will bounce around, as well as how it feels in your hands. Like all skills, practice makes perfect. “As a kid, I think you should be practising everything,” Power said. “When you’re a kid, it’s not even practice, it’s just fun. You’ll be kicking the ball along the ground and picking it up as much as possible.” 1 To listen to Robert Harvey explaining how to pick up the ball correctly, watch: http://tinyurl.com/gwmzlnh.

1 APPROACH Luke Power is focused on the ball as he runs towards it. He approaches the ball to one side to allow him to reach for it comfortably with his right hand. He is about to plant his right foot close to the ball and is beginning to lower his body to initiate the pick-up.

PicK UP

2 CROUCH He plants his right foot slightly behind and to the side of the ball, bends his right knee and lowers his right arm. His palm is open with his fingers pointing down and slightly spread, ready to go under the ball. He keeps his body close to the ball and his head over it.

3 SCOOP The crouched Power scoops his right hand underneath the ball. While his right foot remains planted, his left leg continues to move forward. As his right hand reaches for the ball, his left arm extends up and outwards to help his balance.

4 COMING UP Staying focused on the ball and coming up from his crouched position, Power brings the ball up with his right hand while bringing his left hand across to ensure a strong hold.

5 POSSESSION Power grabs the football with both hands and is now able to lift his head and look for options. He carries the ball, ready to deliver by hand or foot. He is looking up the field for attacking options.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 49

03 SKILLS

RUNNING BOUNCE Hard runners breaking the lines and bouncing have become one of the game’s most dynamic and exciting attacking movers.

t remains a much replayed moment, and one that still haunts Essendon supporters and Bomber defender, Cale Hooker. In the final quarter of their round 13 clash in 2010, with Essendon a goal in front of Hawthorn, Hooker and Hawk star, Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin, contested the ball on centre wing. Then, after the ball went over the head of both players, Franklin turned around quicker than his opponent and set off towards the bouncing ball, gathered it in, took three running bounces with Hooker in hot pursuit, before drilling a brilliant leftfoot goal from 35 metres out in the left forward pocket. Buddy’s 2010 Goal of the Year—which even had the goal umpire smiling as he signalled full points— helped to spark his side into action, and the Hawks went on to win by 16 points.1

Essendon fans can regain some spirit by watching Michael Long’s brilliant goal in the 1993 Grand Final; his four bounces from the wing, and low penetrating shot just clearing the outstretched hand of Carlton’s Steve Silvagni had the crowd roaring!2 While instinct, balance, awareness and ‘summing up the moment’ can play crucial roles in a player’s ability to run and bounce the ball, what cannot be ignored is the fact that it is a skill that requires plenty of practice. It is no coincidence then, that some of the finest running bouncers in the AFL just happen to be the elite players and trainers. “Players are encouraged to run and carry and bounce the ball a lot in our gamesituation training drills,” says Dylan Shiel of the Greater Western Sydney (GWS) Giants. “It’s definitely something that you

1 Watch Buddy’s brilliant bouncing goal here: http://tinyurl.com/h8hxgut.

2 Watch Long’s goal here: http://tinyurl.com/zkyn968.

BOUNCING: The running bounce requires a mix of leg speed, and skill. Three of the best are

Richmond’s Dustin Martin (above), Collingwood’s Dane Swan (opposite above), and Fremantle’s Stephen Hill (opposite below).

50 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

need to be able to execute properly. You first need the running ability to be able to do it, but then you’re going to practise it a lot at training so that you can then go naturally when the opportunity arrives during a game.” One such player who is able to recognise when the opporunity arrives is Gold Coast Suns captain, Gary Ablett, one of the best running bounce artists in the AFL. “It’s important that you have a quick glance up and know what’s going on around you,” Ablett said. “[And] if you can see you’re not going to be tackled, then it gives you time to take your bounce.” Says Shiel, “That all comes back to playing that instinctive football.” He, like Ablett, recognises that every scenario is different. While taking a bounce on the wing in space because there are no obvious targets up the field might be an option in one passage of play, the next time you find yourself in space the best option may be to kick quickly to a waiting teammate further down the ground. “It depends on the scenario,” Ablett said. “If I have a bit of space in front of me, then I will definitely take a couple of extra bounces. It’s very much a running game and bouncing the ball is a big part of today’s game. We are encouraged when we are out in space and there is not a target up the field to run along and have a bounce.” Players like Ablett, as well as Brisbane’s 2001 Brownlow medallist, Jason Akermanis, trained to be able to bounce the ball with either hand, which opened up far more possibilities for them to break clear of an opponent and gain some valuable metres for their respective teams. “If you’re needing to take a bounce before you baulk around someone, and they’re on your left-hand side, I think it’s important that you bounce on your right (hand), and vice

RUNNiNg BOUNce

versa,” Ablett said. Coaches will even organise game plans around getting the ball into the hands of their best runners (as Hawthorn does with Isaac Smith or Brad Hill for example), with the intention of implementing a style of play that will allow their side to ‘break the lines’ of the opposition defence. Players who are able to bounce on either side of their body will provide an extra option to help break down that defensive wall. And like with any skill—kicking, handballing and picking up the ball for example—the best way to teach yourself how to feel comfortable on both sides of the body is to practise, and practise regularly. “A lot of kids don’t practise on their opposite sides .. because maybe they’re a bit embarrassed around the rest of the group about stuffing up. But it will help your footy; whether it’s at practice or in your spare time, use both sides of your body,” Ablett said. In recent years, ‘metres gained’ has become a crucial statistic within AFL circles, as it highlights the amount of ground a player has spent not only running with the ball, but also delivering

it. (For example, one player may have gathered 35 disposals but only gained 200 metres for their team, while their opponent might have had 25 disposals but gained 450 metres for the side. The argument then becomes: who had the

most influence?). At Essendon, Brent Stanton is a highly valued player for his ability to carry the ball and gain large metres for his side, as is Brent Harvey at North Melbourne, Leigh Montagna at St Kilda and Richmond’s Brett Deledio.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 51

DURABLE: In 2016 North Melbourne’s Brent Harvey will line up for his 21st season, but age has not wearied him, nor cost him speed and

03 SKILLS superb skills. Keep an eye out for another ‘Boomer’ blind turn during the season, as he marches towards the AFL games-played record.

PREPARATION

Brent Harvey is approaching his opponent with the ball held in both hands while watching the opponent closely.

PLANT

He steps to the right and holds the ball out to the right in front of his opponent to draw him towards the ball.

BLIND TURN Once observed, never forgotten, the blind turn is a brilliant skill requiring nerves of steel, agility and plenty of practice.

t is magical to watch when Hawthorn’s brilliant Cyril Rioli swoops on a bouncing ball, gathers, and, in a split second, blind turns away from the oncoming opponent before casually snapping the ball through for a goal. Rioli makes it look easy—in fact, he makes everything look easy—but it takes great awareness, balance, quick thinking and practice to be able to implement the blind turn correctly. North Melbourne’s 400-game champion, Brent ‘Boomer’ Harvey, like Rioli, has made a career out of blind turning, or baulking opponents and, now free of any opposition,

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kicking spectacular goals. Harvey says that making a blind turn requires a split-second decision. “I think once the opposition is committed and they look like they’re going to smother the ball, you can pull out and get around them. Hopefully you can take up some more ground and get the ball forward.” The key to performing a blind turn is, firstly, to ensure you have control of the ball. Then, you motion your body to go in one direction—some players like to hold the ball out in their hand as part of that motion to try and further tempt the other player to move with them, but you can keep it tucked into your body for more

control—which will hopefully wrong-foot your opponent, before you push off with the leg that took most of your weight and turn back around in the other direction.1 Perhaps the most famous blind turn in football history was the one performed by Essendon’s Leon Baker, in the final quarter of the 1984 Grand Final. With the Bombers trailing Hawthorn at three quarter-time, Baker scored two brilliant roving goals in the first minutes of the last term, including one where he gathered 1 Watch this official AFL Skills Guide video on how to perform a blind turn: http://tinyurl.com/h343jbs.

BLiND tURN

DRIVE

TIGHT TURN

ACCELERATION

Harvey begins to turn to the right in front of his opponent, swinging away from him, yet at the same time bringing the ball in close to his body in the hand furthest away from danger. This turning motion makes it difficult to tackle him.

He continues to turn in towards the centre of the ground, keeping his body low and compact to facilitate the tight turn and holding the ball tightly to his body.

As he comes out of the turn, Harvey begins to accelerate away before straightening up his body and looking for the next attacking option.

the ball, spun around the oncoming Hawk defender and kicked the goal, helping to spark Essendon’s memorable revival.2 From there, the Bombers had all the momentum and went on to break a 19-year premiership drought. While you can certainly practise the blind turn at training, Harvey admits that you can’t plan for it during a game, “because if you plan it you’ll always get tackled.” It needs to be an instinctive action, and, for Harvey, he firstly sums up who is around him before deciding whether to attempt the blind turn. “You know the bloke who’s usually chasing you. I’d normally have a look to see what sort of player it is because if it’s a player with the pace of [teammate] Daniel Wells, I’m not too keen on taking those sort of guys on. If you get one of the big ruckmen who takes the big steps, you can get around them fairly easily.” Harvey believes it is easier for smaller, quicker players such as himself and

Rioli to perform the skill rather than a ruckman or centre half-forward. Both players are fortunate to be given plenty of latitude by their respective coaches, who are happy for them to perform the skill at any time during a game. And when it comes off, the supporters love it, especially if it results in a goal for their team. “If you can get around someone and have a shot at goal, you always take those chances,” Harvey added. Harvey sights his namesake, former St Kilda champion Robert Harvey, as a master at the blind turn. “He’s easily the best I’ve seen at it. You can see the way he does it, he doesn’t think about the way he’s going to do it. If someone over-commits, he’s gone with either a baulk or a blind turn.” Harvey was also the master of the side-step, that rapid fire movement to the left when your challenging opponent lunges to the right. An effective side-step can open the field to allow for effective delivery. Harvey, Cyril Rioli, Eddie Betts, Gary Ablett, and Ryan Griffen are modern-day exponents of this vital skill. Griffen says that when he is about to employ the side-step, he shuffles his feet,

waiting for his opponent to make their move. “Then I’ll push off the other way to try to trick them. It’s not easy to do but when it does work, it looks all right. It’s a split-second decision. If a player comes at me quickly in a pack, I’ll use it then and try to get around them.” Griffen does not let a training session go by without practising the side-step. “I use it every time I go out on the training track. In tackling training where you have to try to get around an opponent, I use the side-step then.”

2 Watch Baker’s brilliant goal – his second in the last quarter – that helped propel Essendon to the 1984 premiership: http://tinyurl.com/zjj55qp.

RYAN GRIFFEN’S KEY POINTS: 1 Hold the ball out to one side as the opponent approaches.

2 Push hard off the planted foot. 3 Pull the ball back in quickly to a secure position as you step around your opponent.

4 Make sure you change direction during the step.

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BIG COX: Dean Cox

03 SKILLS

was one of the game’s best big men during his 290 games with West Coast, from 2000-2014. Not just a tap ruckman, Cox was superb around the ground, combining superior running skills, with high marking and pinpoint kicking.

RUCK WORK A dominant ruckman can give his team first use of the ball, but an effective ruckman is not all about being big and strong and tall, it’s about a close relationship with the midfield, and a capacity to work hard around the ground.

f you happened to have been the tallest kid in your junior footy team, it was more than likely that you were the first picked to play in the ruck. Call it the curse of the beanstalk. For those who revelled in the role, the possibilities of influencing a game were endless. The game starts with the two ruckmen, who stand facing each other like fuming, charging bulls, and, when the siren sounds and the umpire bounces (or throws up) the ball, the two go full-steam at each other, leap off their dominant leg, brace for and expect contact somewhere around the midriff and then, after all that, try to place the ball to the advantage of their teammates below by either palming or punching the ball before their opponent does. It is a role not suited to the faint-hearted. In the 1970s, the ruckman was king. Indeed, of the 10 possible Brownlow Medals won between 1970 and 1979, five ruckmen took away the award (Len Thompson 1972, Gary Dempsey 1975, Graham Moss 1976, Graham Teasdale 1977 and Peter Moore 1979). Their influence on the game, both at the hitouts and around the ground was instrumental in the fortunes of their teams, and their mere presence on the field made smaller teammates walk taller. When the AFL named their Team of the Century in 1996, Carlton’s John Nicholls was selected as first ruckman. Perhaps no player in history has had such a presence on the field as Nicholls did at Carlton. “You knew no fear when Big Nick

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was around,” said former Carlton teammate, John Goold. “So many players were receiving the ball on their chest because he was such an amazing distributer of the ball. He had a very, very good football mind.” One of the greatest match-ups in football history took place whenever Carlton played Geelong between 1962 and 1967: it pitted Nicholls against Graham ‘Polly’ Farmer, the man later named second ruckman to Nicholls in the AFL Team of the Century. Both were named as Legends in the inaugural Hall Of Fame induction in 1996. Farmer was named captain of the Indigenous Team Of The Century in 2005. Nicholls names him as the greatest: “Farmer is without doubt the best, and hardest to beat, ruckman I have ever played against,” he wrote in Big Nick.1 “I believe that Farmer was probably the better player, but because of my knowledge of how to use my body and because I was prepared to give him a bit of biff now and again, particularly with my floating arms in the ruck, I found myself nullifying him in most games .. he had tremendous ability to use his body which in my opinion is the major art of ruckwork—you must use your body to get your hip and shoulders in front of the opposition ruckman and out-position him—so to 1 John Nicholls and Ian McDonald, Big Nick, Toorak: Gary Spark & Associates, 1977, pp. 47-48. For a look back at Nicholls in action, see this You Tube video: http://tinyurl.com/jn2vafh For Farmer: http://tinyurl.com/gqrrclk.

THE LEAP

Following his run-up, Dean Cox leaps towards the ball from one foot and swings both arms up to gain height. He watches the ball and prepares to palm it with his right hand to the space in front of his receiver. His body is side-on to his opponent for protection.

RUcK WORK

CREATING THE PLAY The role of the ruckman is crucial in setting up play from a variety of contests such as the centre bounce or boundary throw-in. To create opportunities for his smaller, running players, it is important that a ruckman has the skill to direct the ball to his teammates’ best advantage. West Coast Eagles’ Nic Naitanui and Fremantle’s Aaron Sandilands are great exponents of ruck skills.

PERFECT TIMING

He times his leap to reach maximum height at the point where he will contact the ball. His palming arm is straight and his fingers are spread to get maximum control of the ball on contact. His eyes are focused on the ball and his left arm moves in a natural balancing action.

DIRECTION

He hits the ball with his open hand and firm fingers. The ball is directed towards the target and he follows through with his arm in the direction of the tap. By leaping to meet the ball at his maximum height, he beats his opponent to the ball and taps it cleanly before contact has occurred.

THE BLOCK

He follows through towards his target and contact by his opponent has no effect on the direction of the ball. He is in a good position to block his opponent from further involvement in the play and to take possession himself if the ball goes to ground.

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03 SKILLS

BIG MAN: Great rivals Aaron Sandilands (Fremantle) and Todd Goldstein (North Melbourne) in battle (above), and opposite Nic Naitanui (Eagles) and Ben McEvoy (Hawthorn) fighting for the knock in the 2015 Grand Final.

have a chance against him you had to play him at his own game; and that was far from easy as he had a good leap and used his legs well to ‘ride’.” As Nicholls noted, ruckwork is an art all to itself, and, when performed correctly it has the potential to influence a game like few other positions on the field. Despite all that has changed in the game in the past decades—particularly the enormous increase in player fitness levels, which has meant that the Brownlow Medal is now regularly won by the midfielders and not the ruckmen— former Geelong ruck star, John ‘Sam’ Newman, who learned his trade by watching Farmer, at both training and in matches, believes that the ruckmen of today are even more relevant than in his time. “In my day you could have as many people around the ball as you liked, there was no centre square like there is now. So there was just a jumble of players around the ball. Today, you have three people from either side in the centre square, as well as one ruckman each who are jumping at the ball, so there are more ways to exploit that space. It is impossible for three players to cover an area of 360 degrees. Most stand on their defensive side of the circle with the aim of running onto the ball if it gets hit forward. But if you look at where the gaps are at every centre bounce, they are behind and in front of the umpire, so there is any area that can be exploited by a ruckman like a Simon Madden.”

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Some argue that Madden (Essendon 1974-1992) is the finest ruckman to have played in the big league. One only has to watch a replay of the 1985 Grand Final to see how dominant Madden could be on his day (he won the Norm Smith Medal, and remains the only ruckman to win it). As Newman learned by watching Farmer, Madden learned his craft by watching firstly Graham Moss and then, later, when coached by Newman. “I sat in the forward pocket for three years while Graham Moss won three best and fairests and a Brownlow Medal,” Madden said. “To underscore how valuable he was to the club, I remember when somebody got injured we were just expected to cover their absence, but when Mossy got injured one time the amount of time and effort that the club went to in order to try and get him up for the next game was huge. And that was the first time I got to see first-hand what a superstar was.” Newman rates Madden up with the best, although he will always rate Farmer the best of all. “Simon Madden was an outstanding ruckman and he was also a great forward: he could do it all. He had a great technique that needed honing. What he did was he jumped off the same leg as the arm that he hit the ball with. Therefore, he could jump a metre into his opponent and still have the ball above him. He stopped people getting to the flight of the ball, which is what Farmer did, and that is what I tried to do.” Newman jumped off his right leg and

hit the ball with his right hand, and he said that, “if you watch people playing football today in the ruck, most ruckman, while they know what they’re trying to do, have no idea how to go about doing it correctly. It sounds simple enough, but if it’s not in you to jump and use your body in that way, then it’s very hard to change. Simon Madden was adept at it, and by me just pointing this out to him he became unbeatable. Back then if it was an ordinary bounce in the centre you would have to compensate for that as a ruckman, but in today’s game where they bring the ball back and ensure a straight bounce Madden would be totally unbeatable.” Madden has just as much praise for Newman: “Sam Newman came in as ruck coach at the end of 1982,” he said. “I was younger than him, taller than him, could leap higher than him, I was more athletic than him, and yet he used to beat me in the ruck. It was frustrating as hell! “My idea had been to run in as hard as you could against the other bloke and hope you came off best, whereas Sam came in and showed me that if you come in from an angle, jump early, and then palm a certain way, you stood a much better chance of directing the ball down to your teammate. I remember thinking ‘wow’, and all of a sudden it wasn’t 50-50, it was more 70-30 my way, and that made a huge difference to my game. “If you go back through the history of Grand Finals, it’s proven that a team with a dominant ruckman has a much better chance of winning than one that doesn’t have one. Hawthorn was a great side during the 1980s, but in that 1985 Grand Final they had Chris Langford rucking against me, and he was not suited to that role, nor was he big enough. I joke that I made Chris Langford’s career because they played him in the ruck and I won the Norm Smith Medal, so they moved him to full-back and he played 300 games! He was a very good player, but he was used in the ruck because they had no one else, and it proved costly on that occasion.” The biggest beneficiary of ruckwork in the modern game is 2015 Brownlow medallist, Nat Fyfe, who has the luxury of standing at the feet of the tallest player ever to have played the game: Aaron Sandilands.2 Indeed, when Fyfe accepted his Brownlow on stage, he made special mention of the role that the Fremantle ruckman had played in his success, telling host, Bruce McAvaney: “Bruce, you could probably win a Brownlow with Aaron Sandilands hitting it down your throat!” 2 To see how Aaron Sandilands and West Coast ruckman, Nic Naitanui, practice their craft, watch this AFL Skills Guide film: www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AOXckfeKx4.

RUcK WORK

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03 SKILLS

THIRD MAN UP With stoppages now prolific in any match, more strategy is applied than ever before. The third man up not only can provide an outside runner with an easy ‘out’, but also can break hard tags via this unexpected move.

t drives coaches wild when they have spent the week planning for the around-the-ground stoppages, and then an opposition player leaves his opponent to go third man up in the ruck contest, hitting the ball directly into the path of a teammate. Not so long ago, this was done spontaneously, but canny coaches—and players—have seen how devastating this play can be, opening up a zone that appeared to be closed when two big men are doing battle. The best AFL teams not only train for this, but have players who regularly play such a role for their side. At Hawthorn that man is Jordan Lewis, while Collingwood’s clearance king, Scott Pendlebury, does it time after time for the Magpies. Another standout is Fremantle’s 2015 Brownlow medallist, Nat Fyfe, who is able to time his run and utilise his powerful legs to leap over the top of the Dockers’ beanstalk ruckman, Aaron Sandilands, and place the ball into the arms of a waiting teammate. “We certainly train for the third man up,” Fyfe said. “With the evolution of big-bodied midfielders and tall wingmen, there is a real opportunity to use that height wherever you can; particularly against a dominant opposition ruckman. Because the game is so stoppage focused these days, ruckmen get tired really quickly, particularly if there are a lot of repeat ball-ups. So we train for it, whether that be mid-to-mid or wing-to-wing, we train the hits and we train the areas we want to hit the ball to. But when you’re playing the game, a lot of it comes down to having the stoppage intelligence to know what’s around you, who’s tired, who’s free, where the space is and what you want to try and achieve by going third man up. It’s become a really critical part of the modern game.”

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For players like Fyfe, Lewis and Pendlebury, who are at the elite end of the AFL spectrum, rarely a game goes by where they won’t find themselves being closely tagged by an opponent, or opponents. And so, that ability to push off that opponent and go third man up is also a way of breaking free of the heavy tag. According to Fyfe, there is method behind the movement. “The whole modern game of footy is so much more than just skills and being hard at the ball; it’s just a giant game of cat and mouse really. You have got to make your opposition player think about what you’re doing. Whether that’s dragging him out of space, or pushing him under a stoppage, you’ve got to make him think about what you’re doing. “The ideal scenario is when he’s worried about you, and all you’re worried about is getting the ball; that’s when you clearly have an advantage over an opponent. And by going third man up, it takes your opponent’s focus away from actually trying to hunt the ball and earn space for his team, and it shifts that focus to trying to stop you from jumping. You have a numerical advantage at the stoppage immediately, just by being proactive in that regard.” The ability for you to prove effective as your team’s third man up is assisted by the roles of your teammates around the stoppage. Clubs spend many hours on refining their stoppage set-ups, where players are taught to block the run of an opponent to allow a teammate to find enough space to become a dangerous player. It may only be a few centimetres gained, but it’s that split second of separation that allows Fyfe, Lewis, Pendlebury, as well as Geelong’s Mark Blicavs and Fyfe’s Fremantle teammate, David Mundy, to work their magic, whether that’s on the ground or leaping

over the toiling ruckmen to win a clear hitout to their team’s advantage. (In a growing trend, the 2015 AFL average per team was 4.5 third man up contests a game, as opposed to 2.8 the previous year. In 2015, Blicavs was the clear AFL leader with 100 contests, followed by Lewis, Mundy and Greater Western Sydney’s Callan Ward on 47, Essendon’s Dyson Heppell on 44, and Fyfe on 42).1 “The guys who are really good at it are the guys who are really subtle, but also, they can block and they can get off and get used as well,” Fyfe said. And, not surprisingly, his coach at the Dockers in Ross Lyon agrees. “If you’re third up, if midfielders aren’t playing on you, you’re [being] proactive so then it draws them out. They might be standing in cover to stop your exit, so by going third up, they come to you.”2 So damaging have the best players become at perfecting the art of competing third man up, there have been calls for the tactic to be outlawed. Indeed, AFL umpires are instructed to cast a keen eye across the around-the-ground ruck contest, so as to ensure that the nominated ruckman does not apply an illegal shepherd or block to allow his teammate to jump over the top unhindered. “Sometimes there’s a little bit of confusion about who’s the ruckman, and you’re screening out the third jumper and you’ll get pinged,” Lyon said. “I think you just need some clarity on that but I like it, I like the initiative.”3 1 For more, see Jon Pierik’s article on www.theage.com.au, 24 February 2016. 2 Ross Lyon quote sourced from a Jennifer Phelan article on www.afl.com.au, 18 June 2015. 3 Ibid.

MASTER OF ALL TRADES: Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe can do it all. Here he jumps above Carlton’s Cameron Wood as third man up to put the ball to his team’s advantage.

tHiRD mAN UP

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04 ONE-PERCENTERS

ONE-PERCENTERS By definition, these are those moments in a game that can separate a tug-of-war: a spoil, a smother, a brave tackle, a chase down, or sacrificial running and blocking. All are scrupulously practised, and all can make a significant difference.

lthough the game has seen many changes throughout its history, the importance of the one-percenters—those tiny, desperate acts that a player can do/must do to help influence the play when not directly in possession of the ball—remain as relevant as ever. And while they may not be prominent in newspaper stats columns, rest assured that coaches and teammates will be well aware of those who are able to perform them, and perform them well. These are the items that video analysts will highlight, over and over again in their post-match reviews. They are the acts of sheer desperation—tackles, smothers, spoils, shepherds, bumps, blocks, pick-ups, tap-ons, running bounces, blind turns, fend-offs and even running to space as an option or a bluff. Media analysts will note that Hawthorn’s Cyril Rioli applies one-percenters to defenders by his sheer presence around the ball: they know that any fumble will have Rioli pouncing: that’s called “perceived pressure”, just another example of a non-stat one-percenter. Throughout any game the opportunity to apply a onepercenter is endless. Coaches highlight them as shining examples of self-sacrifice, hardness and team play. The beauty of the one-percenters is that any player, anywhere on the field can contribute. It’s not about talent: it’s about attitude and discipline. There is no finer example of a true ‘team player’ than one who regularly performs the one-percenters, week in and week out. Indeed, dual Brownlow medallist Gary Ablett junior admits that, in order to stay involved in a game, he will aim to apply a tackle, bump or block whenever he has

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the opportunity. By doing so, he not only assists his teammates, but he remains in the play where he is more than likely to gain a disposal. At the Greater Western Sydney Giants, the emphasis on one-percenters—or, to use the modern vernacular, “defensive pressure acts”—is “massive” according to star midfielder, Dylan Shiel. “From when I started, to now, the focus on what we call the ‘defensive pressure acts’, is becoming more and more of a focus. A lot of them are done when we don’t have the ball and we’re trying to win it back, so we have a massive emphasis on things like blocking, smothering, tackling, spoiling and punching from behind. If you’re able to execute and accumulate a lot of those defensive acts, it can really break down a team and stop them from getting momentum. And what it does show is that

the teammate cares for the team and his teammate, because, it’s a selfless act, the one-percenter.” In modern football, where numerous players flood stoppages, creating ugly congestion around the ball, the importance of either a shepherd or a block becomes crucial in providing teammates the space and time to get a clean possession and effective disposal. The elite teams, such as Hawthorn and Fremantle, have been well drilled in providing these crucial one-percenters at ruck contests, in order to give a teammate an opportunity to get a kick or handball from congestion. Another important act around the contest is the smother, which, when executed correctly, can not only halt your opponent from sending the ball forward, it can also create a turnover that sees the ball quickly rebound in your direction,

TEAM FIRST: Geelong’s Tom Hawkins is about to smother (above) Sam Wright’s attempted clearance, and Richmond’s Alex Rance spoils against his long-time rival Lance Franklin, each of them great examples of the one-percenter.

ONe-PeRceNteRS

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04 ONE-PERCENTERS

with the opposition out of possession. While it takes guts to smother with your hands or body—especially on a cold day—the rewards can far outweigh any negatives. An old-fashioned highlight of the game is the bump, and although much has changed in recent years around the way the bump is executed, an effective bump—or ‘hip-and-shoulder’ as it has come to be known—can knock an opponent off balance, allowing a teammate to gather the loose ball. Former Norm Smith medallists in Glenn Archer and Byron Pickett were two who executed the hip-and-shoulder with devastating effect. Although rule changes in the past decade have made high hits illegal, there is still an element of poetry in seeing a perfectly timed hip-and-shoulder. However, players today are instructed to tackle instead of bump, to not only eliminate the risks of collecting an opponent above the shoulders, thus

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incurring not only a free kick but a potential suspension, but to also lock the ball in and gain another set play from the resultant ball-up. Over a long period the Sydney Swans players, such as Brett Kirk, Dan Hannebery, Josh Kennedy and Keiran Jack, have all been renowned for their tackling ability. When done correctly, especially when pinning one arm and retarding the ball carrier’s ability to get a clean kick or handball away, a well-applied tackle can rapidly turn defence into attack. The smother, bump and tackle rely heavily on timing, and this is even more relevant with the spoil. There is little worse for a coach than seeing one of his players get out-marked when he could have and should have punched from behind. It remains one of the most enduring fundamentals of the game, particularly for defenders. In recent years, both Hawthorn’s Josh Gibson and Richmond’s Alex Rance have become

elite defenders on the back of their ability to spoil to advantage, just as Carlton’s champion Bruce Doull did in his era. Done correctly, the defensive spoil can quickly turn into an attacking play, something the best sides base their game plans around: that ability to move the ball quickly and cleanly from defence into their forward half.

he ability to pick the ball up off the ground, cleanly, while still in motion is as much a skill as it is a one-percenter. The player who can execute such a skill, without fumbling the ball, has a distinct advantage over an opponent, reducing any opportunity to lay a tackle. Recruiters are always on the lookout for players who can gather the ball cleanly. Modern-day champions such as Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury and Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe are two players who rarely fumble the ball when it is in dispute. “Clean hands” or “good hands”

OUT OF MY WAY: WestONe-PeRceNteRS Coast’s Luke Shuey has the ball in control as he fends off St Kilda’s Jack Billings as he breaks clear of a stoppage.

may appear to be a modern descriptor, but, in truth it has always been a skill that defines an elite player. One of the most exciting skills of the modern game is when a player bursts through the lines, running and bouncing the ball. This has never been more important than in today’s game, where coaches are desperate to find players who can break the lines, not only running and bouncing their way out of defence, but threatening opposition defenders as they attempt to plug holes as their opponents spread left, right, and centre. Metres gained has become a key statistic. These type of players have become gold in the modern game, with players like Hawthorn’s Isaac Smith, West Coast’s Andrew Gaff and Lewis Jetta, and the Bulldogs Bob Murphy classic examples of the form. North Melbourne’s Brent Harvey is one of the finest exponents of the craft; his running goals have been

a staple of his 400-plus games at the highest level. Harvey is also adept at the blind turn, which, when done correctly, can put an opponent offside and allow the opportunity to move the ball forward unimpeded. And for brute strength, the fend-off, where a player holds the ball to his body with one hand and pushes off an opponent with the other—much like in rugby league—can be used as an attacking weapon. AFL Legend Alex Jesaulenko was a master at the craft, so too Gary Ablett senior, while in the modern game Richmond’s Dustin Martin has become a fan favourite for the way he fends off opponents on a weekly basis. Fyfe and Hawthorn’s Luke Breust (who played rugby league as a junior) are others who execute this skill multiple times through a match. Apply these skills correctly, and consistently, and you will become a key member of any team.

NO ESCAPE: Geelong’s run-with midfielder Cameron Guthrie has no out, when one of the game’s best tacklers Hawthorn’s Cyril Rioli has him in his grasp.

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RECORD MAKER: During his 325-game career with Sydney from 1999-2013, Jude Bolton set an AFL record of 1490 tackles, a record broken in 2014 by St Kilda’s Lenny Hayes. This photo shows the commitment required to make a tackle that sticks.

04 ONE-PERCENTERS

TACKLE Modern Australian football is as much about what a team does when it doesn’t have the ball, as when in possession. The tackle has grown in stature in recent decades, as one of the most important defensive moves in the game.

ssendon was odds-on favourites to win the 1999 preliminary final against Carlton, but, to everyone’s surprise, the Blues led by a point with less than a minute remaining. Dean Wallis was charging towards the Bombers forward line, about to bomb the ball long towards goal; all that stood in his way was Carlton’s Fraser Brown, who latched on to Wallis and dispossessed him of the ball, allowing the Blues to rebound from defence and hold on to record a famous victory. Although there were better players than Brown on the day, you can rest assured that

his tackle on Wallis is remembered above all other acts.1 The tackle has been the key defensive skill throughout the history of Australian football. When performed correctly, a tackle should either dispossess the ball carrier, or hold the ball in, forcing a ball-up. The Sydney Swans have been renowned for their ferocious tackling over the past two decades, with players such as Paul Kelly, Brett Kirk, Jude Bolton, Kieran Jack, Josh Kennedy and Dan 1 Watch Fraser Brown’s match-saving tackle at: http://tinyurl.com/jyyxsco.

IN A VICE: Patrick Dangerfield is one of the game’s most brilliant runners, with a consistent capacity to break tackles. Not this time, as Melbourne’s Bernie Vince has him in a classic tackle, one arm around the waist, one on his free arm, eliminating Dangerfield’s capacity to dispose of the ball legally.

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EYES FOCUSED

Jude Bolton has his eyes focused on the hips of the opponent (Geelong’s Jimmy Bartel) carrying the ball and is going in low to make the tackle. As Bartel is turning to evade the tackle, Bolton has gripped his body at waist level with his right hand.

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LOW AND STRONG

Staying low to ensure that the tackle is made at the correct height (around the waist), Bolton’s left arm is moving to wrap around Bartel’s body and left arm which is controlling the ball. Bolton says that when he is about to tackle, his major focus is on his opponent’s hips.

ARMS PINNED

Bolton has pinned Bartel’s left elbow and is using both arms to pull his opponent strongly into his body and is beginning to drop his weight to drag his opponent down. The effect of the tackle has caused Bartel to begin losing control of the ball as he hurriedly attempts to handball.

FREE BALL

The tackle has caused the ball to spill free, giving Bolton or a teammate an opportunity to take possession and create a turnover. (If the player is judged to have had prior opportunity, a free kick would result for not immediately disposing of the ball with a kick or handball when tackled correctly).

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HANDS FREE: Port 04 ONE-PERCENTERS Adelaide’s Chad Wingard has a firm tackle on the Bulldogs’ Dale Morris, but it’s a failed tackle as Morris has his hands free and is able to handball to a teammate.

KEYS TO GOOD TACKLING Tackling takes practice, appropriate supervision and good coaching. There are three angles from which players can tackle— front, side and behind. Think of all the good tacklers in Australian Football and the first thing you realise is that they want to tackle when they know they can’t win the ball or an opponent has the ball. The essence to good tackling, like all team play, is to want to do it and to know how to do it.

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NAILED: Gold Coast’s

tAcKLe

Andrew Boston has Fremantle’s Michael Barlow firmly in his grip, in a ferocious tackle.

Hannebery all regarded by their peers as being among the best of the best. Indeed, it is one of the non-negotiables in the famous ‘Bloods culture’ that the club has developed in recent years. Bolton was renowned as a fine tackler, before he even joined the Swans from TAC Cup team Calder Cannons in 1999. “For me, a lot of tackling is intent,” Bolton said. “Technique might take up about 20 per cent of it and intent takes up the rest, in terms of just the desire to make that tackle and make it stick. The technique is really the icing on the cake.” Brownlow medallist Paul Kelly was voted the AFL’s most courageous footballer (winning the Australian Football League Player’s Association’s Robert Rose Award) on five occasions, and was recognised as one of the toughest players of the 1990s. Growing up in Wagga Wagga in New South Wales—rugby territory—Kelly brought his tacking skills from playing and watching rugby as a junior into his AFL career. Today, clubs have been known to be taught the art of tackling correctly and effectively by their rugby league and rugby union counterparts, because tackling is such a big part of the rugby codes. “We get a lot of training from some of the rugby union and rugby league coaches,” Bolton added. “I think the contact that you get out of playing rugby league helps you prepare for Aussie Rules,” Kelly explained. “Footy is a lot more defensive now than when I first started, and so, tackling has become

even more important than it was then. Because of those early years playing rugby league I was always looking for that contact, and so that was the biggest thing I took from playing rugby into playing footy. It is a different tackle that you are required to make in rugby, because you’re actually looking for the contact which dictates how you approach the contest and your opponent. You don’t mind getting hit because you’re more prepared for it. There are certainly two different styles of tackles that are required in the two different codes.’

he Laws of the game state that you must tackle an opponent above the knees and below the shoulders. The best way to do that is to watch their hips and not the ball. You should look to try and pin one or both of their arms into their body so that they cannot perform an effective handball or kick, which will result in a free kick your team’s way for incorrect disposal. Grabbing the one arm has been all but patented by Hawthorn’s Cyril Rioli. All coaches place a high emphasis on tackling, and modern gameplans are based around getting repeat stoppages, allowing new starts. As Bolton explained, the best tacklers are the best because they have the intent. It does not matter whether you’re the biggest player on the ground, or the smallest, everyone can tackle if they have the correct mindset. Indeed, one of the greatest tacklers of all-time was Footscray’s (now known as the Western

Bulldogs) 1990 Brownlow medallist, Tony Liberatore, who was only 163 centimetres tall! “You have to be able to twist them, turn them and roll with them, so you’re not just charging in and giving away a free kick,” Bolton said. You do, however, need to make sure not to lift the player and then sling him to the ground, head first. Not only is it an extremely dangerous tackle that can result in serious head and neck injuries, it will also result in a free kick being awarded against you, and you run the risk of being reported.2 According to Dylan Shiel of the Greater Western Sydney Giants, tackling “is a massive focus of our training”. Shiel’s coach, Leon Cameron, emphasises the importance of being able to tackle well because, as Shiel explains, “the teams that tackle the most and apply the most pressure are the teams that generally win.” In the modern game, some of the finest tacklers are West Coast’s 2014 Brownlow medallist, Matt Priddis, St Kilda’s Jack Steven and David Armitage, the Western Bulldogs Liam Picken, as well as the captains of Port Adelaide, Geelong and North Melbourne respectively in Travis Boak, Joel Selwood and Andrew Swallow. And Hawthorn’s speedster Rioli has the crowd on their feet whenever he chases down an opponent from behind. It is no coincidence that all of these players are stars at their respective clubs. 2 Watch this video on the art of tackling correctly as part of the Official AFL Skills Guide: http://tinyurl.com/zj52me5.

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SMOTHER A player breaks free and has the field ahead of him, when all of a sudden an opponent swoops and, in an act of significant bravery, tosses himself across the boot, creating a game-changing turnover: that’s the smother in action.

t was a Grand Final moment that set the scene for what lay ahead. St Kilda captain, Nick Riewoldt, running into an open goal late in the first quarter of the 2010 Grand Final replay, looked certain to kick his team’s first goal of the game. As Riewoldt approached the goal line and wound up to boot the ball high into the grandstand, out of nowhere came Collingwood’s Heath Shaw. Shaw dived desperately across Riewoldt’s boot and smothered the ball forcing it through for a behind. As great Grand Final moments go, that is one that will continue to be replayed for decades to come. Channel Seven commentator, Tom Harley, said afterwards “that was as good a play as I’ve ever seen.”1 Like all skills in Australian football, the act of performing a smother can be trained for, no matter your level of talent. It takes timing and attitude, as Shaw showed on the biggest of stages. During the earliest days of Ron Barassi’s coaching stint at North Melbourne, training watchers would often see a line of players with a footy, and a teammate dashing down the line performing one smother after the other. Once he was done, then came the next. Former North Melbourne captain and current West Coast Eagles coach, Adam Simpson, says that “you don’t have to have talent to be good at smothering, it’s definitely a mindset.” Simpson revealed that in the rooms before a game the North Melbourne players would “get in a bit of body contact and do a few practice tackles, then do a few practice smothers .. We [would] get someone to kick the ball as hard as they could.”

1 You can watch Shaw’s brilliant smother at http://tinyurl.com/h97cvds.

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While players are taught to tackle an opponent first and foremost, it is when that option becomes unavailable—either through a missed tackle or a player attempting to get a quick kick out of congestion—that you can switch your mindset to smothering the attended kick, therefore preventing the ball from moving forward for the opposition. The rebound, in such circumstances, can be shattering, as so many of the opposition will be running against the play, expecting a kick to their advantage. Said Simpson, “All you can do is prevent the disposal being effective and that’s when you might try to smother.” In the 1950s and 1960s, Essendon captain, Jack Clarke, was renowned

COURAGE: Sydney’s Ben McGlynn is one of the game’s most courageous team players as this smother exemplifies.

for his ability and timing to read an opponent’s kick and arrive at his boot at the precise moment the footy would make contact with their foot. Then, within one motion Clarke had not only smothered the kick, but had stolen it off their boot and was running away with the ball in the opposite direction. This didn’t happen by accident; he trained for it with younger brother, Ron, one of Australia’s finest distance runners. And in 1981, Carlton’s flamboyant forward, Peter Bosustow, dived across his opponent’s boot in the forward pocket, smothered the ball, gathered and snapped what would later be awarded the Goal of the Year.2 As ‘The Buzz’ said, in the chapter on The Hanger, he had many strings to his bow: “Yeah, okay, Bosustow was known for taking the big high mark and for his great goal-kicking. But it’s very, very good to have the third leg of that trio which is the one-percenter. I was a very, very big team player and I think Carlton people appreciate me more as that sort of player. But make no mistake, The Buzz was a superstar!” As the game has sped up in recent years, the importance of applying an effective smother is arguably greater now than ever before. With teams transitioning the ball from end to end at rapid pace, a smother—whether in close, congested areas, out on an open wing or even while manning the mark— is still regarded highly as a means of halting the movement of the opposition, allowing your team to either win the ball back, or gain valuable time to set up defensively. Or, as in Heath Shaw’s case, to save a certain goal. 2 See Bosustow’s smother and Goal Of The Year at http://tinyurl.com/huz6plw.

SmOtHeR

TEACHING POINTS 1 Get as close as possible to the player with the ball.

2 Hands are thrust straight out from the hip across the direction of the kick. They are not raised above the head and brought down on the foot.

3 Hands are together and fingers are spread to maximise chances of making an effective smother.

4 Head is kept directly behind the hands and forearms for protection.

5 Eyes are fixed firmly on the ball to ensure the smother covers the ball and to improve chances of gaining possession after the ball has been smothered.

FAMOUS MOMENT:

SKILLS OF

It was in the 2010 Grand Final Replay and St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt looked to have a goal all sealed, when, from nowhere, Collingwood defender Heath Shaw dived and smothered the kick. One of the great GrandFOOTBALL Final moments. AUSTRALIAN 69

04 ONE-PERCENTERS

SPOIL It’s been part of the game forever, but it seems it’s become a new skill given the professional nature of today’s elite game. The best spoilers don’t just use the spoil to defend, it’s also an attacking move, placing the spoil to advantage.

t has been one of football’s non-negotiables—the defensive spoil—and, when done correctly, it has managed to nullify some of the game’s finest forwards. Even the man widely believed to be the AFL’s greatest ever player, North Melbourne’s Wayne Carey, felt the full effects of the spoil on occasion, particularly when he came up against the West Coast Eagles’ Glen Jakovich during the 1990s. Back then, the game was played more oneon-one, and Jakovich (centre half-back) and Carey (centre half-forward) fought out some of the finest duels of their era; Carey’s marking and Jakovich’s spoiling proving to be must-watch television every time their two clubs met. Whereas today, teams train for a defender to impact the contest as the ‘third man up’, making it even more difficult for forwards such as Collingwood’s Travis Cloke and Geelong’s Tom Hawkins to compete in the air. Collingwood premiership captain, Nick Maxwell, was adept at the art of spoiling as the ‘third man up’, while today, Hawthorn’s Josh Gibson is known as ‘the spoiling machine’, so dominant has he become at punching the ball clear of an opponent.

EYES ON THE BALL Spoiling is an effective method of preventing an opponent from marking or gaining possession of the ball. When attempting to spoil the football away in a marking contest, it is imperative the player maintains eye contact on the football at all times. If he takes his eyes off the ball in a marking contest and makes contact with the player attempting to mark, a free kick will be awarded.

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Indeed, in the 2011 second semi-final between Hawthorn and Sydney, Gibson recorded an AFL record of 21 spoils, which went a long way to securing his team a comfortable victory. Not only did Gibson negate the Sydney forwards, but he also generated plenty of rebound from defence. So, while it begins as a defensive play in that your first aim is to bring the ball to ground, the spoil can also act as an attacking tool, and AFL coaches are always on the lookout for players who can perfect such an important one-percenter. Whether you find yourself one-out with an opponent, or you play the same role as Maxwell and Gibson and come across to help out your teammate by outnumbering an opponent at the contest, to perform a spoil correctly you require exquisite timing, good balance, core strength and a willingness to commit to the spoil, even if it means sacrificing your own game to do so. Former Adelaide defender, Graham Johncock, explained that he tried to “have a bit of control over the spoil” because he didn’t “want it to go off the fist and fall anywhere.” Johncock would try to sum up where his ground cover players were and “hit the ball in their vicinity.” Like all AFL clubs, the Adelaide Crows spend a lot of time doing one-on-one work at training, and it is in those situations where their players practise and perfect their spoiling techniques. Johncock recalled that he got “confidence out of that” and would then endeavour to take that confidence gained from practice into games. “It definitely helps,” he said. It is no coincidence that some of football’s finest ever defenders just happened to be great spoilers. Players like Carlton’s Bruce Doull, North Melbourne’s Mick Martyn, St Kilda’s Danny Frawley, Essendon’s ‘Mr Gadget’ in Dustin Fletcher and Carlton’s Stephen Silvagni (who was named full-back

in the AFL Team of the Century) were defensive monsters. Not only were they difficult in a one-on-one situation, they were also adept at spoiling their opponent and bringing the ball to ground. Doull was a master at not just spoiling, but often his spoils would hit a free-running teammate on the chest. He was uncanny. While rule changes relating to the hands-in-the-back rule have tightened in recent years, making it harder for a defender to use their hands to out-body an opponent, the importance of a welltimed spoil remains as valuable as ever. But, as Johncock explained, your first option should always be to put yourself in a position to mark the ball. “If the ball is there and you’re in the right position to take the mark, then (you) back yourself in to take the mark. But a lot of forwards like to play in front of defenders and, if you’re a defender, you try to bring the ball to ground.” One of the finest players at summing up whether to mark or spoil was 1993 Brownlow medallist Gavin Wanganeen, who won premierships with Essendon and Port Adelaide. Said Johncock, “He was a pretty courageous backman who took big marks and took on the best forwards in the competition. According to Greater Western Sydney on-baller, Rhys Palmer, the aim of the spoil is to “stop the ball from landing in the hands of the opposition, by using your fist, or hands, to knock the ball out of the way.” As a former member of one of the best defensive teams in the AFL – the Ross Lyon-coached Fremantle Dockers – Palmer was well drilled on the importance of spoiling and not allowing an opponent to gain a clean possession.1 1 For a fun and informative look at the art of spoiling, check out this video by Rhys Palmer: http://tinyurl.com/zc9vbv5.

SPOiL

TEACHING POINTS 1 Josh Gibson has his eyes firmly focused on the ball and at no stage has placed his hands in the back of his opponent.

2 As the ball has arrived, Gibson has fully extended his arm for maximum reach and, using a clenched fist, has punched the ball away from the hands of his opponent.

3 It is important that Gibson does not fall into the back of his opponent and keeps his feet to follow up the ball after spoiling it away.

4 Ideally, if in the defensive section of the ground, Gibson should be aiming to spoil the ball towards the boundary line or in the path of a teammate.

SPOIL MACHINE: Hawthorn’s Josh Gibson has been a star of Hawthorn’s run of Grand Final victories, winning the Best and Fairest in the club’s premiership years of 2013 and 2015. A great all-rounder he is also renowned as the best spoiler in the game.

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04 ONE-PERCENTERS

DOCKER AS EAGLE: Fremantle midfielder Danyle Pearce has a clear run as his teammate Matt de Boer applies the classic arms spread, birdlike shepherd, keeping a swarm of GWS players at bay.

SHEPHERD/BLOCK The shepherd is a skill clearly seen by the fans, whereas the block is often a sacrificial act, seen only by the coaching team. Players practise the ‘block’ regularly to give their teammates clear space at the many stoppages in the modern game.

ou won’t find the shepherd/ block on many AFL stats sheet—at least not those we pore over on websites and newspapers post-match—but, particularly in the modern game, the act of shepherding for a teammate continues to be highly regarded within club walls. The primary objective of this team act is to provide time and a pathway for a teammate to execute a clean disposal. “You try to take the opponent out of the

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contest,” explains former Carlton and now North Melbourne forward, Jarrad Waite, “so your player can run and get away a little bit easier than if he’s got a man right behind him.” The art of the shepherd is integral to other sports such as basketball—although more of a block than a classic arms wide shepherd—where a play will be drawn up with the intention of getting the ball into the hands of the team’s best shooter. To do this, one player will generally block

that teammate’s opponent, so as to give his team a better opportunity to score. The same principle applies in Australian football, albeit on a much larger playing surface. Watch Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury, himself a product of a basketball background, and on a weekly basis you will see the Magpie captain either applying a block himself, or being the beneficiary of one given by his teammates. A good shepherd/block by Fremantle’s

SHePHeRD/BLOcK

TEACHING POINTS Shepherding/blocking is one of the game’s major team skills. A player can be legally shepherded as long as the ball is not more than five metres away. A shepherd is performed by using the body and arms to protect a teammate.

1 Get between your teammate and the opponent, but not too close.

2 Assume a brace position. 3 Fingers are outstretched and arms spread below the shoulder—do not hold your opponent.

4 Talk to your teammate to tell him he is clear.

Michael Barlow, for example, can be the difference between Nat Fyfe or David Mundy gaining a clearance at a stoppage—or not—which in turn can assist the ability of Docker forwards like Matthew Pavlich or Michael Walters or Hayden Ballantyne to receive a good kick to their advantage. “I’ve trained a lot over the years on blocking, and the more I train it the more I realise that it’s such an instinctive action,” Fyfe says. “And you have to be really subtle about it because, every team trains for blocks and every team trains to be blocked, so you know that at any stoppage there’s going to be somebody trying to block and somebody trying to get away. The guys who are really good at it are the guys who are really subtle, but also, they can block and they can get off and get used as well. It’s certainly not just a defensive mechanism; it’s a way to free yourself up or hand over with an opposition player so that you can get a mismatch and then get back involved in the game.” Said Waite, himself the benefactor of any shepherds/blocks laid further up the

ground by the Kangaroo midfielders: “It’s one of those skills that is vital to your team going well.It is good for the team if you see one of your teammates make a good block.” In 1994, when Michael McGuane received the ball in the centre of the ground, had seven bounces and kicked a miraculous goal against arch rival Carlton, he was largely assisted through two repeated shepherds from his Collingwood teammate and now St Kilda coach, Alan Richardson. Richardson’s clear intent was to step in front of Carlton’s Fraser Brown, who was coming across to tackle the bouncing McGuane, and after his first shepherd didn’t slow Brown down, Richardson went again, giving his teammate just enough time to streak past Brown and have an unimpeded run towards goal.1 While everyone remembers McGuane’s amazing run, you can rest assured that his coach, 1 See McGuane’s amazing run and Richardson’s crucial shepherd/block at http://tinyurl.com/h6azpav.

Leigh Matthews, would have sent the runner out to give Richardson a pat on the back for his unselfish efforts. It’s not all about providing clear space for forwards, the block is now an important team first skill at the many stoppages that are now part of the game. Watch closely at any stoppage—ball up, throw in, or even a shot to the front of the square—and you’ll see players forming barriers against their opponent, or their ball-getter’s opponent to provide clean air. The very best ball-getters invariably draw a tag, and those around that player will always be alert to block the tagger’s activities. Watching senior teams at practice will, invariably, include players in opposing guernseys, practising blocking and running clear and wide. Ironically, or perhaps not, some of the best taggers have ‘graduated’ from being their team’s best blockers. As much as successful forwards will pile credit on midfielders for serving them goodies on a plate, so too will the most effective midfielders be praising their teammates for making their task easier.

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BUMP Once a significant part of the game, the bump is now a skill used at a player’s peril following changes to the law aimed at protecting a player’s head. Used appropriately, and safely, it is still a dynamic attacking movement.

ew rules have received more attention and analysis in recent years than the bump. Once recognised as a guaranteed crowd-pleaser, the dynamics and intent around what constitutes a legal bump, or ‘hip-andshoulder’ as it has been known throughout the generations, has had many question whether the bump is or isn’t ‘dead’ in the modern game. In days gone by, bumping was an instinctive skill employed by players to either dispossess their opponent or clear a path for a teammate. But with umpires now instructed to protect the player’s head at all times—and Laws written to ensure player safety in all contacts—it has forced clubs to reassess the value of bumping over tackling. Ryan Crowley, now with Essendon, was recognised as one of the best taggers in the game during his 188 games for Fremantle, relishing the in-close, physical stuff that comes from repeated around-the-ground contests. In his role as a run-with player, that ability to bump an opponent off the ball is a crucial part of his armoury. “A lot of my training focuses on when I don’t have the ball,” Crowley explained. “We have a tackling coach and I work with him a fair bit. Bumping and tackling are a big part of my game because a lot of the time I’m not expected to have the ball. I’m trying to stop someone from getting the ball.” In the 1930s, Richmond hard-man Jack Dyer forged his legend by inflicting devastating hipand-shoulder bumps on his opponents, earning himself the nickname of ‘Captain Blood’. But, as Crowley explained, because of the increased awareness surrounding head-high contact across all sports in the 21st century, he has to carefully assess every situation before applying a bump. “In the past you would just do it instinctively, whereas now there is that split second when you think, ‘Am I going to get into trouble for this?’ In the past when you might

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have tried to bump someone, now you might prop and corral them, with a view to laying a tackle.” The best way to lay a bump in the modern game is from side-on. “Front on and from behind is impossible,” Crowley said. “The majority of bumps happen these days when two players commit to bump each other. Very rarely do you see one guy run straight through another guy when he’s not ready for it.” It is important to keep your feet on the ground when applying a bump, to ensure that you remain on your feet and don’t get knocked over, which takes you out of the play. You also need to be within five metres of the ball when choosing to bump an opponent and you must keep your arm tucked in to your side.1 Former North Melbourne and Port Adelaide hard man, Byron Pickett, was a master at delivering a bump with such strength and force that, not only did he take his opponent out of the contest, but he, more-often-than-not, managed to remain on his feet which allowed him to remain in the play and assist his team. However, some of Pickett’s bumps from front-on would not be legal in today’s game!2 But, as Crowley explained, Pickett was “pretty brutal when he got them right.” Of the current players, Crowley believes that Hawthorn skipper, Luke Hodge, is the best in the game at applying a bump on an opponent because of his “amazing strength.” Among the coaching fraternity, current AFL coaches in Chris and Brad Scott, as well as Damien Hardwick, were others that were as tough as nails when it came to bumping. 1 For an informative look at the correct way to apply a bump, see this video from the official AFL Skills Guide: http://tinyurl.com/hhrzcms. 2 For an example of how NOT to bump, have a look at video of Byron Pickett’s hard, front-on hit to Hawthorn’s Brendan Krummel from 1999: http://tinyurl.com/j9e2t84.

BANG: The Eagles’ BUmP Jeremy McGovern feels the full power of Luke Hodge as the Hawthorn captain applies a classic bump, keeping well clear of his opponent’s head.

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TWO Sydney’s 04 CHAMPS: ONE-PERCENTERS Lance Franklin is dicing with danger as he applies a fend off to former teammate, Hawthorn’s Cyril Rioli, moving in low to apply a tackle. Franklin is a regular with the high fend, and Rioli is one of the game’s best tacklers.

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FeNDiNg OFF

FENDING OFF Another movement requiring skill and care, the fend off — a gift from rugby — provides an aggressive player with clear space, while reducing an opponent’s opportunity to tackle.

t is a true sign of a player’s physical strength; an ability to push off an opponent who is attempting to bring them down in a tackle. Using a legitimate fend—to ward off an opposing player—not only allows your team to maintain possession of the ball, it also gives you extra time to dispose of it correctly. When Richmond’s Dustin Martin tucks the ball under his right arm and extends his tattooed left arm into an opponent’s chest, pushing him aside, before bursting away himself and kicking to a teammate, it brings Tiger fans to their feet—indeed the Martin push is reminiscent of that applied by the greatest Tiger of all, Jack Dyer. Of the current-day players, Martin is perhaps the finest exponent of the fend off, utilising his upper-body strength and tree-trunk sized legs to maintain balance and composure when confronted by a would-be-tackler.1 Martin’s ability to push off an opponent makes him an extremely difficult match-up when coach, Damien Hardwick, leaves him one-out in the Richmond forward line. Another star who has the fend off in his bag of tricks is former Hawthorn and now Sydney forward, Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin. The two-time premiership player has kicked some brilliant goals after giving the fend off—or ‘don’t argue’ as it is commonly known—providing defenders with nightmares over how to stop his influence. The fend off is seen more regularly in rugby league and rugby union, which is evident in the AFL players who have come from a rugby background, such as Hawthorn’s Luke Breust, Sydney’s Kieran Jack, St Kilda’s Sam Gilbert and former Saints captain Lenny Hayes. Back in 1 Watch this video of Jack Riewoldt’s comical take on his Richmond teammate, Dustin Martin’s fend off: http://tinyurl.com/jcgqywb.

the 1960s and 1970s, AFL Legend Alex Jesaulenko was another who hailed from a rugby background before making the switch to Australian Rules, and he, too, was brilliant at fending off an opponent. Former Carlton, North Melbourne and Melbourne champion, Brent Crosswell, said of Jesaulenko: “He had a magnificent build, deceptively powerful, largish thighs and he was very strong. He once thrust out his hand in a practice match as I ran in to tackle him and the force of the thrust, using the bone at the base of his open hand, it nearly knocked me over. I used that myself from then on.” According to Hayes, “if someone is gaining ground on you and makes a dive to tackle you, it helps if you can get an arm out. You’d like to get the ball off, but it happens pretty quickly, so sometimes you have to push off an opponent.” The 2010 Norm Smith medallist admitted that he was “not the

quickest guy around” and so he would use the fend off “to try and get away.” It is important not to infringe when applying the fend. “You can’t get the guys too high,” Hayes said. “You aim for the chest.” St Kilda players were encouraged to use the fend at training during tackling practice, but, as Hayes explained, with the rise in tackling numbers throughout the League it has become even harder to successfully fend off an opponent. “We do a lot of tackling practice and guys are told to knock that arm away if someone is fending you. Players also try to get underneath the arm used to fend off.” This makes players like Martin and Franklin, as well as Gold Coast Suns skipper Gary Ablett junior, Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe, Hawks captain Luke Hodge, and former West Coast and Carlton champion Chris Judd stand out even further when they’re able to successfully apply a fend off to an oncoming opponent.

OUT OF MY WAY: GWS midfielder Dylan Shiel gets rid of Essendon’s Brent Stanton with a classic fend off.

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04 ONE-PERCENTERS

STOPPAGES The starting and re-starting points in a game have multiplied in recent seasons, and are now one of the most trained-for moments, with dozens of players involvedin each ball-up or throw in.

t is an often-used phrase on the eve of a big match: whichever team wins in the middle will win the game. Some forwards and backmen will argue the point, but the truth is that a team’s ability to win the ball at the majority of stoppages—both at centre bounces and around the ground—will play a major role in that team’s ability to then set up scoring opportunities. It takes pressure off your defenders; conversely, it puts pressure on your opposition defence. Indeed, AFL stoppage kings have played a big role on the outcome of matches in the eyes of the umpires, with many winning the game’s most coveted individual honour, the Brownlow Medal; such as Dick Reynolds (1934, 1937-38), Haydn Bunton (1931-32, 1935), Bob Skilton (1959, 1963, 1968), Greg Williams (1986 and 1994), John Platten (1987), Paul Kelly (1995), Robert Harvey (1997-98), Shane Crawford (1999), Simon Black (2002), Chris Judd (2004 and 2010), Matt Priddis (2014) and Nat Fyfe (2015). In recent years, the amount of stoppages and repeat ruck contests around the ground has skyrocketed. For example, in the 1994 Grand Final between West Coast and Geelong there was a total of 41 hitouts for the entire match. Of those, the Eagles, who won by 80 points, recorded just nine hitouts for the day! (Geelong had 32, of which 25 came from the hand of main ruckman, John Barnes. West Coast’s hitout leader in comparison was David Hynes with five). In the low-scoring 2005 Grand

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Final between Sydney and West Coast, there were a total of 72 hitouts (29 to Sydney and 43 to West Coast, of which 29 came from Eagles’ ruckman, Dean Cox). Four years later, in the 2009 Grand Final between Geelong and St Kilda—played in wet conditions—there were a total of 101 hit-outs (48 to Geelong and 53 to St Kilda). And in the 2013 decider, Fremantle had 55 hit-outs (Aaron Sandilands had 44), but lost to Hawthorn who had 27. And we cannot blame the weather for the massive stoppage amount in 2009, as the 1979 slugfest between Carlton and Collingwood, also played in shocking conditions, resulted in just 68 hit-outs between the two sides

JOEL COREY v SCOTT PENDLEBURY Pendlebury is poised to hunt the ball and move into the opposition’s hit zone in front of Leon Davis, backing himself to reach the ball before Davis. This is a risk. If Davis beats him to the ball and he is not able to make an effective tackle, he has made the wrong decision as Corey will be loose and able to accept the handball. Corey can peel off for the handball if the ball goes in Davis’ direction. If the ball lands at the ruckmen’s feet, Corey can either hunt the ball at the risk of Pendlebury becoming a loose option if Chris Judd wins the ball or stay tight with Pendlebury.

ROLES AT STOPPAGES Go-to player: Attacking player looking to receive the ball from the ruckman or quickly adopt a defensive role if the ball goes the opposition’s way. Sweeper: Like a goalkeeper, the sweeper is the last line of defence if an opponent receives the ball. Has to force the opposition to at least kick the ball under pressure so the backline can have an impact on the next contest. Blocker: Either protects the space for the go-to player to receive the ball or blocks opponents from moving into the hit zone.

SHAUN BURGOYNE v NATHAN FOLEY Foley’s potential to make a decisive breakaway means Burgoyne is expected to play tight. He is also trying to push Foley into congested space.

StOPPAgeS

DEAN COX v JOSH FRASER

BRETT KIRK v SAM MITCHELL

LEON DAVIS v LUKE POWER

Cox attempts to palm the ball into the space in front of Leon Davis, the likely go-to man. Fraser is looking to push the ball away from that space for Chris Judd, Nathan Foley or Sam Mitchell to run on to. Cox looks to have the ascendancy.

Put the best negating player in the game on the best winner of the ball at stoppages. Kirk is also blocking Mitchell from moving into the space Dean Cox is attempting to hit the ball into, keeping the hit zone free of opponents.

Davis moved from the forward line to become the go-to player. He has space in front of him and Dean Cox is aiming to tap the ball in his direction. Power should be tighter, but has an advantage if Victoria wins the ball.

SIMON GOODWIN v RYAN O’KEEFE KANE CORNES v CHRIS JUDD In his defensive role, Cornes is trying to edge Judd into Joel Corey and the ruckman, denying Judd space to run into and staying close while the ball is in dispute. Judd is looking to win the ball.

Goodwin backs Dean Cox to win the tap to Leon Davis. If Davis beats Scott Pendlebury to the ball and handballs to Joel Corey in space, then Goodwin can be a spare option forward. O’Keefe will roll the dice if the ball is in dispute, either pushing forward himself or playing tight on Goodwin. O’Keefe is also a slim chance to receive Josh Fraser’s tap.

COREY ENRIGHT v ADAM GOODES Enright touches Goodes and stays between the ball and his opponent to ensure Goodes can’t run past for the handball.

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CLASSIC STOPPAGES: These two 04 ONE-PERCENTERS

images—GWS v Geelong, and Essendon v Collingwood (opposite)—highlight the action around ball at any stoppage as players, constantly on the move, angle for the best positions.

(36 to Carlton and 32 to Collingwood). An indication of how the game is played more ‘in tight’ today than in, say, 1994, comes via the tackle count from each Grand Final, which, on many occasions contributes to the amount of stoppages per game. In 1994 there were 64 tackles between both sides (33 to West Coast and 31 to Geelong); in 2005 there were 121 tackles (62 to Sydney and 59 to West Coast); in 2009 there were a staggering 214 tackles (118 for St Kilda and 96 for Geelong); while that figure fell in 2013 to 145 tackles (65 to Fremantle and 80 to Hawthorn), albeit on a much drier day compared to the wet conditions in 2009. There can be no doubt that the stoppage is football’s high-traffic area, and coaches spend hour upon hour during the pre-season trying to teach their players how they want them to set up at different stoppage situations. Some teams will use a theoretical clock face to quickly communicate where they want the ball to be hit, but that plan can quickly go out the window if an opposing ruckman is dominant over their own big man. So players need plan B, plan C and plan D, to ensure that every situation is trained for. That way, players aren’t confused or out of position in-game; they can react on instinct, having practised every possible scenario during the summer months. Few AFL players are more influential at a stoppage situation than Hawthorn’s four-time premiership champion and former captain, Sam Mitchell. Like Williams before him, what Mitchell lacks in foot speed he more than makes up for in his ability to read where the ball will go, get his hands on it first and then, like

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lightning, fire off a handball or kick— with either foot—to a teammate in space. In a team of stars, Mitchell is arguably the Hawks’ most valuable player, and, entering 2016, he can count himself a little unlucky on Brownlow night; coming equal second in 2012 (behind Jobe Watson) and third in 2015 (behind Fyfe). Not only does he regularly accumulate high disposal numbers, but, as a number of teammates and opponents have confirmed, Mitchell is the ultimate “team man”. In the 2013 Grand Final against Fremantle, for example, Mitchell only recorded 12 disposals. But it was what he did inside the stoppages on the day that proved critical. With the Hawks’ brains trust concerned about the influence that Docker ruckman, Aaron Sandilands, could have on the outcome, Mitchell was asked to sacrifice his own game and provide a ‘dummy’ move under the feet of Sandilands, in the hope of disrupting the well-drilled Fremantle stoppage structure. In the aftermath of what was a 15-point Hawthorn victory, coach Alastair Clarkson was quick to praise the role his midfield maestro had played in the success of the side. “Despite Sam not having as prolific a day in terms of touches, the importance of him playing his role for our side today certainly isn’t underestimated by our footy club,” he said.1 Moreover, the best players weigh up a situation and, if that means roving to the opposition ruckman because he is

more dominant than yours, then that is what you must do. “I usually roved to opposition ruckmen,” said Skilton, who played for an unsuccessful South Melbourne side from 1956 to 1971.2 “I’d study where they hit it, how they hit it—whether they hit it with only the right or left hand—and which angle they came in from.” Skilton also revelled in the banter that exists inside the stoppage, revealing that he used to “learn the names of opposition players” so that he could try and trick them into handballing to him. The star players, like Mitchell, Skilton, Judd and Fyfe, revel in the “cat and mouse” game that goes on inside the stoppage, which includes blocking, creeping, jostling, yelling, whispering, tackling, grappling as well as many subtle little signals between teammates; all in the name of gaining a slight edge over the opposition. “You have got to make your opposition player think about what you’re doing,” Fyfe said. “Whether that’s dragging him out of space, or pushing him under a stoppage, you’ve got to make him think. The ideal scenario is when he’s worried about you, and you’re worried about getting the ball, and that’s when you clearly have an advantage over an opponent.” Melbourne’s Bernie Vince agrees. “Being an inside midfielder like I am, you’re really at the coalface of whatever’s happening during a game. You don’t want to get too caught up with blocking and holding, and so if you watch the ball a lot

1 Alastair Clarkson’s quote was sourced from Roger Vaughan’s article on www.theroar.com.au, titled ‘Mitchell and Son Revel in AFL Flag’, 29 September 2013. See http://tinyurl.com/j2yty7z.

2 Bob Skilton’s quotes were sourced from Ben Collins and Dan Eddy, Champions: Conversations with Great Players & Coaches of Australian Football: Slattery Media Group, 2016, pp. 284-285.

StOPPAgeS

of times you’ll win out in that battle more so than if you watch the man the whole time,” he said. “For me, it’s always been natural to just go after the ball. So, even though there was a lot of attention around my supposed ‘tagging’ roles in 2015, I was actually just matching up against an opponent with the same intent as always to go and get the ball. I was never instructed to purely negate an opponent, despite what the media thought.” Williams keeps it simple: “Know what you want to do with the ball before you get it,” he says. Williams was a master at both getting it and knowing what to do with it: he averaged 27 disposals per game throughout his stellar 250-game career with Geelong, Sydney and Carlton (including a staggering 53 in one game for Sydney: round 19 of 1989, versus St Kilda), and a great proportion of those disposals went to a teammate in a better position.3 “Things don’t always happen as you expect—a bloke mightn’t run where you thought he would—but it’s best to know what you want to do with the ball rather than get it and then try to work it out.” The best midfield combinations (such as Fremantle’s) have a balance of ball hunters (Fyfe, David Mundy, Lachie Neale, Nick Suban), man hunters (Clancee Pearce, Chris Mayne) and space hunters (Stephen Hill, Harley Bennell, Danyle Pearce). Good players, and good teams, have midfielders who can play any number of roles, including ‘rolling off’ an opponent to provide a block for a teammate to gain an unhindered possession. When the ball is bounced, 3 Greg Williams’ quotes were sourced from Champions, pp. 318-319.

or thrown up, players have a split second to react, which is why all that pre-season practice is so critical. The get and give action needs to be instinctive. Does he try and win possession himself? Does he risk running off his opponent in the hope of receiving the ball from a teammate? Does he stand and block for a teammate? Or does he play tight on his man so that the opponent doesn’t gain possession and send the ball the other direction? Teams will also push extra players up to the stoppage, resulting in the “rolling mauls” that have crept in to the modern game; a sight not dissimilar to that which the earliest footy fans were accustomed to during the mid-1800s. “Sydney were one of the first to start it, where they called it a ‘fifth’ or a ‘sixth forward’, but now they’ve become the fifth and the sixth midfielder, said former Swan and now Saint, Sean Dempster. “You used to just have your ruckman, your three on-ballers and your two wingmen there, but now you’ve got two more forwards who go and produce a bit of a ‘net’ around the outside of the stoppage, which means that you have a four-man net, with two wingers and two forwards providing a bit of net coverage. “The ruckman and the three on-ballers then go at it in the stoppage, and that gives them a lot of opportunities to lay a lot of blocks and use some different tactics to get to their hitting zone. And they know that if their opponent gets off the leash when they’re trying to hunt the football, they’ve got that coverage on the outside from their wingers and forwards, so they’re not going to get burnt by hunting the football.” According to Greater Western Sydney

inside-midfield star, Dylan Shiel, the relationship between on-baller and ruckman can be a critical element in developing a dominant stoppage team. “Numerous times each week we do a lot of centre bounce and stoppage work with the ruckmen,” Shiel said. “While you can work on the skills of that a lot, it’s more about building a relationship with your teammates in there. If a midfielder’s got a really good relationship with their ruckman, when the pressure comes on you in a game you can turn to your teammate and know that he understands what’s required. A good relationship with the ruckman is vital for that connection on the field. You will know what side he kicks on, where he’s going to tap the ball, and you will also have an understanding of the timing required so you know when to go in a certain direction. It’s really important, and we focus on ruck work and roving numerous times each week. And we also spend a lot of times in meetings watching footage of how we executed it at training.” The key, says Vince, is not to become discouraged if the first stoppage doesn’t go your way. “I don’t really think too much when I play; I’m very much an in-the-moment type of person. And so, if I happen to lose a contest, I don’t dwell on it, I just go on to the next one and try and win that one.”4 4 To learn more about the role of the modern midfielder, as well as learn about ruck and midfield strategies, visit the AFL Community website at www.aflcommunityclub.com.au. You can also read former Sydney Swans Norm Smith medallist, Ryan O’Keefe’s essay on the role of today’s midfielders at: http://tinyurl.com/hzlcebg.

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QUICK THINKING: Sam Mitchell is a master of the get and give, with an innate ability to choose the right teammate by handSKILLS or foot. OF AUSTRALIAN 82

FOOTBALL

DeciSiON-mAKiNg

DECISIONMAKING Some players have a rare ability to play the game as if they are moving in slow motion, allowing them to make great decisions rapidly.

am Mitchell has been compared with dual Brownlow medallist Greg Williams and with good reason. Like Williams, Mitchell is not overly endowed with speed, but always seems to have time and space to execute his skills effectively. “The players who aren’t quite as fast sometimes need to get out of trouble a bit more than the others who are quicker,” Hawthorn’s 2008 premiership captain said. “As the game gets quicker, you get less time to make your decisions. You have to make sound decisions more quickly.” Mitchell, who embarked on his 16th season for the Hawks in 2016, is in that rare breed of players who make the game appear to be moving in slowmotion when the ball is in his vicinity—which can be attributed to his quick thinking on the field. “Certain players seem to have that skill,” he said. “Robert Harvey was a good example. He never looked like he was in too much of a rush. “But if you do look like you’re in a rush, that’s not necessarily such a bad thing. Brent ‘Boomer’ Harvey is a very good decision-maker because everything he does is very, very fast.” He also named the dual Brownlow Medallist Chris Judd as another who was superb at sizing up a situation and giving his teammates the best option. Mitchell said having strong structures within a team and good team rules makes decisionmaking easier. “The team plan makes you understand where your teammates are more likely to be,” he said. “Your teammates are going to be predictable to you and you’re going to be predictable to them. When you pick up the ball, they are hopefully going to run to the place where you’re going to give it to them.” Mitchell said his decision-making improved as he became more confident in his ability. “If you’re not confident, you might hesitate

and second-guess yourself and that might take that half a second you didn’t have and force you to make an error,” he said. “If you have good confidence in the decision you make, it helps your disposal.” Mitchell believes peripheral vision and reflexes are important components of the decision-making process. But the process starts well before he gets the ball. “I think that’s one of the mistakes that quite often people make,” he said. “For example, if you get the ball from a stoppage, you should have a reasonably good idea of where each player is on the ground so that you know what you’re going to see when you take possession.

‘ the team plan makes you understand where your teammates are more likely to be... When you pick up the ball, they are hopefully going to run to the place where you’re going to give it to them’ You’re just picking up smaller movements rather than taking it all in for the first time. “The more you play with individual players, the better your decision-making becomes. Then you can make quicker decisions and quicker decisions are usually better ones.” Mitchell said it was important to practise your decision-making at training by performing drills under game-day pressure. “You don’t need to be too complicated,” he said. “If you’re at training and doing a drill involving decision-making, don’t take an extra couple of seconds just because you can because there is no pressure on you.”

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BODY POSITIONING Matthew Pavlich excels at playing in front and protecting his position by blocking his opponent. Players need to develop strength in their legs and hips to hold their position.

remantle star Matthew Pavlich is blessed with uncanny anticipation that allows him to know where the ball is going to land, enabling him to outposition his opponent in many contests. Pavlich has played all over the ground—in the midfield, defence and up forward—but the fundamentals of body positioning remain constant. Players must protect the ‘drop zone’, where the ball is likely to fall, and ensure that they have contact with their opponent to enable them to push off and take possession when the ball arrives. But there are differences that need to be taken into account when playing in various parts of the ground. “In a ruck hit-out or scrimmage situation, the ball comes in from a close range, as distinct from judging the ball in flight from a kick from a longer distance into the forward line,” Pavlich said. “It is in the forefront of your mind that your body is in the right position, so you are able to push off or get to the contest before your opposition player. You need to have total comprehension about where your opponent is and where the ball is going to land, whether that be in a marking contest or in a stoppage situation.” Pavlich said players could improve their body-positioning skills with constant practice. “There is no doubt you can teach and learn it, with many hours at training spent one on one just watching the ball flight and seeing what happens off the boot,” he said. “Towards the end of each session, particularly during the season,

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we would do some level of one-on-one body work, whether it was around the midfield stoppages or a genuine one-onone contest, to judge the ball flight, push off and get to that drop zone.” Pavlich said the 2005 change of the interpretation of the marking interference rule, which resulted in defenders being penalised for chopping the arms of their opponents in contests, has helped him as a forward. “Now you’re able to get your body into the right position and therefore have your arms outstretched,” the Dockers star said. “If they do chop your arms, you’re able to gain the free kick. “The other one is the hands-in-the-back rule. Nowadays some defenders are playing in front because of that rule. It is getting harder and players have to adjust. “Body positioning in that case is slightly different. It has become an art to be able to play in front, hold your ground and push back against the opposition player, knowing that they can’t have their hands in the back.” For a player of his size (192cm, 101kg), Pavlich has excellent leg speed and admits that helps him take up the front position to win the ball over many opponents. Pavlich said his father Steve, who played with West Torrens in the SANFL, had the biggest influence on him as a youngster on where to position his body, but he has played against some of the best exponents during his career, including Geelong fullback Matthew Scarlett, former Adelaide and Gold Coast defender Nathan Bock, Richmond forward Matthew Richardson and Essendon spearhead Matthew Lloyd. “Watching AFL games now, you do

pick traits that other players use,” Pavlich said. “I’ve played on Richardson and Lloyd when I was playing in defence for a while. As a forward, there is no question Scarlett and Bock were very good at it and there is no question Lloyd and Richardson did it for a long time as key forwards.” Others who position their body well are dynamic forwards, Sydney’s Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin, Collingwood’s Travis Cloke, Melbourne’s Jesse Hogan, Geelong’s Tom Hawkins and Hawthorn’s Jack Gunston.

TEACHING POINTS 1 Good body position can often be traced back to a player’s ability to have a good ‘starting position’. If a player is capable of taking front position in anticipation of the ball arriving, then he is a greater chance of having good body position.

2 As the ball is on its way to a contest, it is critical the attacking player protects the space where he believes the ball will land. He can protect this by using his body to block his opponent.

3 When the ball is just about to reach the area where it will land, the attacking player needs to push off his opponent and move towards the ball. The later the movement towards the ball, the less chance the defender will have to spoil.

BODY POSitiONiNg

USING HIS STRENGTH:

SKILLS OF

Matthew Pavlich is always trying to put his body in the right position so he can push off his opponent. Here he contests with Port Adelaideâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Alipate Carlile, with both players watchingFOOTBALL the ball closely. AUSTRALIAN 85

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OFF AND GONE: GWS midfielder Dylan Shiel

says adjusting to the pace of the game and the intensity of training was the most difficult part of his transition from underage footy to the AFL, when he joined GWS in 2012.

POSITION PLAY Once the game was divided into six lines — backs, forwards, centres — but it’s now a full field, in which any player can attack, defend, or provide dummy runs and leads.

he days of a footballer just running laps of their home football oval every Tuesday and Thursday night are well and truly gone. Where once a full-forward and the opposing full-back would stay within a 30-metre radius of the goal, today’s versions are expected to be as fit as any midfielder, working up the ground then pushing, hard, back towards their own goal. (Think Nick Riewoldt at St Kilda and Josh Gibson at Hawthorn). Those repeat efforts involve a more scientific approach to training, meaning much more focus on interval training and short, burst exercises. In modern football,

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a player’s ability to run hard and often is now an expectation, rather than just a handy string to their bow. The more elite runners that a coach can rotate through the middle of the ground, the harder his team is to match up against. And with the introduction of GPS tracking (which includes a device inserted into the back of the guernsey of each player on the field— on match day and training sessions—that records every movement a player makes and at what intensity), there are no shortcuts when it comes to each player’s output at both training and in games. “Gone are the days of just trotting around the training track at three-quarter

pace, getting from contest to contest and just pacing yourself through a game,” says St Kilda veteran, Sean Dempster. “It’s all about high-intensity efforts, and being able to repeat those during a game. The ball moves so much more quickly now than even 10 years ago when I started my career (Dempster was initially drafted to the Sydney Swans in 2002, before being traded to the Saints in 2007), and if you can’t repeat those high-intensity efforts you will get left behind. “As a defender, most of your running gets done behind the ball before it even gets down to you, because a lot of teams are switching play and trying to get past

POSitiON PLAY

that defensive zone. If you’re in the back part of that zone you might have to work from one wing to the other to try and stop the outlet kick when they try to switch it. So those high-intensity efforts at training are set up for you to be able to repeat them during a game, and that’s a huge part of where footy has turned to now.” According to Fremantle midfield star, Nat Fyfe, so scientific has Australian football become that it is now, he says, “similar to the National Football League [in America]” in the way clubs analyse the movements and training techniques of their playing group. “The ball movement and the defensive patterns involve every player on the ground at all times,” Fyfe said. “So that means that the guys who don’t have the ball are just as important as the guy who does. Every training session that we do we have down-the-ground footage, we have broadcast footage and sometimes we have point-of-view footage, and we are continually highlighting where guys are supposed to be running, pre-emptively. “So they need to be able to see the play unfolding a kick, or two kicks ahead, then get themselves into a position where they can attack, but also where they can defend. We do structured drills with cones to simulate those patterns, and then we do our free-flowing footy matchsimulation type drills, with a real strong focus and encouragement on the certain patterns we’re trying to play; whether that be a kick out, whether that be a stoppage, whether that be a general situation. But the most common one is a turnover, because the ball turns over basically 120 times in a game—once a minute—so you need to understand where to run when that ball is turning over each minute.” Collingwood coach and former champion mid-fielder Nathan Buckley says much can be learned by simply watching. “You need to be open to the opportunity of learning, accept the fact you can always improve, that the product you are at any given time is not the best you can be, and be prepared to test your limits.” When he arrived at Collingwood in 1993, he identified Tony Shaw as the club’s hardest trainer and another teammate, Gavin Brown as a role model for how to attack the ball. “It was an area of the game that didn’t come naturally to me and while very few players ever achieve Browny’s level of ferocity, the fact I aspired to it was an improvement in itself.” He also paid close attention to St Kilda’s dual Brownlow Medallist Robert Harvey (now a senior assistant at Collingwood under Buckley). He noticed how Harvey would back himself to evade an opponent at a stoppage, create some run, and more

often than not hit a leading target; this was a contrast to Buckley’s ‘grab and bomb’ style, “From the moment I made that realisation, I tried to emulate that aspect of Harvey’s game, along with his non-stop running.” Watching closely, and learning, is not just the domain of those at the elite level, he says. He suggests going to matches with mates and watch with purpose. “You might decide to watch how the best deal with taggers and how they run on the field, and discuss your observations. You are learning all the time.”

hile the volume and education of aerobic and interval running has increased dramatically in recent years, the key for any sport science/high performance manager—despite obviously building a larger fitness base for every player—is to teach players how to run smarter. How to read the flow of play, and react before the ball reaches its intended target. For players like Dempster, and Western Bulldog captain, Bob Murphy, this becomes an extremely important aspect of their role during a game, where their ability to read the movement of the ball and move to the correct position to either lay a spoil or take a turnover mark is practised and emphasised on a weekly basis by their coaches. And to do this, a player must be able to run from one wing to the other (that means 140 metres at the MCG), then possibly push back into defence to create a contest with an opponent, then, if the ball remains in dispute he may need to either lay a tackle or provide an option to receive a handball, then run and carry and kick to a teammate up the field. In doing so, he may have been required to run 300 metres in a short time at a high intensity. And then, if the ball is turned over further up the field, he may be required to do it all again a minute later.1 Any new draftee to a club will tell you that the biggest adjustment they were forced to make in their first pre-season at AFL level was the amount of running that was involved; far more, and at a higher intensity, than they had ever previously undertaken at junior level. According to Greater Western Sydney’s Dylan Shiel, his “most challenging thing” when he arrived at the Giants in 2011 was “adjusting to the intensity of training and the speed of the game itself.” Shiel was one of a large group of young, talented players GWS selected in their inaugural draft, as they set about establishing a new club in the western Sydney region.

1 For advice on the correct running technique for an AFL footballer, watch: http://tinyurl.com/hxvwlxg.

“The most common comment from somebody after their first training session or first game is how they can’t believe just how fast and how quick the game went, as well as how quick everyone is with their position-making,” Shiel said. “So that’s a real challenge. The biggest element that I had to adjust to was the aerobic running, because obviously it’s a massive aspect of the game. “But it can all depend on the upbringing of the kid. If you come up through the TAC Cup Under-18 system where you’re being mentored by explayers and ex-coaches, they certainly do educate players about what’s required at AFL level. But it is one thing to be told about it, and it’s another thing to actually be made to do it. No-one ever walks into the AFL and has got the game covered.” Indeed, Fyfe’s teammate and captain at Fremantle, Matthew Pavlich, can attest to Shiel’s sentiments. “At my first pre-season training session with Fremantle, in 1999, I passed out and was rushed to intensive care. So that wasn’t the ideal way to start an AFL career!” The 18-year-old Pavlich had just been put through a sixth consecutive one-kilometre time trial. “It was a warm and humid day, and I had not prepared myself in the same manner as I would nowadays in the sense that I wasn’t hydrated enough and my nutrition wasn’t good enough before a training session.” According to Pavlich, “these days kids come into a club having been screened and their training sessions are different as new players. When I started, I was doing the full session from the word ‘go’, and I couldn’t handle it. But I didn’t want to show any weakness, so I kept pushing until I couldn’t go anymore. I think it takes 12 months to get yourself to a standard where you can handle the training loads. But realistically, I think it took me a good two or three seasons to be able to manage all of the work and be at a high level in the running and weight lifting, and in confidence and backing up week-in and week-out. “When I started out, the understanding from new players coming into the system was much more naive than it is for the players coming in today. The development levels today receive a lot more information which gets filtered down to their levels from the AFL system, and that assists the draftees to be able to get into the training routine quicker.” The last word is with Buckley: “Don’t be afraid to try something and fail at first. Always challenge yourself. The data is all around you, from coaches, teammates, opponents, etc. So keep your ears and eyes open for the next opportunity to learn and improve.”

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05 COACHING

COACHING As the game as evolved so too has the role of the coach; once a dictator, the senior coach is now the head of a coaching team, allowing for a constant stream of strategic input from his assistants, line coaches and senior players.

n his aptly-named book, The Art of Coaching, David Wheadon describes the role of the coach as such: “It remains, and always will remain, to improve individual and team performance.”1 Wheadon has worked with some of Australian football’s most successful coaches and teams for five decades, during which time the demands of the senior coach have changed dramatically. Where coaches were once dictatorial figures (think Norm Smith, John Kennedy and Ron Barassi) who preached “my way or the highway,” today the senior coach is more a manager and teacher (and PR and marketing agent!), and is open to delegating duties to any number of assistant and specialist coaches. And, where once players were uncomfortable making suggestions to the senior coach about anything gamerelated, they are now expected to have their say, with leadership groups becoming an extension of the wider coaching panel. “As the game has become totally professional, and football departments have grown from hardly any staff to double figures, the teaching and management part of the coach’s role has become the most dominant and most effective,” Wheadon explains. “The coach must possess the capacity to find the right people who can teach, put them in the right positions, expect them to be accountable for their niche of knowledge, and listen to their findings, advice and ideas, keeping those that sit with the general philosophy of the coach and the football department and discarding those that don’t.”2 Wheadon describes coaching as “an art based on science”, before going on to say that 1 David Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, Richmond: Slattery Media Group, 2014, p. 16. 2 The Art of Coaching, p. 16.

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the best coaches “draw together the art of communication, the art of engagement, the art of motivating and, importantly, the art of bringing together a diverse group to perform to understood routines, game plans and processes instinctively, while never discounting flair and excellence beyond the norm.”3 While this “art form” has been integral to the success of many great coaches throughout VFL/ AFL history, the modern coach needs to rely on human interaction by “applying emotional intelligence” to the way they communicate with their players and staff; more so now than at any other time in history.4 Sportspeople today need to feel invested in the direction that the coach

and/or club are heading and, it is that “buy in” of the players that will confirm for the coach that they have the trust and belief of their playing group in what they are trying to implement and achieve. “The great coaches realise that the art of coaching is the more important factor. Lesser coaches put too much emphasis on the science and become dominated by technology and statistics. These are only tools that assist in teaching and people management. Coaching is an art based on a science, not the other way around.”5 Legendary coach, Allan Jeans (St Kilda coach 1961-1976, Hawthorn 1981-1990, Richmond 1992), used to say that a coach is no good without good players, and that “the most important part of life is

3 The Art of Coaching, p. 17. 4 The Art of Coaching, p. 17.

5 The Art of Coaching, p. 46.

MESSAGES: Collingwood’s Nathan Buckley (above) and Hawthorn’s Alastair Clarkson (opposite) have the full attention of their players as they deliver their message at a break.

cOAcHiNg

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05 COACHING

KEEP IT SIMPLE: Allan Jeans was one of the game’s greatest coaches, winning flags at St Kilda (1966) and Hawthorn (1983, ’86, ’89). He kept his messages simple, making sure his players worked doubly hard in the game’s three phases: when we have it, when they have it, and when it’s in dispute. He is photographed after the Hawks’ 1989 premiership win, with Peter Curran (left) and John Kennedy jnr.

communication.”6 It was his ability to take good players and convince them to play for the greater good of the team, time and time again, that made Jeans one of the finest coaches in league history. Never was this more evident in Jeans’ coaching career than during his time with Hawthorn, where he was in charge of a variety of different personalities—from the quietly reserved Michael Tuck, to larrikins like Dermott Brereton and Robert Dipierdomenico, the

6 Ben Collins and Dan Eddy, Champions: Conversations with Great Players & Coaches of Australian Football: Slattery Media Group, 2016, p. 132.

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wildly determined Leigh Matthews, as well as veterans like Peter Knights and newcomers such as Jason Dunstall and John Platten; all became or were leaders and champions in their own way, but they are also remembered for being great team men. By drawing on the communication and team skills he learned through his time as a policeman, Jeans quickly earned their trust and the club went on to play in each Grand Final from 1983 to 1989, winning four premierships, along the way becoming one of the greatest teams in football history. One of Jeans’ greatest adversaries during that period was Essendon coach, Kevin Sheedy, who Wheadon later

worked alongside during the Bombers 1993 premiership run. “When I joined Kevin Sheedy’s coaching staff ... I soon realised how much importance he placed on human interaction—on reading his players and his staff, knowing what drove them and what made them tick.” That “human interaction” between coach and player has continued to develop and to grow in importance. For example, when Nathan Buckley became coach of Collingwood at the end of 2011, he immediately set about building a two-way relationship between himself and his players; this despite the fact that he had already been at the club for 16 seasons as firstly a player then as an assistant coach to Mick Malthouse. “I wanted a really open, two-way environment because I’m not a big believer in a massive hierarchical system where people know their place and they don’t move beyond it. I want every person to be valued for their roles and to have the forum for them to be able to voice their opinion: to receive honest feedback and to give honest feedback.” Through building relationships with their players, a coach (or coaches) can then establish a culture and a set of principles and expectations that are not only defined by the group, but, importantly, they are also policed by the group. Indeed, in The Art of Coaching, among Wheadon’s five fundamentals to becoming a successful coach, he says that a coach “must be a people manager” and that they “must understand the club’s culture and assist its development.” As well as the obvious need to understand the game they are coaching first and foremost, and to then remain aware of developing trends and to be open to change in order to remain competitive, “the coach must be able to bring all the above together, as a teacher and mentor.”7 It is no coincidence that the successful clubs have a strong culture, on and off the field. “A powerful culture that is well understood and completely embraced by all is probably more important than a complex game plan,” Wheadon writes. “A great culture—encompassing work ethic, ‘team first’, respect, enjoyment, good humour and a constant search for what’s best for all—is the undefined magic that makes some teams more successful than others.” 8 Perhaps no club culture is more widely respected than that of the ‘Bloods’ at the Sydney Swans (which refers to thethen South Melbourne club’s nickname from an earlier time, ‘The Bloodstained Angles’ of the thirties), which was implemented by Paul Roos when he 7 The Art of Coaching, pp. 19-20. 8 The Art of Coaching, p. 20.

cOAcHiNg

SUCCESS: Paul Roos coached

Sydney to the 2005 premiership, its first since 1933, before handing over to John Longmire in 2011, in one of the game’s first organised coaching transitions. In 2014 he joined Melbourne, and at the end of 2016 he will hand over to his assistant Simon Goodwin.

took over from Rodney Eade in 2002, and has since carried through under John Longmire who replaced Roos, via a smooth transition, at the end of 2010. Roos admits the concept only became successful because of the buy-in from his leaders. “In creating the famous ‘Bloods’ culture at Sydney, it stems back to my playing days at Fitzroy where the players drove the behaviours at Fitzroy—good and bad—so, what we did at Sydney was just an extension of that. We said, ‘Guys, what do you want your club to look like? It’s your footy club.’ Then you need the guys to embrace it, and Stuart Maxfield was unbelievable in driving that. He took over as captain from Paul Kelly in 2003 and he said ‘If this is what we want to stand for as a footy club then this is what I’ll drive,’ and he drove it relentlessly among his peers. He helped me as coach enormously.” In fact, so important was Maxfield to the cause that Roos believes the Swans would not have won the 2005 premiership without his buy-in, despite the fact that Maxfield was absent on Grand Final day. “We would never have won that premiership if Stewie Maxfield had never driven the standards as captain of our footy club,” claimed Roos. “There’s a curse of talent everywhere,” Buckley said, “and you can fall in love with players who go out and do the spectacular on the footy field. But champion sides, while they have that, in a broader sense they have a group of players who are subservient to the greater good. We’re not just building a 22 who take the park, we’re building 45 players, a coaching staff and our off-field admin staff, and everybody needs to be on the same page. They need to be prepared to make decisions that are team-orientated

and club-orientated, and that’s a nonnegotiable.” On-field success alone does not necessarily equate to having a great culture, either, as John Worsfold can attest to during his time as coach of the West Coast Eagles (2002-2013). Despite playing off for the 2005 and 2006 premierships (against Roos’ Swans) with one of the most talented midfields in football history, off the field the Eagles coaches and players were forced to deal with what was later revealed as the drug addiction of captain Ben Cousins. “From what I knew as a player, I always believed that the Eagles had a pretty good culture,” Worsfold explained, “but obviously something changed in there which went off the rails a bit in the off-field side of the club. The on-field side was still pretty strong in the sense that you prepare well, train hard and play hard: That was all there .. We had a great support network in place in regards to our training programs and so forth. But something had gone wrong off the field and it just hit me. I didn’t see it unfolding.” Wheadon says that “the greatest influence on culture at a club is almost always (via) the oldest and highest-profile players,” which highlights the issues Worsfold faced once Cousins’ drug habits were realised. Cousins was one of the most popular senior players at the club at that time.9 “It rocked our club, there’s no doubt about that,” Worsfold said. “The focus went away from just leading the club to a premiership to leading the club to fix its off-field culture, so I had to refocus. The challenge as a coach is to get your best team fit to try and win games, 9 The Art of Coaching, p. 29.

and I had to take my focus off that a bit and say ‘this is more important’.” Forced to re-evaluate his role as senior coach, Worsfold set about rebuilding a fractured club. Cousins was moved on, and a number of other senior players retired, and Worsfold was able to help establish a new set of guidelines which would help the club towards building a respectable culture once more. “We knew that our number one focus needed to be on the welfare of our players, and that showed that we were serious about fixing that side of the club. As the coach I had to accept that was the case and buy into it.” In fact, so impressive did Worsfold handle the whole saga that, when Adelaide Crows coach, Phil Walsh, was tragically murdered in 2015, the Crows asked Worsfold to oversee the coaching panel and the players as the club tried to deal with and move on from the tragedy. Then, at the end of 2015, Essendon, themselves facing a culture issue relating to the supplements saga that had marred the sport for three seasons and driven a wedge between players, coaches, administrators and supporters, moved quickly to sign Worsfold as its head coach, recognising he was the ideal figurehead to help the players and the club to recover, a role that became more important in January 2016, when the Court Of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) imposed two-year penalties (effectively 12 months) on 34 past and present players for drug transgressions through 2012. “Football is a ‘people’ business and people make the culture of the club,” Wheadon wrote. “What is common to the makeup of all the best of the best is that none of them automatically earns personal respect for the title. They know they must earn that respect from the way

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 91

05 COACHING

they approach the task.”10 In their different ways, Buckley, Roos and Worsfold each earned their respect through the way they were able to communicate with their players. Just as Jeans and Sheedy had done a generation earlier.

their win-loss record, then there aren’t too many successful coaches. The blokes that I say are ‘great’, and who I really admire, start with Ronald Dale Barassi. Now, I couldn’t tell you his win-loss ratio, but I imagine that it would be under 60 per cent (54.05), and yet, people see him as having been very successful. Then there’s Jeans (62.92) and Hafey (65.21), who both coached me, and they’d be in excess of 60 per cent and were highly successful. Then John Kennedy, who I’ve admired from a distance, I would be astounded if his win-loss record was more than 55 per cent (57.74). I would doubt that anyone goes at 70 per cent, and so, if by the end of your career you are above

o how do you define a “great” coach? At AFL level, coaches are regularly judged on their ability to win premierships. But, as the man with the greatest number of games coached in VFL/AFL history, Mick Malthouse, explained: “If you judge coaches purely on

10 The Art of Coaching, p. 29.

COACHES’ WINNING SEASONS

(1981-2015, minimum eight seasons coached) COACH

SEASONS

WON

MADE FINALS

PREMIERSHIPS

M. Malthouse

K. Sheedy

L. Matthews

D. Parkin

18*

R. Walls

R. Eade

D. Pagan

J. Northey

M. Thompson

J. Worsfold

M. Williams

T. Wallace

A. Clarkson

M. Blight

P. Roos

A. Jeans

10*

N. Daniher

G. Ayres

R. Lyon

N. Craig

R Barassi

* David Parkin also coached Hawthorn from 1977-80 (including the 1978 premiership), having two winning seasons; Allan Jeans coached St Kilda from 1961-76 (including the 1966 premiership) and had 11 winning seasons; Ron Barassi coached Carlton from 1965-71 (including the 1968 and 1970 premierships) for seven winning seasons, then North Melbourne 1973-80 (including the 1975 and 1977 premierships) for eight winning seasons. Green denotes a current coach.

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60 per cent, you’ve done pretty well. I think the American system of measuring a coach is fairer than ours, because they get measured on how many ‘winning years’ they had.” The answer varies depending on the particular level of competition. If a coach is able to create a fun environment where players enjoy training and playing the game, no matter the result, then that coach has been successful. But in professional sport, as Wheadon explains, “the coach is paid to win,” and so the measure of “greatness” depends largely on not just winning one premiership, but in setting up a program and a culture that demands and expects to win regular premierships, along the way creating a dynasty like the one seen at Hawthorn in the 1980s under Jeans, and again in more recent times under Alastair Clarkson, where the Hawks have won four premierships from 2008 to 2015.11 One can argue that much of the success achieved under Jeans and Clarkson can be attributed to John Kennedy before them, who, above all others, helped to create a culture where the club expected success, something it had never experienced prior to Kennedy taking over as coach in 1960. Truth is success is not a fluke, and not all success can be traced to the coach: it’s a whole of club thing, from Board, through executive through football department, through players. Successful clubs not only choose successful players, they choose the best executives, who choose the best coaching and recruiting panels, who choose the best players, who play to one structure— bought in by all.

headon says that “great coaches are expert managers of people .. through listening and empathy the elite coaches form individual relationships with players as a basis for knowing the best way to handle each one.”12 Ditto for the best boards and best executives giving their football department the best opportunities to succeed. Tom Hafey had such a relationship with his Richmond players in the late-1960s and early-70s, and even well after his coaching career ended he maintained a mentoring role for many of his former players, including the likes of Kevin Sheedy and Kevin Bartlett. The players under Hafey admit that they would die for their coach out on the field, so strong was the bond Hafey was able to build with them during those years. “Some people criticised me for getting too close to the players,” Hafey once said, “but 11 The Art of Coaching, p. 47. 12 The Art of Coaching, p. 51.

cOAcHiNg

PASSIONATE: As well known

for his bulging jugular during his passionate addresses, David Parkin is one of eight coaches who have coached four premierships—one at Hawthorn, three at Carlton. The leader of all coaches remains Jock McHale with eight premierships.

13 Tom Hafey quoted in Kevin Sheedy with Warwick Hadfield, The 500 Club: Footy’s Greatest Coaches, Southbank: News Custom Publishing, 2004, page 49.

ut there is no one way to go about it. And this is why it is important to surround yourself with a coaching and administrative staff whom you can trust, but who are also given the opportunity to speak up and offer suggestions, which helps to then generate new ideas, or to see a problem from a different perspective. Buckley, for one, understands the need for trust. “I think being a successful coach is how much you trust people, and where and when you give that trust. Being a senior coach can make you a cynic really quickly. If you strip me back to my core I believe in the good of people and so that resonates with the way that I coach. But there’ll be times when I have to remind myself that I need to give space and trust that the good will come out. While I’m getting better and better at that, it still comes back to experience because you can’t just hand it over.” For John Nicholls (Carlton coach 19721975), that trust extended to his playing group. As one of the last great captaincoaches, Nicholls admits that he acted on instinct throughout a game, and didn’t have enough trust in his match committee to make moves on his behalf while he was out there playing. But, when his side lost the 1972 second semi-final to Richmond, he devised a plan to beat them should

they meet again in the Grand Final; a plan that required the complete buy-in of his players. “I talked to them about the strictest confidence and about the importance of not telling their wives or girlfriends, or even committeemen. ‘We have to do this ourselves, so we cannot tell anyone,’ because it was two weeks in advance of when we planned to do it. And they were fantastic.” After beating St Kilda in the preliminary final, Nicholls put his secret plan into action for the Grand Final, which involved playing a number of players in different positions to unsettle the Tigers. The result: Carlton caused one of the greatest upsets in Grand Final history, defeating Richmond by 28 points in the highestscoring decider ever played. “I told them on the Sunday morning (two weeks before the Grand Final), and no-one else knew: they kept it to themselves. I put my trust in them and they didn’t let me down.” Like Parkin, Hafey, Pagan and many of the great coaches, Nicholls placed a high importance on spending time with his players, both at the club and socially, which, in turn made it easier for the Carlton players to put their trust in him. Wheadon describes coaching as a “people business.” He says that “the best coaches treat their players as people,” while lesser coaches “treat them more as players represented by Xs and Os on a whiteboard or in a PowerPoint presentation.” In Wheadon’s summation, a coach is as much “manager” as “coach”, because of the need to not only coach people, but to also manage each individual person in order to bring the best out of them as a collective team.16

14 Denis Pagan quoted in The Art of Coaching, pp. 58-59.

15 The Art of Coaching, p. 51.

16 The Art of Coaching, p. 79.

really when you think about it, they’re the ones who win the matches for you.”13 Former North Melbourne premiership coach, Denis Pagan (North Melbourne 1993-2002, Carlton 2003-2007), saw himself as a father figure to his players in a similar way to how Hafey did. “Coaches are almost de facto fathers,” Pagan said. “When you coach someone for 10 years and you see them every day for nine months of the year, you get to know them pretty well.”14 Another who recognised that he needed to be more than just a football coach was David Parkin (Hawthorn coach 1977-1980, Carlton 1981-85 and 1991-1999, Fitzroy 1986-1988), who just happened to be a qualified school teacher, a vocation that leant itself ideally to coaching a group of footballers from different backgrounds. Former Carlton defender, Ken Hunter, explained what made Parkin such a great players’ coach: “He not only took a genuine interest in the team, but he took a genuine interest in you as a person where, outside of football he wanted to get to know you as a person. With some coaches you were just a number, but Parkin was unique because of how genuine he was in his interest in you as a person.” Wheadon writes: “Regular contact with the players formally or informally gives the players the greatest people management gift they can receive: time. This time allows the coach to discover the

players’ personal interests, motivation, hopes, anxieties, strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, it shows a genuine care and interest in each player as a person, on and off the field, and if there is a need for discipline the player knows the coach still cares about him.”15

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 93

PATIENT: Ken Hinkley served a long 05 COACHING

apprenticeship as an assistant coach at St Kilda (2001), Geelong (2004-09) and Gold Coast (2010-12), before taking the senior job at Port Adelaide in 2013. In his first year he was named Coach of the Year by the AFL Coachesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Association, a year in which he took Port Adelaide from 14th in 2012 to a preliminary final in 2013.

94 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

gAme DAY cOAcHiNg

GAME DAY COACHING Modern senior coaches will say that game day is more about watching than manipulating, with much of the strategic work done through the week. But the role of line coaches, managing defence, attack and midfield has accelerated.

here once upon a time the influence of the senior coach would hinge largely on the decisions that he made during the four quarters of a game, today’s coaches do the majority of their work during the week, or weeks—or months—leading up to game day. Previously, players could expect their weekly ‘rev-up’ in the final hour before the first bounce, then, the best coaches would try to spring a surprise on his coaching adversary from which his side could then exploit to their advantage in order to get the win. The best would also react quickly to a surprise from their opponent as the game unfolded. Although not quite chess, footy coaching was, and is, a battle of the minds. For players who played under the same coach for many years, such a weekly routine could become monotonous, opening up the possibility of the coach’s message failing to fire the same reactions from his players that he may have set off earlier in his career. (For example, a number of Carlton, and then, later, North Melbourne players, who played under Ron Barassi for many years admitted that they had grown weary of copping the same blast from the master coach season after season. Indeed, Barassi himself recognised when he had reached the tipping point with each of the four clubs he coached—Carlton, North Melbourne, Melbourne and Sydney—and made the decision to exit before being shown the door).

In the 1980s, Kevin Sheedy coached an Essendon side to become the most unpredictable team in the League. In order to constantly keep his opposing coach guessing, ‘Sheeds’ placed a high premium on having flexibility within his team so that he could throw a player from defence to attack at any moment, with the intent of creating a mismatch. “I was fearful of him because he was innovative,” admits David Parkin, who coached at Hawthorn (1977-80), Carlton (1981-85), Fitzroy (1986-88) and Carlton again (1991-2000). “In fact, he was almost innovative for innovation’s sake. He was so hard to coach against, because when you thought you had him by the throat, he would then produce something we weren’t expecting. We would always spend a lot of time on the ‘what-ifs’, but Sheeds would produce things that I would never have even considered. So I was always anxious when facing him.” Sheedy achieved remarkable success with his unconventional and unpredictable methods at Essendon (four premierships, three Grand Final defeats, three other preliminary finals, and a total of 19 finals series in 27 seasons), but, according to Collingwood coach, Nathan Buckley, the modern-day coach does the majority of his work “not just during the week, but in the months and years leading up.” A keen student of the game, Buckley draws comparisons with the NFL in America: “They [NFL coaches] believe that you’ve either won or lost the game before the whistle goes. They know

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 95

THE The senior coach (here 05 BOX: COACHING Kevin Sheedy for GWS) is just one of a team in the box on game day. The crew includes assistants, line coaches, statisticians and analysts, all with the senior coach’s ear.

whether they’ve won or lost from what they’ve picked up from the opposition and in their preparation. It doesn’t sound right to me [that an outcome can be predicted prior to the event], but fundamentally I agree that you prepare the players for performance and provide them with the tools that they need, then you hand the keys over to the players to go out and execute.” Today’s player is so regimented in the amount of training that they can do during a week—which is heavily balanced against the amount of recovery time each individual requires from week to week—and, through GPS tracking they are closely monitored throughout each game, so a senior coach does not even need to ‘drag’ a player to the interchange bench; they immediately leave the ground of their own accord when they believe the time is right. GPS data, assessed later, will confirm their decision. “You can’t influence their ability on game day, but you can have some influence on their attitude,” says former West Coast and now Essendon coach, John Worsfold. “But, that’s a tough thing to do once the game starts. If your team’s flat on the day you might have to throw things around a bit to try and ignite something. But if your team is playing really well and the opposition is playing

96 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

really well, do you want to change things which might upset your balance, or do you just let two good teams go at it and say that the better team will win?” With ever-expanding coaching panels, there are significantly more voices, and sets of eyes watching proceedings, and each specialist is responsible for a particular aspect of the match day production. To signify just how much things have changed with League coaching panels, in the 1977 Grand Final the Collingwood coach’s box contained only two people: senior coach, Tom Hafey, and his assistant coach, Ron Richards.

typical match day coaching panel in the modern game is broken up between a group—or ‘team’—in the coach’s box. This will include the senior coach, an assistant coach, a forward coach, a defensive coach, a midfield coach or coaches, a statistician, the director of coaching or ‘head of performance’ who oversees and provides feedback on the entire operation, as well as somebody in charge of updating the team board which lists the ‘live’ match-ups out on the field. Another group/team is at ground level on the interchange bench, including the team runner who relays in-game messages from the senior coach to the playing group, a ‘bench manager’ who ensures the

smooth running of not only those at ground level but also communications with the coach’s box, a ruck coach, the high performance manager, club doctor and a number of trainers to attend to muscle manipulation and other ailments, as well as an interchange steward who manages the area where players enter and depart the arena during quarters. The two ‘teams’ stay connected via an in-house telephone system that allows the senior coach to speak directly, and immediately, with somebody on the interchange bench, whether an assistant or a player. It is the senior coach’s role to not only be across what’s happening on the field, but to also use his fellow coaches as sounding boards, and the best coaching panels challenge each other in order to determine the correct method of approach. The key theme is communication. “You’ve got to be clear in your communication and you need to make sure the messages are consistent based on all the information you can gather,” Buckley said. According to former Melbourne coach, Neale Daniher, no matter how big or small your coaching panel is, “what’s really important is that everyone knows their role.” Some senior coaches like a vibrant box where assistants are constantly

gAme DAY cOAcHiNg

challenging the coach and tossing up ideas; other senior coaches prefer a quieter environment, where ideas are only suggested once they have been seriously considered and thought through. Daniher says it is important to understand what your particular senior coach expects, and to fit in with how they want their panel to operate. “As a coach, you’re not interested in the problem [on the field]—you’ve got eyes of your own—what you’re interested in is the solution.”1 The coach’s box can become a place of roller-coasting emotions throughout the course of a game, and Daniher says that it is “so important” for any coaches in support roles to keep their individual emotions in check, as the senior coach is looking to them for ideas and feedback at all times—even when he’s the one often unable to control his own emotions, as the ever alert TV cameras will show! Collingwood senior assistant coach, Robert Harvey says it’s important to stay focused: “As long as you’re strong in what you believe and you don’t waver too much you can certainly get it done without ranting and raving. You still need to be strong at the right time, but I reckon the 1 Neale Daniher quotes were sourced from the AFL Community Club website. To hear more from Daniher on the various elements to coaching visit: http://tinyurl.com/godglqy.

ranting and raving coach has gone out of the game to a certain degree.” During the quarter-time, half-time and three quarter-time breaks, line coaches speak with their respective lines (either forwards, midfielders or defenders) and provide feedback as to how they are performing. This discussion gives players a chance to bring anything of note to the coach’s attention, including asking questions about their opponent, the game plan or their own game, and also what’s happening on the field. Then, each line comes together to be addressed by the senior coach who will not only focus on individual match-ups and feedback, but will also reinforce team structures that have been put in place during the previous week or weeks prior to the game.

ut make no mistake, while the role of the game day coach may have changed over the years there is still room for the occasional ‘spray’ when the coach feels that the message isn’t getting through. Win, lose or draw, the senior coach generally gathers the playing group in an anteroom connected to the main changing room in the immediate aftermath of a game. (However, if the team has just won, that gathering is put off until the club song has been sung with gusto). It is here,

behind closed doors, in an endeavour to strike ‘while the iron is hot’, when the coach will highlight some key positives and negatives to have come out of the result. It is important not to overload the players with too much information during this meeting however, as there will be time for greater analysis early the following week. The importance of being a good educator comes to the fore in these post-game reviews. As the players then go through their warmdown exercises, and receive any treatment for minor injuries, the senior coach then needs to attend the post-match press conference—or, what Parkin regularly referred to as “the fifth quarter.” Gone are the days when a senior AFL coach is hired purely on his ability to communicate with the playing group alone. Indeed, his ‘marketability’ is as crucial an element as his ‘coachability’, for today’s coaches need to be able to build a connection with not just supporters, but club sponsors, feeding hope to those who have invested in the direction their club is heading. And when all that is said and done, the senior coach generally goes home and watches the replay of that day’s game to, again, ‘strike while the iron is hot’ and while the game is still fresh in his mind. A task that is far more enjoyable if the team has held to the game plan and recorded a victory.

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05 COACHING

ATTACKING: Luke Beveridge’s attacking game plan achieved instant dividends for the Western Bulldogs in 2015. The Dogs increased their scoring average from 81 points in 2014—under Brendan McCartney— to 95.5 in Beveridge’s first year as senior coach. Beveridge had been an assistant at Hawthorn under Alastair Clarkson from 2012 to 2014, a period in which the Hawks played in three Grand Finals, winning two, with scoring averages of 121 (2012), 114 and 111.

ATTACK OR DEFEND? One of the great discussion points of modern football: do you attack or defend to ensure victory? The stats say high-scoring teams win Grand Finals, but the reality is you must be efficient at each part of the game to succeed.

t is the question that has baffled coaches for decades: to attack or defend? Indeed, the question is not just confined to sport alone, as leaders of armies, or managers in business, have also faced similar problems. The Chinese military general, Sun Tzu, said that “invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack.” Certainly, for an AFL coach, if you understand an opponent’s defence, you will then know how to defeat them. When Matthew Knights replaced longtime coach, Kevin Sheedy, at Essendon in

98 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

2008, he implemented an attacking game plan which saw the Bombers play some of the most exciting football in the League. By instructing his team to play a fast, but risky, brand of football, Knights was determined to instill a confidence within the playing group so that they would not be afraid to take the game on in any situation. But while the Bombers recorded some exhilarating victories during his three-year tenure, they also suffered some humiliating defeats, and the coach was criticised for not finding a better balance between attack and defence. Indeed, in the club’s only final during

that period—the 2009 first elimination final—Essendon was belted by Adelaide to the tune of 96 points. While they were breathtaking to watch on occasions, clubs knew they could score heavily against Essendon when it came their turn to attack. It is no coincidence that, over the past decade (2006-2015), the team with the best defence throughout the home and away rounds has played off in the Grand Final in each of those 10 seasons. (Although, interestingly, of those same 10 seasons, the team with the best defence won the flag on just three occasions and were runners-

AttAcK OR DeFeND?

up the other seven times). Conversely, the highest scoring team throughout each season of that same decade won the premiership four times (Geelong in 2007 and Hawthorn in each of 2013, 2014 and 2015; Mark Thompson and Alastair Clarkson led two of the greatest attacking sides of all time). No AFL coach in modern history has been asked the question of whether to attack or defend more than former St Kilda and, since 2012, Fremantle head coach, Ross Lyon. Having played a key role in the success of the defensively minded Sydney Swans under Paul Roos (which included the 2005 premiership and 2006 Grand Final), Lyon led the Saints into three Grand Finals (2009, 2010 draw and replay) and then took the Dockers to their first ever Grand Final (2013). With an ounce of luck on the game’s grandest stage, Lyon could be recognised as a three-time premiership coach. (Leading with only minutes remaining, St Kilda lost to Geelong in 2009 by 12 points; they then drew with Collingwood in 2010 before losing the replay the following week; then, having kicked inaccurately in the first half of the 2013 decider, Fremantle lost to Hawthorn by 15 points). Instead, the inability of Lyon’s teams to score enough points to win a premiership taints his otherwise remarkable record as a coach. (Lyon has a winning percentage of 69%, which ranks him in the absolute elite of all VFL/AFL coaches in history. Of the AFL coaches entering the 2016 season, Lyon is behind only Geelong’s Chris Scott with 74% and Sydney’s John Longmire with 70%). “The best teams and teams that win premierships sit in top four for attack and defence,” Lyon conceded on the eve of the 2016 season. “I always quote you want to be top four in both.”1 Indeed, statistics rarely lie. In his first nine years as a senior coach (2007-2015), Lyon-coached sides have finished top four in attack on one occasion and top four in defence a remarkable seven times. It is the quest to find balance between the two that keeps Lyon motivated. “I don’t sit here and think I’m a genius. Clearly my fundamentals are strong and we win [regularly], but we need to improve to achieve the ultimate success.”2 In the past four seasons, from 2012-2015, in the home and away season, the premiershipwinning teams have averaged 104 (Sydney), 115 (Hawthorn defeated Fremantle), 112 (Hawthorn) and 111 (Hawthorn) points per game during the regular season, while Fremantle during the same period have averaged 89, 93, 92 and 84 points per game. Luke Beveridge was surely a new broom

CONUNDRUM: Ross Lyon is one of the modern game’s most successful coaches, but he is yet to win a flag after four Grand Finals (three with St Kilda and one with Fremantle). His game has been based on defence first, but he recognises the need for his team to score more heavily.

at the Western Bulldogs in 2015. Beveridge who joined the Dogs as senior coach after a stint as assistant at Hawthorn during their flag winning years (2013, 2014) applied a run and carry, attacking style at the Whitten Oval, and the results flowed. The Bulldogs lifted their average score from 81 points in 2014 to 95.5 in 2015 a 17% increase, and jumped from 14th to 6th on the ladder. One of Lyon’s coaching mentors is the renowned coaching expert, David Wheadon, whom he describes as “an outstanding teacher and a great facilitator of learning.”3 According to Wheadon, “In Australian Football there is a cyclical battle between defence and attack, but defence tends to dominate.”4 His belief that “offence sells tickets, but defence wins premierships”5 could well be quoted when referring to the previous discussion on Knights’ tenure at Essendon, where, particularly early on, the Bombers were applauded for their attacking style, but also criticised for a lack of defence. Interestingly, Wheadon writes: “An AFL team with very talented defenders and an efficient defensive game plan can give itself a great chance of finishing in the top four at the end of the home and away season. An excellent defence will never guarantee that the team will win any particular game, but it will give it a chance to be in a position to contend for the premiership.”6 Coaches constantly preach the importance of finishing ‘top four’ at the end of the regular season as it provides the vital second chance should they lose in the first

round. Notably, since the introduction of the ‘final eight’ finals system in 1994, only Adelaide, in 1998, has won the premiership after finishing outside the top four at the end of the home and away rounds.7 And of the top four sides since 1994 who have lost their opening finals round, five went on to win their remaining three finals matches to claim the premiership: Hawthorn in 2015, West Coast in 2006, Sydney in 2005, Brisbane in 2003, and Adelaide in 1998. There is no question that Lyon-coached sides, by adhering to his military-style approach to defence, regularly put themselves in such a position. Indeed, in his nine seasons as senior coach, Lyon’s sides have finished the regular season in the top four on six separate occasions. In answering the question of attack or defence being the best way to win a premiership, Wheadon states the obvious: “The best combination is for a team to have both an excellent attack and an excellent defence ... If you have both, you have a real chance of winning. Teams relying predominantly on attack would not want their defence to be ranked too much lower than their attack.”8 He concludes that “with a good defence you can stay in any game”,9 which, as a supporter of any AFL club, is all you can ask of your team.

4 Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, p. 193.

7 In 2000, the AFL altered the original topeight format that had been established in 1994. Previously, top played eighth in the first week of the finals, second played seventh, third played sixth and fourth played fifth, meaning that only the top two sides had a double-chance and the lowest two losers were eliminated. But as of 2000, the top four teams are all guaranteed a second chance, with top playing fourth, second playing third, fifth playing seventh and sixth playing eighth.

1 The Age, 6 February 2016, p. 53.

5 Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, p. 195.

8 Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, pp. 195-196.

2 Herald Sun, 7 February 2016, p. 53.

6 Ibid.

9 Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, p. 197.

3 Ross Lyon quoted in David Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, Richmond: Slattery Media Group, 2014, p. 10.

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FIRSTCOACHING PICKED: 05

Carlton had first pick in the 2015 AFL National Draft and chose tall defender Jacob Weitering, a product of the Mt Martha Redlegs and the Dandenong Stingrays.

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LiSt mANAgemeNt & RecRUitiNg

LIST MANAGEMENT & RECRUITING There are those who say the list manager — he who chooses youth, and discards those who haven’t made it — is the most important back room executive in any club.

raft day. From 1986, when the AFL (then known as the VFL) first introduced the National Draft, draft day has become the day where dreams are realised, careers started. Conversely, draft day has also seen dreams shattered. The advent of the National Draft, which owes its birth to similar drafts in the US sports, National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL), changed the course of modern football by ensuring a fairer competition for all competing clubs. No longer was it just about who had the most money or the best recent history. The first pick went to the worst-performed team of the previous season, while the premier side was forced to wait until the final selection of each round. But, like many variables in Australian football, having the first pick in the draft does not guarantee success. Seven clubs have joined the AFL since the first national draft: Brisbane Bears (now Brisbane Lions) and West Coast Eagles in 1987, Adelaide Crows (1991), Fremantle Dockers (1995), Port Adelaide Power (1997), Gold Coast Suns (2011) and the Greater Western Sydney Giants, [GWS] (2012). In each instance, the new clubs were all faced with great challenges, particularly Brisbane and, to a lesser extent, the Dockers, each of which was given little advantage, if any, in player selection. By the time the AFL confirmed that Gold Coast and GWS would be entering the competition, the League recognised that they needed to afford both upstarts far greater concessions than they had the previous five clubs, in order for both teams to be not only rapidly competitive,

but to gain an immediate foothold in their respective states: states which are traditionally non-Australian football states. And while on the surface it looked like both clubs were guaranteed to select all the best talent available in their respective draft years, for those in charge of the task—the list managers and recruiting teams—success was anything but a fait accompli. Their club’s immediate, and long-term future was in their hands. “To be a good recruiter you need the ability to be objective and analytical,” begins Gold Coast’s recruiting manager, Dom Ambrogio, who joined the startup Suns in 2009. “To be able to pull someone’s game apart and project into the future is critical to what we do. Recruiting people come from a lot of different backgrounds: a lot are teachers; a lot of people come from development coaching; some are former players; there are people from analytics backgrounds: so there’s a lot of different ways and a lot of different skills that go into it.” At AFL level there are three aspects to recruiting, as Ambrogio explained. “There’s the junior and youth element, the secondtier element (which includes leagues such as the Victorian Football League, South Australian National Football League and West Australian Football League1), and then there’s the pro-scouting-of-the-opposition element. In that sense, clubs like the 1 The Victorian Football League (VFL) is the second highest level of football within Victoria, after the AFL. The South Australian National Football League (SANFL) is South Australia’s premier Australian football competition. The West Australian Football League (WAFL) is the equivalent in Western Australia.

Sydney Swans and Hawthorn have clearly been very good at taking players from other clubs, trading them in and getting some very good football out of them.” Ambrogio was a pioneer of sorts when he first began working for the Western Bulldogs in the late-1990s. “I was very much in the analytics side, and I came up with a system similar to Moneyball (a system used in American baseball where players were selected because of their value in specific roles, as opposed to their perceived ability as an overall baseballer. Moneyball, Michael Lewis’s book on how the Oakland As, and manager Billy Beane profited from such analysis, was later made into a major motion picture). “I came up with a system, took that to Scott Clayton at the Western Bulldogs, started working part-time and it all grew from there. It was about trying to be objective and look at outcomes, versus being subjective and go on gut. It was about objectively trying to work out what wins AFL football games, and how do you predict what’s going to win AFL football games. Champion Data (the AFL’s official statistics partner) does a lot in that space now, but I guess I got in during a time where clubs were looking for an edge that wasn’t yet centralised.” The way all clubs approached the draft, and the tools they use to analyse prospective players changed dramatically in a very short time. “When I first started, we would get printed-out stats delivered to the footy club each week from the bottom age competitions—mainly just the TAC Cup [under-18 competition]. And that would literally be kicks, marks, handballs, goals—that was it! And you would have to

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 101

05 COACHING

THE PICK OF THE CROP: The 2015 National Draft was held in Adelaide. The top ten were presented at the conclusion. From left Jacob Weitering (Carlton), Josh Schache (Brisbane), Callum Mills (Sydney), Clayton Oliver (Melbourne), Darcy Parish (Essendon), Aaron Francis (Essendon), Jacob Hopper (GWS), Callum Ah Chee (Gold Coast), Sam Weideman (Melbourne) and Harry McKay (Carlton).

go through it with a highlighter pen and highlight the key stats. I was cutting-edge at that stage because I had a computer! And, I actually thought to put that information on to a computer which was considered high-tech back then. There just wasn’t that sort of thing going on. I can remember going to the 1999 national draft and having to specifically order power to our table for the computer, as I was the only one who had a computer there—it was like our secret weapon. But things happened pretty quickly over the next couple of years and clubs started to do similar things. It all started to change in the very late 1990s, into 2000. That’s when it all started to become a lot more sophisticated, and within a couple of years the analytics side of the draft just exploded.” Having worked at the Bulldogs for a decade, when the then Bulldogs’ recruiting guru, Scott Clayton, was asked to join the newly-formed Gold Coast Suns, as its list manager, he took Ambrogio with him to oversee the recruiting aspect of the club’s operations. “Scott guides most of the decisions that get made,” Ambrogio said. “He watches a lot more AFL football, as opposed to just the lower grades—you need someone there directing the top game trends and all that sort of stuff, and then feeding that down to people like me. So he’s an enormous influence over what we do.” As list manager in charge of every aspect of recruiting, Clayton not only has to be across all prospective recruits, he also needs to cast a keen eye over the AFL to determine

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what players from other clubs might be brought into the Suns system, via trades, in order to fill a particular role. He will also assess successful game plans, and outcomes, and the players who lead to that success. Clubs can’t copy, but understanding success leads to better selections.

art of that will come through open dialogue with the senior coach, but in most cases coaches place their trust in the recruiting staff to target the right players for their team, looking at not only the present but also the future. “A recruiting manager has always got his eye on the future; as for the coach, while he certainly needs to project into the future, his immediate priorities lay in the here and now; and then the list manager sort of sits somewhere in between those two,” Ambrogio said. One recruiter who works under Ambrogio (the Suns have a team of recruiters spread throughout Australia), Kallan Burns, joined the Suns in their debut year having completed a sports science degree at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne. After working in the Sports Science & IT department for his first four years, Burns was asked to join Ambrogio and focus on recruitment and opposition, and was immediately taken by how important communication is to a club when it comes to recruiting. He said, “One thing that I’ve found, having come into this recruiting team, is that they’re so open to being challenged in order to grow. I’ll never forget my first

meeting I had for the role, where they said ‘You need to challenge us. If you’re not going to push us and change our line of thinking, then you’re no good to us. So come in and give us a difference of opinion.’ That was really encouraging for me and that’s why Scott and Dom have been in partnership for a long time and have been so successful.” In a recruiting team, everyone is accountable, as Ambrogio explained. “Our structure is this: There’s a list manager at the top, who is Scott, and he’ll watch a mixture of AFL, VFL, SANFL, WAFL, and he’ll also watch TAC Cup, so he watches a broad mixture of games, but with a heavier AFL content. Then there’s myself as the recruiting manager, and I’ll watch all the same stuff but with a lesser AFL content. Then I’ve got Kall and James Murch (recruiter and vision analysis) who are full-time in our Melbourne office, focused purely on recruiting. We then have a part-timer who works for us in Victoria (David Powell), one in South Australia (Mike Arnold) and one in Western Australia (Rod Willet). We also have our Academy which covers Queensland for us, and then there’s Brett Munro who works in opposition, and all those guys feed their analysis back to me.” “We report back to a centralised database and also through discussion amongst each other,” Burns added. “Plus we accumulate vision from every AFL game, as well as every second tier competition, and then also some other domestic stuff every single week, to ensure

LiSt mANAgemeNt & RecRUitiNg

that we are across every game possible.” “Basically, once the season gets rolling you’re at the footy 35 weekends a year, which includes practice games, finals and other games,” Ambrogio said. “And on most of those weekends, the way the national schedule works there will be a footy game somewhere in Australia. You should really be out Friday, Saturday and Sunday. School footy is really big, too, and so there are mid-week games of that. Then there are public holiday games, such as the ones played over the Easter weekend, where there are games from Thursday through to Monday: that’s five days straight of footy that an AFL recruiter will go to, then on the other days of that week you’re watching vision.” While the technology has advanced at a rapid pace, and access to vision has become easier than ever before, nothing beats being at the ground, something recruiters have been doing for decades. Said Burns, “We each physically get to about six full games a week (we might watch a few halves/quarters here and there as well), and even though recruiting has changed over the years there’s still nothing like seeing the game live at the ground.” Ambrogio added, “The fundamental basis and the underpinning of what we do is ‘live’ games. It’s seeing what they’re doing behind the ball, their body language on the bench; there’s a lot more you can see by being at the game that you just can’t see on the vision.” The Suns were given an unprecedented nine of the first 15 selections (when they finished trading, they had eight of the first 13) in the 2010 national draft, and played firstly in the TAC Cup for a season, then the VFL for a year before joining the AFL, but the perceived advantage that the raft of top choices offered the recruiting team was not without its challenges. “The idea of us evolving into the competition was a good idea, but it was challenging practically,” Ambrogio said. “What it meant was the leadership that you originally want the club to have in place—before injecting young players into it—didn’t exist. We had to go out and attract those older players, and that was quite challenging. We didn’t have an established tradition.” A good recruiter needs to observe and analyse not only a player’s talent, but also his character. Gone is the day where a player is chosen on talent alone. “When there is a player who is obviously extremely talented, but has questionable character, whether you consider taking him or not comes down to the timing of your organisation,” Ambrogio said. “There are times when an organisation is well equipped to deal with an individual like that. And there are other times where you

SEEKING THE NEXT GEN: Gold Coast Suns recruiting manager Dom Ambrogio (left) and Manager,

List Strategy, Scott Clayton during the all-important trade period prior to the National Draft each year.

go: ‘This is just not our time.’ The key from a recruiting perspective is for you to know when the time is right to take on someone like that, and when it isn’t. And that will be cyclical for everyone.

“Y

ou’re dealing with something that is so multi-factorial, and there’s such a high human element: you’re putting a human in with a bunch of other humans, not knowing for certain how they’re going to interact with those humans. Then there’s the environment, or you might have moved someone interstate and before you know it they’re getting homesick. There are all these factors that go into every single recruitment. All you can really do is play those percentages to give yourself the best chance to get it right more often than not.” At Gold Coast, the recruiting team work to a system, where a potential recruit is judged on three different thresholds, the centre-point being that key word: character. “In every draft there’s a pool of players that will have sufficient craft and technical skills, and that number may be 80 players,” Ambrogio said. “Then, within that pool of 80 players you’ll have another group that has the athletic attributes to play at the highest level. There are guys who are just too small, too slow, and they’ve got poor endurance, so they’re just not going to work. There might be 50 who fit into that, which means 30 of that initial 80 don’t fit. Then, if they make it through those first two hurdles and they’ve shown that they’ve got the tools to get to the start

line, then we look at their character. And there might be 30 blokes within that who we judge to have the ability to be an AFL footballer, based on their character and their background, their mental aptitude and a number of other factors. But that can be different for every club. “You can’t just go out and play anymore. You need to be able to apply structures and team rules, live a professional lifestyle, and determining that is a heap of work (for the recruiters). We follow social media, we speak to teachers, coaches, we do reference checking, we speak to their parents—we do everything we can. But a lot of it comes down to observation. You can pick up a lot by observing how someone conducts themselves. For example, after a game of footy have they got a water bottle in their hand, or even a Powerade, the healthy options? Or, have they got an ice cream and a can of coke? But you might not write someone off about that either. What that might mean is that you need to do more digging as to why someone is carrying four chocchip muffins, and you might find out that his communication around his diet hasn’t been as strong as it has been for somebody else. So can he learn the right way? Can he change? There might well be an upside in all that. And so, if we go back to what it is that makes a good recruiter— underpinning everything else, you need to be thorough. And you can’t close your mind off to anyone. You’ve got to be prepared to do all the work and all the research, because you never know what each case might present.”

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05 COACHING

ON THE WEIGHTS: The action never stops in the modern era of professionalism, with every part of a player’s training regime worked out by the High Performance Manager. Pictured is Richmond midfielder Brett Deledio working on his upper body.

MANAGING FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE In the professional era, managing players’ bodies has become as important as managing strategy and refining skills; in other words, keeping a team’s best list on the field — from pre-season to finals — is a fundamental of a team’s successful season.

lthough the senior coach remains the figurehead of every AFL club, the role of the high-performance manager has increased dramatically in the past decade. Indeed, as much is expected from the generally anonymous high performance manager as the senior coach, so integral is his role within the everexpanding football department at club level. And it’s a role that encompasses a wide range of areas. “It’s not just about writing a conditioning plan for the players anymore,” says Richmond’s

104 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

high performance manager, Peter Burge. “You’re also managing other staff, such as strength and conditioning coaches, the sports science department, player rehab, you work with medical teams, and you also report to the coaches—particularly the senior coach—on any injuries. So, as you can see, it is more of a management role than just being a fitness coach these days. It’s pretty broad.” The man who oversees the fitness and wellbeing of the entire Richmond playing group knows too well the training requirements of an elite athlete in order

to reach their full potential; Burge is a former Australian representative in the long jump and triple jump, winning the Gold Medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. Having grown up in far north Queensland—rugby league heartland—Burge first began working with AFL players at Port Adelaide under Andrew Russell, whom he later followed to Hawthorn in 2005. “I grew up in Townsville and I played cricket before moving into athletics,” Burge said. “I had watched the Sydney Swans through the ’90s when I was living in Sydney, and

mANAgiNg FOR HigH PeRFORmANce

I loved AFL, but as a kid I didn’t grow up playing it, although I did used to watch it on the popular television show The Winners each week. As a kid in Townsville there was no real AFL interest up there, it was just what we saw on the ABC. “What surprised me when I got into the AFL system was the endurance of the players. Probably not so much the jumping and all that, it was more the endurance and the fact that they could keep running for such a long time. And over the years I have started to appreciate that even more,” he said. Since 2005, the role of the high performance manager has widened enormously, and Burge has had to adapt constantly to the rapid growth in his field of expertise. “The biggest change in the 11 years I have been involved is the different staff that you have to manage,” Burge explained. “It’s similar to how there are now a team of assistant coaches and development coaches that the senior coach needs to manage. I now have a team of four under me, then there’s a myotherapist and a head trainer, plus all the medical guys.” There is also the management of the players. “They all have different personalities, and it’s about connecting with them rather than just writing a plan for them,” Burge said. “The thing that I’ve learnt is that building a connection with the players has more impact than all the technical stuff. You can know how they produce VO2 oxygen levels and their endurance and all that, but if you can’t connect with a player and teach and get them to invest, then it becomes very difficult to get them to buy into what you are asking them to do. So you really are working on the relationship side of things a lot of the time, and building up that trust.” That trust extends to the communication between the coaching staff and the high performance staff, as Burge explained. “It is important for the coach and the high-performance manager to be on the same page. Ultimately he’s the boss, but you go in and throw some ideas up about how long training should be, for example. He relies on you a fair bit to share that information with him. “Sometimes you don’t see eye-to-eye with him and so you either come to an agreement or you might have to give in to his wishes at times, because at the end of the day it’s his call and you need to make it work. I’m not at the forefront of match selection, but I do get relied on to provide information on a player’s medical history and where he’s at with his physical abilities. “There are times where they might be looking ahead two weeks, for example, so you might be deciding whether it’s the

right decision to play him or to rest him. Ultimately you want to pick the best team for each game, but there are certainly times where I get asked to look ahead and determine when best to use a particular player.” In devising a pre-season schedule, Burge needs to compensate for the various levels of development each player is at. For example, a new draftee might only do 60 per cent of the overall pre-season program. Then, as each year goes on that will be increased until, by his third or fourth year he is ready to do the full program. “For the first three months I will be very conservative with the younger players, without putting an actual percentage on how much of the program we will put them through,” Burge said. “You first need to work out whether they are men or boys, because some of them are built like men at 18 and some aren’t. You might tailor it so that the more mature first-year players do 80 per cent of the program, while others might only do 60 per cent. And that can be based on what you know of their training history and any injuries they have had. It increases a little bit from about three months through to six months, and you find which guys can start to handle a little more. “Although, in saying that, it is still capped at less than the senior players. When guys like Matthew Pavlich (who famously passed out during his first training session at Fremantle and had to be taken to hospital) entered the system there was probably less interest in capping the amount of work that the new guys had to do. But football training has now become so much more intense, and it’s increased so much that these 18 year-olds really have to be monitored to ensure you aren’t making them do too much too soon.”

espite better junior pathways than ever before, every draftee’s preparation before being selected by an AFL club will still differ from the next, and this makes Burge’s role that much more challenging. “The junior development prior to reaching the AFL has certainly improved in recent years,” Burge says. “But it seems to vary depending on where the kids have come from, in terms of their conditioning in those late-teen years. Some will have been in the gym and believe they have learnt the basic techniques, but we find we spend a lot of time going back to the real basics in the first three to six months because a lot of the kids really don’t know anything about it.” Interestingly, Burge cites the development system in rugby union as the ideal platform for clubs to properly develop and teach their future draftees

what is required at the top level. “Before working in the AFL I had worked in rugby union up in Sydney,” he said. “And the difference with rugby is that they don’t have a draft system like they do in the AFL; they have academies and they basically take players from their academies. At the NSW Waratahs for example, they could get them at 14 and teach them everything, knowing they were then going to be able to take them at 18. So when you get your 18-year-old rugby player, he already knows all the various elements in regards to training, and is really technically good. But with AFL you don’t even know who you’re getting during that same period, and you might end up with someone who has never been in a development program at all, but who can play footy, and you’re really starting with the absolute basics with them. “That’s the challenge, and that’s why we have to be so conservative with them. I would say that from a conditioning perspective they play a lot of games of football at a young age, and they are not physically prepared for those games. “We’ve had kids come in who have played 30 or 40 games the previous year at junior level, and they love it because that’s what you want to do: play the game. I was an athlete once too, and all I wanted to do was compete. But for long-term benefits and physical preparation and grounding, it’s more important than just playing as many games as possible, because that’s when you see players break down.” Burge explains that, no matter what level of experience you are at, when the pre-season comes around there is one expectation for all players in terms of why they are training, and what they are training for. “The whole idea of pre-season is to prepare you so you can compete the whole year in season,” he said. “We push the envelope with how much we do, whether that’s conditioning, improving strength or any other area. Football skills training is also a big part of that. But game stress on match day is massive compared to any training that we do, and the intensity of games is higher than the intensity of training. You try and replicate it at training, but it’s just not the same. “Round one intensity is at a whole other level, so training does reduce a bit in season as the game stress increases, although the overall loading we give to the players is still pretty high. We have different ways of monitoring what loads are required. Yes, pre-season loads are higher if you look at purely just the minutes of training, but the intensity of the game at AFL level now, and the stress of that, is extremely high.

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PERFORMANCE MANAGER: 05 COACHING

Richmond’s man in charge of high performance is Peter Burge (left), in conversation with Luke Meehan Richmond’s Rehabilitation and Conditioning Coach. An Australian long jumper and triple jumper at the Commonwealth Games, Burge’s role is vast, and includes managing a team of medical experts as well as the differing needs of individual players.

PHOTO COURTESY OF RICHMOND FOOTBALL CLUB

“An example of that is that the softtissue injuries aren’t as high in the preseason as they are in season, even though you are doing more work in the preseason. The game stress is so intense that there are times where you will see guys break down through hamstring injuries or ACL knee injuries. So you try to manage that, particularly through the early part of the year.” In the 2015 pre-season, Nat Fyfe challenged Fremantle’s high-performance manager, Jason Weber, to help him develop the strength in his legs to be able to “become more like Patrick Dangerfield”, who was then playing with the Adelaide Crows (Dangerfield has since moved to Geelong).1 Dangerfield’s ability to burst through tackles was something Fyfe was able to emulate throughout the 2015 season, culminating in him being awarded the Brownlow Medal as the AFL’s fairest and best player. It is those sort of success stories that keep Burge and his contemporaries turning up for work each Monday morning. “I love reading about how Nat Fyfe is always looking at ways to improve his game,” Burge said. “You would love all your players to be like that, because if they are then they’re doing it in a positive way to benefit themselves, and that in 1 Nat Fyfe’s quote was sourced from Sam Lane’s article in Men’s Health magazine, published in September 2015, p. 95.

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turn provides a positive impact within the club. “I get that at Richmond, particularly among the middle-tier guys because they’re the ones who might be on the cusp of team selection each week. You love working with those guys because, while they may not possess the same amount of talent that some others have, they are willing to do whatever they need to do to be the best that they can be. And they might end up going past some guys who are more talented, just through sheer desire and hard work, and through finding ways and thinking outside of the square to get better. “That is a rewarding aspect to my job, no doubt; it makes you feel good seeing them do that. But because they have committed to do the work, and have followed it through, I don’t try and take any credit for it. I try and make them realise that they are the guys who have done it; I’ve just given them the tools to work it out.” The role of the high performance manager on match day is very much one of analysing information and determining where that information needs to be distributed. And technology plays a critical part in that. All AFL players now wear GPS tracking devices in the back of their guernsey, feeding real-time information back to the high-performance team on the interchange bench. With this information, Burge and his staff are

then able to make logical decisions on when a player will come to the bench for a rest. “I work with someone on game day who gives me the rotation details and the playing minutes of the players,” Burge said. “The medical guys will feed information to me as well, and I need to feed that up to the coach. When the substitute rule was in place (2011-2015) I would have to make decisions on who we would sub out. I monitor GPS numbers, and make the odd call here or there if somebody is really going hard but may not be due for a rotation; then I might decide that it’s best to get the guy off now instead of waiting that bit longer. “There is a lot of information, and it’s my job to interpret that information and pass it on to the right people. Most of the time those rotations are left in my hands, but sometimes there are positional things that will lead the coach to say, ‘We want this guy to stay on because we need him for this job,’ and so we obviously leave the player there instead of taking him off for a rest. Coaches are pretty good with their high performance staff these days, and we all work together to try to get the right balance for the benefit of the team.”

urge cites the use of ruckmen as an “interesting case in point, because it’s changed a bit over the years between playing two ruckmen or just playing one. The interchange cap and the sub rule affected those decisions,

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so occasionally I would get involved in discussions about whether we go with one or two. You may decide to only play one at AFL level and play the other one in the VFL, and so you need to keep the VFL guys ready to go in case they are then needed at senior level the following week. If they miss too much AFL and are playing VFL regularly, how do you keep that intensity at training up so that they can easily slot back in to AFL level? That’s another challenge we face.” In the past 25 years the AFL has moved from a part-time game (where players would still hold down a part- or fulltime job) to one that requires a full-time commitment. And despite each player being required to have eight weeks of holidays each year, that does not mean that for eight weeks they can binge and think that they can then turn up to day one of pre-season training overweight. “I think some players don’t understand the fact you can’t just let yourself go during the off-season,” Burge says. “Certainly the players at Richmond understand, because we explain it to them regularly. It’s okay to go away and relax a little, but if you relax too much and you go away and put on weight, then come back and start training two or three kilograms heavier, it’s an extra load on your body and you’re probably going to break down in the first two weeks. It’s not that we’re being nasty and trying to keep everyone’s skinfolds low just for the sake of it; there’s a very good reason for it, and that’s to stop them breaking down. “It’s not about dieting either, it’s about how you should be eating all the time if you want to be a professional athlete. That’s not to say you can’t have a beer or you can’t have an ice cream on the break; it’s about finding the right balance. If you do that well, then you generally won’t have any issues in your first two or three weeks back. We find that if players are going to have any injuries during the pre-season, it comes either in the first two weeks back from the long break, or the first week after the Christmas break. So if they can manage those periods well, then they’re usually pretty right.” With the game becoming faster, and the demands on players reaching unprecedented levels, the concern amongst players and coaches alike is on whether there are too many matches in a season. Burge has his views on the subject. “I think the amount of games they play is too many,” he says. “Everybody has a theory on that, but I think it would be nice if it was 17 games and each club played each other once. Then you could move your pre-season forward a little bit and you wouldn’t have any (NAB Challenge) games played

in 38-degree weather like we do at the moment. I think everybody knows what the answer should be, but it just comes down to the money that the game is generating and the TV rights as well. But 17 would be ideal.”

n recent years we have seen the issue of documentation and best practice in regards to supplements become a major talking point, particularly at Essendon between 2012 and 2015. If there is one positive to come from the whole saga, it is that it forced all clubs to take a critical look at how they police the use of supplements. “The way the system is now, documentation and locking up of supplements is at a level that I have not seen before,” Burge says. “It’s all in place to protect the players and the club, and that is a good thing. If that is going to help protect the AFL product and protect the clubs, then that’s what we need to do. Having been involved with track and field my whole life, and being drug tested numerous times myself, I certainly understand that you’ve just got to do it. Nutritional supplements at Richmond are all food-based things, and we don’t consider anything beyond that. It is all about supplementing things that the players might be missing in their diet. But

we keep it pretty simple and don’t try and go too alternative. “We had to take a really good look at what we did after the Essendon saga, just to ensure that we were going about things in the right way. We already had a supplement room that would get locked up, but we went back over everything and even drew up our own supplement policy that is a pretty strict document. We went through it because the integrity was in question across the AFL, and so our club made a really strong push to do that and I think that we’ve managed to do a really good job with it.” It all comes back to strong communication, and, as Burge explains, players are having a greater say in the way their clubs operate. “I think players have a lot more say these days, particularly through the AFL Players’ Association,” he says. “The game is harder, their time at the club has increased over the last 15 years in relation to training, and also, now they give feedback to coaches through the leadership groups. We are dealing with Generation Y now, and to get the team to function well you need to be on top of all that stuff. You need to be working with them in order to get the best results from everyone.”

SOPHISTICATED: Each player, at training and at games, carries a GPS monitor. The above photo shows the who’s who and where’s where of the West Coast Eagles.

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SUPERSTAR: Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury has exquisite skills, by hand and foot, coupled with superb decisionmaking. Like all of the best players, he is constantly working on his skills. 108 SKILLS OF

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SKILLS COACHING Coaching skills is a mix of responsibility shared by coaches and players. Coaches observe and advise, players listen and apply. Like all things in modern footy, it’s a team thing.

ne of the key factors that can distinguish a champion player— and champion team—from the rest of the pack is their ability to execute the skills of their chosen sport on a more consistent basis than the opposition. This can only come from repetition, under the eyes of trained coaches. In that regard, footy players are no different from golfers: a tweak here and a tweak there can make all the difference. Renowned coaching mentor and author, David Wheadon, reinforces this fact when he says that “talent is being able to repeat a skill in a consistent manner over an extended period.”1 Between 2001 and 2004, the Brisbane Lions were one such team able to, week after week, execute and repeat their skills when it mattered most. During their amazing run of four successive Grand Finals, which resulted in three premierships (2001-03), the Lions had a number of players who performed at a consistent high skill level time and time again; and, arguably the finest exponent in the skills of the game at that time was Jason Akermanis, who was equally adept on either side of his body with hand or foot. He had an innate ability to read where the ball was going next, and could kick goals from seemingly impossible angles which made him an extremely dangerous opponent to match up on. Indeed, his remarkable skills were recognised in 2001 when he was awarded the Brownlow Medal as the fairest and best player in the AFL. But he wasn’t alone: the Lions had two more Brownlow medallists in their midst during that period, in captain Michael Voss (joint-winner in 1996 with Essendon’s James Hird) and Simon Black (2002), not to mention fellow on-ballers in Luke Power and Nigel Lappin.

1 David Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, Richmond: Slattery Media Group, 2014, p. 108.

Wheadon breaks a skill down into two parts: decision-making (cognitive skill) and technique (motor skill). A cognitive skill is one that requires decision-making and problem solving, such as when a player gathers the ball in heavy congestion and assesses the best option to dispose of the ball by either a kick or handball. Dual Brownlow medallist Greg Williams was a master at this, as was Hird, and as is fourtime premiership midfielder Sam Mitchell, the man most compared with Williams. The motor skill relates to the techniques from the movement of the muscles. “Skill is decision-making supported by technique,” Wheadon explains.2 A simple statement which applies to all sports, but think of those most followed in Australia: golf, tennis, cricket: decide and act. In an invasive sport such as football— named as such because one team can “invade” another team’s territory (others include soccer, rugby union and rugby league, Gaelic Football and hurling, netball, hockey, and basketball), the most highlyskilled players are the best decision-makers. It goes hand in glove: those who make the best decisions often have the most time to execute: one thinks of Collingwood captain Scott Pendlebury, who is able to analyse a situation, then react and dispose of the ball in enough time to not get dispossessed by an opponent—all executed as if in slow motion—invariably setting up a teammate in a better position. But no matter how talented young players may be when they first join an AFL club, it is highly probable they will have skill deficiencies that require refining. “Even the very best youngsters invariably need some modification to their games,” explained former Western Bulldogs senior coach (2011-14) and long-time assistant at four other AFL clubs (Richmond, Geelong, 2 Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, p. 109.

Essendon and Melbourne), Brendan McCartney. And this is where the role of the skills coach becomes vital. One of the finest examples of such a player is former Sydney captain Paul Kelly, who admits that when he was invited up from his home town of Wagga Wagga, in country New South Wales, to train his first pre-season with the Swans in 1989, his skills were nowhere near refined enough to be an AFL player. “Although the footy league in and around Wagga was good, there wasn’t a lot done in developing your skills,” Kelly said. “Outside of kicking the ball in the streets we didn’t do much in regards to training. When I went to Sydney I had only played three years at Wagga and could only kick on my right side and I couldn’t handball left-handed. “Col Kinnear was my first coach at the Swans, and he set up groups for working on the various skills and I was in every single group: that’s how much work I needed! I had to work really hard because I wasn’t good enough, which made it all the more rewarding when I won the Brownlow Medal in 1995, knowing how much work had gone in to getting there.” According to McCartney, today’s clubs are almost always aware of a player’s deficiencies before drafting them, which means that the real coaching and management ability comes from being able to create a program that focuses on the skills each individual needs in order to overcome any issues. “The way you deliver that—what you say, how you say it—is important, but the content is the crucial thing.” And Wheadon insists that the art of teaching skill is no different from teaching any other subject: “it is to recognise the great teachable moment,” he said. He adds that if the teachers do their job correctly and connect with the player in such a way that they want to develop their skills, then “the great teachers of skill ...

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ON THE BAG: Fremantle 05 COACHING

ruckman Zac Clarke uses the jumping bag as an opponent as he works on his tap skills.

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WHITE v BLACK: Match practice is a vital part of the pre-season as clubs refine game plans and structures, simulating match conditions.

put themselves out of business” by making the players their own teachers.3 “Before you can do anything,” McCartney says, “your coaching program has got to have a clear picture of the skills that a player needs to develop to be able to play in their position.” More often than not, the three key skills that need refining are a player’s kicking (“we teach them all different types of kicks—when to kick it hard and flat and when to keep a little bit off the kick”), their transition skills (“being able to adjust to different parts of the game”) and their body positioning (“teaching players the proper way to attack the ball in a contest so they do it safely”). All the best coaches concede that every player learns at a different rate to the next, and so it is important to quickly build up an understanding of how each individual works. “You’ve got to tap into how they learn, create the environment they need to learn in,” McCartney said. Wheadon agrees. “Players need to approve of what they are learning—they will put barriers up if they don’t rate the activity. If a learning situation is fun, interesting and challenging, players will become keenly involved and be keen to learn, often without knowing they are learning.”4 Conversely, if a skill has been performed unsuccessfully, the coach and player need to recognise which part of the process has broken down. The best coaches are the ones who are able to recognise where the breakdown occurred, and then create

a situation for the player to learn how to succeed the next time that it arises.5 “There’s no secret or trick to coaching,” McCartney said. “The longer you’re in it, the more actual hours of face-to-face coaching and game analysis you put in, the more you develop your skills and your knowledge. Being around coaches that are good teachers”—McCartney was at Geelong under Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson during a great era for the Cats—“is also really important.”

he coaches’ job is made easier if their players have all the skills when they get to the top level. Former Adelaide mid-fielder Tyson Edwards notes that the more work done early in a player’s life, the better the mature player will be. “The younger the better for kids to learn,” he said, citing former Hawthorn and Adelaide star Darren Jarman as a prime example of practice makes perfect. “Darren stands out as the most skilful guy I have seen, and he was able to get to that level from hours and hours of just kicking the footy when he was younger.” Jarman had a great partner in their learning phase, with older brother Andrew, but Edwards says there are ways to improvise. “Pick out simple targets in the backyard or at the local park and just try to hit them over and over again. That’s what I did as a youngster when I didn’t have anyone else to kick with. Try different sorts of kicks, change up the targets and make it fun as

3 Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, p. 109. 4 Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, p. 109.

5 Wheadon, The Art of Coaching, p. 115.

well—see how many times you can hit something in a row, for example. Edwards said such routines are not just for young players. During his career he noticed he wasn’t kicking goals from outside 45 metres, “It was something I wasn’t really confident with, because I’m not an overly long kick. So I started putting in the time and asking the coaches a few questions, and one thing I worked out I was doing was simply trying to kick the ball too hard and that I was leaning over the kick too much. “So I started to relax, lean back on the kick a bit more and concentrate on actually pointing my toe with the kick—you seem to get more distance that way. Eventually I was able to feel more comfortable and get some better results by working on those things.” And finally, he makes the point that video footage of what you’re doing makes a great difference, particularly in your formative years. “You can watch endless footage of the great players, and I’ve done a bit of that; guys who dominate at stoppages and how they position themselves, or the ones who are really good at tackling.” And this is where good parenting— coaching—comes into play. “Most people these days have a video camera, so sometimes when I’m having a kick in the backyard with my boys ( Jackson, Luke and Brodie), I’ll videotape them. I know when I was growing up I didn’t always listen to what my parents were saying, but if you can actually see what you’re doing wrong you can understand it so much better.”

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GETTING FIT: A time for hats 05 COACHING

and sunscreen, the pre-season is a vital part of a player’s campaign, as they work on fitness and game plans, away from the stresses and strains and post-match pains, through the season.

PRE-SEASON It’s often said that an uninterrupted pre-season will provide any player with the best opportunity to have a breakout season. This is the key area for the high performance manager, and the game plan strategists to apply close management and new ideas.

hen the Carlton players turned up to the start of the club’s 1979 pre-season training at Princes Park, every one of the senior, middle tier and first-year footballers was unaware they were about to embark on one of the most gruelling, challenging, and above all, brutal, pre-seasons in Australian football history. Second-year playing-coach, Alex Jesaulenko, was determined to mould a group—no, a team—of players who would not only be fitter than every other side in the League, but would also be prepared to push themselves to exhaustion, then go beyond that, so that they knew that no matter how desperate a situation appeared during a game, it would be nothing compared to what they had faced at training in those sweltering summer months.

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The players ran, they tackled, they ran, they dragged tractor tyres, and then they ran some more. “There was a lot asked of the playing group in terms of preparing themselves physically,” said Ken Sheldon, then in his third season with the Blues. “Jesaulenko knew deep within that the playing group over the previous three or four years hadn’t been anywhere near as fit as they needed to be to produce their best football. So he put a training regime in place which the players still talk about now because it was pretty arduous. When we won that ’79 flag (by five points over Collingwood, having trailed by five goals early in the second quarter in what were wet and muddy conditions all day) we were both fitter and more tired than any of the other teams. We had this mental toughness that Jesaulenko had instilled in us by all the running and contesting

that he had put us through at training that year.” Whether it was Jezza’s Blues in 1979, John Kennedy’s “Commandos” at Hawthorn in the 1960s, Kevin Sheedy’s Bombers in the early 1980s, or any team coached by Ron Barassi or Tom Hafey, pre-seasons during that era were all about being ‘flogged’ on the track, night after night, with little science to it other than the fact that, surely, by doing things a certain way the players would get fit. Nowadays, nothing has changed when it comes to using the pre-season period as a means of getting the playing group fit. But that is where the similarities end. The pre-season period in the modern-day AFL (which generally runs anywhere from early October—if you finish outside the final eight after the home and away rounds of the just-completed season—right

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through until late March, just a week before the opening round of matches for the new season is scheduled) is all about education, decision-making, improving size and shape, and developing the type of game plan that, hopefully, will see your club mirror and surpass the reigning premier of the previous season; and getting a good fitness base. “Almost from the very first training session of the summer, if you have made any changes to your game plan, it’s where you need to start trying to execute it under match-type drills,” says former Adelaide Crows coach, Brenton Sanderson, who oversaw three preseasons at West Lakes where the Crows home is based. “You can focus on devising a pattern of play, your ball movement, and also something which much more clubs are now focusing on: team defence. You can work on all those things as much as possible throughout the summer, but it is only once the pre-season games come around that you get to come up against an actual opposition where you can implement what it is you’re doing and can actually test it out.” While the senior coach remains the figurehead of the overall operation, a pre-season is where he can delegate responsibilities between his assistant coaches and high performance manager or managers. At Collingwood, for example, head coach Nathan Buckley relies on his senior assistant coach, Robert Harvey, to map out the Magpies’ pre-season schedule in conjunction with high performance manager, Billy Davoren. “I put together the pre-season schedule, and I work closely with ‘Bucks’ and all our leaders in devising that,” Harvey said. “I particularly work closely with Billy on that schedule and working out what we want each player to do. I also try to oversee everything related to the game plan. The role covers all areas of the footy department, so I get a great understanding of list management for example. With Bucks being taken away so often for other things (such as sponsorship commitments, media demands and so forth), I can be there to ensure that everything is running how he wants it to be. And that comes back to trust. He needs to trust me to put together a good training program, and from that point of view he’s been really good. Trust needs to be built first of all, because he wouldn’t let me do that if he didn’t trust that I was the person to do it.” Buckley rates trust in his team as a fundamental of coaching: “I think being a successful coach is how much you trust people,” he says, “and where and when you give that trust. If you strip me back to my core I believe in the good of people,

and so that resonates with the way that I coach. But there will be times when I have to remind myself that I need to give space, and trust that the good will come out. While I’m getting better and better at that, it still comes back to experience because you can’t just hand it over.”

ne of the best coaches of not just recent years, but throughout AFL history, is Hawthorn’s Alastair Clarkson, who has masterminded four Hawk premierships in eight seasons; a remarkable feat in an 18-team competition restricted by the salary cap and the draft. Even more remarkable is the fact that he has consistently been able to alter his game plan from season to season, in order to stay one step ahead of the chasing pack. As astute a judge and educator as any in Australian sport, Clarkson, with his team of coaches, is always looking for a way to add something new to the Hawks’ game plan, and will travel the world to visit various sporting clubs if he feels that they can gain an edge in some way. “I’ve never experienced a coach like him in all my life,” said 1999 Brownlow medallist and former Hawk skipper, Shane Crawford.1 “The work ethic, the hours, the planning. It’s no fluke. He’s always looking to change and he’s brave and bold. He’s prepared to make mistakes and test things out because the best way to understand if things will work is putting it in the heat of battle. He’s not going to die wondering.” In 2008, Clarko’s Cluster—a defensive set-up that involved his players guarding space as opposed to a specific man— helped the Hawks upset Geelong in the Grand Final. Four years later, the precise foot skills of the Hawthorn players helped to slice clubs apart from one end of the ground to the other, leading to back-toback flags in 2013 and 2014. Not content to rest on his laurels, Clarkson then implemented a forward press in 2015, where his players became hell bent on getting the ball inside their attacking half and then keeping it there as long as possible. His reasoning mirrored that of sports such as ice hockey and American Football, where coaches try to keep opposing defences out on the ice/field as long as possible to tire them out, which, in turn should inevitably open up avenues to score. Defenders playing against Hawthorn

1 Shane Crawford’s, and later David King’s quotes, as well as information on Alastair Clarkson’s constant reinventing was sourced from Sam Edmund’s article on www.heraldsun.com.au, 11 July 2015, titled ‘Alastair Clarkson is the Mastermind Who Keeps Re-Inventing the Hawks’. To read more, see: http://tinyurl.com/hnyxyhz.

were constantly in the play (for much of the season Hawthorn was holding the ball in its forward half for as many as 10 minutes more than the opposition at the other end), rarely getting time to rest and watch the ball up the other end of the field. Clarkson must revel in the arrival of each new pre-season, as it is there where he invariably does his best work time and time again. “This is why Alastair is the best coach in it,” says former North Melbourne champion and now FoxFooty analyst, David King. “I think he knows you’ve got to evolve. He’s changing all the time, he just adapts and what he does do is he makes Hawthorn hard to plan for. You might get a whole pre-season to plan for how you think they’re going to play and then all of a sudden it’s a different plan altogether.” AFL players are required to have eight weeks of holidays throughout a year (generally taken between the end of a player’s season and the beginning of the next pre-season; however, many clubs break this up so that the players get a week or two break over the Christmas period), and there is now an expectation that every player returns to pre-season training having completed some form of a pre-pre-season workout schedule, tailored individually for each player. They receive skinfolds testing to determine their body-fat index, as well as undertake a time-trial—both generally on the first day they return to the club— which is then used to help track not only where a player’s fitness levels are at the beginning of pre-season, but to then use that throughout the program to ensure that they are all improving as they go along. Some clubs will even embark on overseas training blocks mid-way through their pre-season campaign, where they might hike through America’s Grand Canyon for example. The aim of these expensive trips is to train at different altitudes. Some clubs, such as Collingwood under Mick Malthouse (Arizona) and North Melbourne under Brad Scott (Utah) have been prepared to finance overseas training periods in recent years, while others were happy to stay closer to home and utilise the peaks of Mt Buller in north-eastern Victoria, meaning a far smaller dent in their club’s balance sheet by season’s end. “We don’t do it to waste time, money, effort,” Malthouse said, when questioned on the usefulness of such a trip.2 “We do it because it’s very, very good for you. And as far as the scuttlebutt of those who 2 Mick Malthouse’s quotes were sourced from Avan Stallard’s article on www.theroar.com.au, titled ‘Arizona Fever: Are AFL Clubs Putting Players in Danger?’, 13 February 2014.

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05 COACHING

CHALLENGE: Carlton’s Patrick Cripps was a standout for Carlton in 2015, winning the club’s Best and Fairest in just his second season, after only 23 senior games. The Blues will be hoping for team improvement in 2016, with a new coach and two top ten picks from the AFL National Draft.

choose not to use it and then condemn it, then we have scientific evidence on the contrary.” Interestingly, however, when Malthouse took over as coach of Carlton in 2013, he took the players to Arizona that first pre-season, but, by 2015 he took them to Mt Buller. As pre-season training progresses, you will constantly hear clubs telling anybody who asks about a player’s progress, “He’s fitter than he’s ever been,” and while it has become a throwaway line, it is also indicative of the rapidly improving advances in sports science, which allow more in-depth player testing, and training, on an annual basis. Gone are the days of ‘one in, all in’ where every player on the list undertakes the same pre-season tasks as everybody else. Now, a high performance manager will have tailored every player’s pre-season schedule differently, depending on their unique body type, the football attributes that they need to work on (such as building stronger upper leg muscles, like Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe did between the 2014 and 2015 seasons, which culminated in him winning the Brownlow Medal), and any other specific requirement for each player. Many on the list will have had off-season surgery, which will require specific plans to ensure these players are ready for round one. The coach might be looking at devising a new game plan, which might mean that he needs his playing group to build bigger upper body strength, or a stronger core; or, he may request that players drop a

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few kilograms as he wants them to play a far greater running game. That’s the fascinating part of a new pre-season: the options are endless, although the running can feel endless too!

n 2011, the Greater Western Sydney (GWS) Giants undertook their first full pre-season as an AFL club. GWS coach, Kevin Sheedy was given the pick of the young talent throughout Australia with which to mould into fully fledged AFL players, but for the players there was a large unknown hanging over their heads as their pre-season progressed. Dylan Shiel recalls that first preseason fondly. “Coming into a club like the Giants, where there were a lot of us young guys all coming up together, it certainly helped with making it easier for us to settle into the footy club and build a good camaraderie between us,” he said. “But on the training track, with everyone so young it was hard to know, particularly in that first pre-season, how we were progressing compared to the other clubs. We weren’t like any other young guy walking into a club and seeing what the AFL standard was, where you have blokes there at your club who have already played 100 or even 200 games. Stephen Silvagni was the list manager at the Giants when we started, and he told me, ‘You might be winning time trials, or you might be the strongest at the footy club, but because we’re so young and so inexperienced those benchmarks may not be the best at any of the other

clubs.’ So that was a challenging thing to appreciate early on.” At the other end of the spectrum is former Sydney Swan and now St Kilda veteran, Sean Dempster, who, entering 2016, has played 203 matches, including five Grand Finals. “I feel sorry for the young kids coming through now because they’ve got a lot to learn in regards to the various game styles,” Dempster says. “At the same time, they’ve also got a lot of resources— a larger coaching staff, for example. When I started there was one senior coach and three assistant coaches, whereas now there are probably a dozen football coaches at the club, with half a dozen of those focused purely on development. But despite those greater resources, it still has to sink in with the younger players, they have to be able to understand it, and so it does take quite a while for that information to sink in. “It’s a completely different game style to what they’ve been used to. Generally, the players that a club gets in have been the best players for their team for the last 10 years—since they were little kids— and then suddenly they are arriving at a club where they are now small fish in a big pond. They have to learn a whole new game plan, having come from having had a game plan revolving around them because they were so dominant in their junior sides. “So it’s a huge shift for them in the way they’ve previously played their football. And even if clubs can make it really basic in the short term, it’s never basic once

PRe-SeASON

IMPROVING: St Kilda has one of the competition’s youngest lists, but with an agenda based on hard work, and patience, the club is looking to make a rapid return to contention, a position it held year on year from 2003-2012.

you’re out on the field, and as soon as that ball is bounced the best laid plans can go to waste. Then it’s up to the individual to try and make it up, and that means that they’re forever on the back foot trying to learn and trying to evolve their knowledge of the game plan, so as soon as a scenario presents itself they’re ready to deal with it.” Shiel agrees: “It is incredibly hard to learn a game plan. You play footy your whole life growing up and it’s all about fun, and enjoyment, and just playing instinct football. Then when you come into the AFL system it’s a lot more complex, and there are a lot of tactics that you have to grasp. That can really bamboozle a young fella. “Some guys come into the system ready made with a really good base of natural strength, and then there are guys who need a lot of work in that area. It probably takes a good three years to develop a strong AFL body—that’s what a lot of fitness coaches will say. And in particular, having leg strength and core strength is a lot more important than the upper body stuff as it gives you the ability to stand up in tackles and to also keep your balance. And you see the best players happen to be the best at doing that (such as Fyfe). As a young kid it wasn’t something you really focused on; that was more about the arms and the chest strength. That leg work really started at AFL level.” Harvey says pre-seasons past and present are not all that different when it comes to application and hard work, although the emphasis is certainly different. “While

training today is definitely demanding, I don’t know that it’s more demanding than when I played,” said Harvey, himself one of the finest aerobic runners in AFL history who admitted that training became “an obsession” in his early years playing at St Kilda. “The pre-seasons were really hard when I did them, I can tell you. What has changed is that it is more specific, so you don’t just go out and do a drill for the sake of it: everything’s got a purpose to it. “Plus, everything is recorded via GPS (Global Positioning System), so we can get an exact idea of what each player is doing in every drill. Everything is trained to the minute, whereas back in my day you’d just go out and train for three hours and get flogged, then you’d do your weights and go home.”

empster says, “Pre-season is pretty brutal. You can be at the club Monday, Wednesday and Friday, pretty much from seven in the morning through to 4.30pm—a three-hour session in the morning, lunch, then two hours of weights in the afternoon, and a bit more craft and mind training after that—so they’re really big days. Then, once you get into NAB Cup (pre-season match) mode, a lot of those loads will drop back. In fact, we probably halve the amount of kilometres we do, and then they probably halve again once you’re in the season proper. “It then becomes purely focused on recovery. It’s not so much the running that kills you during the games, it’s the knocks and the bumps, the ‘corkies’ and the little

minor muscle tears that you really have to recover from. The intensity changes. We do 13- to 14-kilometre sessions in pre-season, and that’s what you cover during a game; those high-intensity efforts are the difference between pre-season and a regular season match.” Fyfe says the work done in the pre-season sets up the team to handle the rigours of the season: “During pre-season we get heavy workloads where we just get a conditioning that will see us through the whole year,” he says. “Then, once it comes into match play during the season the whole focus is on recovering, and getting your body and mind right to play again the following week. So, on any given seven-day break—which is your standard Saturday to Saturday game—the first half of the week is strongly focused on massage treatment, ice baths, beach and pool recovery, stretch, and, most importantly of all: sleep. You need a really good, genuine deep sleep to try to let yourself heal up. “We have some light movement early in the week with some skill-based drills to start getting the legs moving. On Thursday we have some opportunity over the course of about 30 minutes to practise anything we need to work on from the week before, then, as soon as we finish that drill it’s back to focusing on heavy recovery: whether it’s wearing compression garments, whether it’s doing mental relaxation tapes—whatever it is—so that, when it comes Saturday again you’re able to perform once again,” Fyfe said.

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05 COACHING

A GAME FOR ALL After ignoring half the population for most of its 150+ years, the AFL has now embraced female participation, from the junior level to the elite. In 2017, a national league for women will begin.

n 2017, the AFL will launch the first season of a national Australian women’s football league. For the first time, the best women players will play scheduled matches— some of which will take place immediately prior to, or immediately following, the men’s games—receiving national media exposure, providing payments to players (albeit at a far lower average level than that of the men, during the league’s formative years at least), and, perhaps most importantly, establishing a clear pathway for young women to pursue their quest of playing Australian football at any level. According to AFL chief executive, Gillon McLachlan, “it will provide opportunities for talented girls, but more than that: for coaches, for administrators, for everyone who wants to pursue their love of this game—men or women.”1 One of the pioneers of the women’s game is Peta Searle, who, in 2014, became the first female to be appointed to a senior AFL coaching panel when she joined St Kilda as a development coach; this coming on the back of her appointment as the first female to become an assistant at VFL level, which saw Searle working alongside Port Melbourne’s senior coach and former Hawthorn champion, Gary Ayres, a man she credits with having an enormous influence on the way she coaches. And Searle’s appointment by St Kilda was no token position, as her list of duties reveals. “My role has quite a few areas to it,” Searle begins. “The title is ‘assistant forwardline coach’, which means that I assist (former star forward) Aaron Hamill with the forwards, and I also do the game day VFL forward line coaching. I then work

1 Gillon McLachlan’s quote was sourced from Loretta Florance’s article titled, “National AFL women’s league ‘inevitable’, as teams line up for third year of exhibition matches”, on www.abc.net.au, 24 May 2015.

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with the players in terms of their follow-up during the next week. “I also run the decision-making programs at the club, such as looking at our training and determining if there are ways that we can change it up to improve our decision-making. Then I also rate how they have gone with their decision-making during a game. With the AFL lowering the rotation levels to 90 per match (down from 120 in 2015), we are not going to get a lot of training time during the season itself, because much of their week will be spent recovering. So I am also looking at ways that we can improve their decisionmaking for those periods where they don’t have footballs in their hands. “I’m also responsible for the

international program—we have a few international players on our list at the moment. My job is to run their individual action plans, attend to their duty of care and to create a curriculum for them. So, as you can see, my job contains many different aspects.” Then there is the fact that Searle had previously led Darebin to five premierships in the Victorian Women’s Football League (VWFL), assisted the Western Jets TAC Cup under-16 and under-18 sides, and was senior assistant to another former Hawk, in Daniel Harford, at St Kevin’s Old Boys Football Club in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA). Being a school teacher has also been integral to the way in which Searle has been able to build

LEADING THE WAY: Eleni Glouftis became the first woman to umpire a senior AFL match when she took charge of the NAB Challenge match between Carlton and Essendon in February 2016.

A gAme FOR ALL

OFF AND RUNNING: Daisy Pearce is rated one of the game’s best female players. Here she’s away and running in the annual rep match between teams representing Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs.

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IN Chelsea Roffey became 05CHARGE: COACHING the first female to officiate in an AFL Grand Final when she took the flags in the big game in 2012. She has been a trail-blazer for female participation at the highest level.

strong relationships with both boys and girls, men and women. “I think when you are coaching, you’re coaching people— that’s what is important,” Searle says.2 Searle’s journey to the AFL began when she played football at under-9 level, but due to a lack of any established pathway for women after that, she was forced to abandon football and focus on cricket. That was, until she reached 20 years of age, at which time Searle’s cricketing teammates suggested she try out for their local women’s footy team. Speaking from experience, Searle said “I think today there is a gap between the eight and the 10 year-olds at junior aged level.” Indeed, young girls are permitted to play Auskick with the boys from a young age, then can play in the under-nines like Searle once did, but it is that age gap between 10 and 12 years of age where, due to no continual progression in women’s football ranks, girls tend to switch their focus to cricket, basketball or soccer. “But then the youth girls program starts from around 12 years onwards,” she said, “and the youth girls 2 For more on Peta Searle’s history, see Tom Morris’s article on www.saints.com.au at: http://tinyurl.com/hs3ef3t.

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program has been massive as it provides a pathway for young girls to progress through, much like with the men and the TAC Cup under-age system. Not only has it been integral to youth participation rates, but it is also the reason why the national program is going to be so successful in the next few years. Now, sure, those girls who are good at footy but may have gone and tried another sport will find their way back to the game eventually, but is it just about the girls who are good at footy, or is it about creating opportunities for more girls to be involved in this wonderful game that we have?” One would assume that the natural physical differences between men and women would be the greatest challenge for any females wanting to take up the sport. However, according to Searle, there is only one factor standing in the way of women: coaching. Or, more precisely, a lack of coaches for women. “I was never coached on how to kick a footy, or how to take a mark,” Searle admits. “I just went and did it and it turned out how it turned out. Are our young girls getting taught how to tackle properly, how to win the contested ball, how to mark properly?

From my experience of being involved with girls, the answer is no. But I think with the national league, and with female sport in general beginning to be a viable option for coaches, that will definitely improve. So it isn’t about the difference in physicality between males and females, it’s the difference in how the skills have been taught to you.” While St Kilda is putting plenty of resources into building a better pathway for women—of which hiring Searle has already played a huge role—Searle credits the Western Bulldogs for their proactive approach to the women’s game. “I think the Western Bulldogs are right on the money in that they are running their own Auskick girls program—what a wonderful idea! And it’s at four o’clock in the afternoon, it’s not at seven or eight o’clock in the morning where it’s cold and the kids are trying to handball and the ball hurts their hand so they don’t go back again. It’s little things like that which we can look at doing better all the way through. “It’s part of our brand at St Kilda, and we are looking at what we can do at different levels, starting at Auskick and working all the way through. Then it’s

BLONDE BOMBSHELL: A gAme FOR ALL

Young Queenslander Tayla Harris shows a kicking style to be proud of. She also showed her all-round skills in the 2015 representative match between Western Bulldogs and Melbourne, when she took a speccie. The subsequent photograph made the front page of the next day’s papers.

a case of what can we do as a club, and how can we be involved at the different pathways? It is certainly going to become a big part of who we are going forward, and we have a team that is working towards getting together a strategy so that we can have an influence on, and give back to, the women’s game. “While it might take some time to develop the national women’s league, it’s not going to go backwards. Each year it’s going to get better. And with a better standard of footy and more games of footy, girls will get paid more; so the next couple of years is really laying the foundation and then it will continue to grow from that. You only have to look at the newspapers these days, and there is a lot more being written about women’s sports in the paper now. So the recognition for women in sport has improved remarkably, and that has come about because of the moral values in society and the diversity in organisations, and from here it is only going to increase.” The ever-expanding involvement of females in the AFL is not restricted to just playing and coaching, either. In 2012, Chelsea Roffey became the first female

goal umpire to officiate at an AFL Grand Final. And, in 2016, up-and-coming field umpire, Eleni Glouftsis, became the first woman to officiate in an AFL game— albeit a pre-season NAB Challenge clash between Carlton and Essendon. There is no question, however, that Glouftsis, and others like her, will be umpiring AFL matches during the regular season in the not-to-distant future. “My hat goes off to Eleni,” Searle says, proudly. “Because it’s hard enough umpiring, full stop, as everyone knows. But to do that as a female is even more amazing, and it’s definitely an outstanding effort by her. Once again, there’s another role model out there for girls to say that there are no limitations. I think the AFL umpiring body has really embraced it and supported it really well. When you think about it, there is no lack of coaches or people wanting to coach in the AFL. But we all know that at every level it’s really hard to get umpires. So, to their credit they have recognised that they need female umpires because they need more umpires, period, no matter whether they are males or females. They have gone about it in a really positive manner.” As the women’s game continues to

grow, keep an eye out for some of the up-and-coming stars. These include Daisy Pearce (who became the inaugural No. 1 draft pick for the women’s league in 2013), who, like Searle, has become an ambassador for the women’s game at all levels. “It’s funny, you don’t stop and think of yourself as a pioneer,” Pearce said. “But, I guess, if you look at the definition, I am one. I’ve had girls seek me out for advice, which has been one of the really rewarding parts of the job. It’s what motivates me and drives me to keep going.”3 It was Pearce who passed the ball to the high-flying blonde teenager, Tayla Harris, at Etihad Stadium in 2015, which saw Harris leaping from three deep and taking a spectacular mark above two players.4 It may have only been an exhibition match, but the sentiments were profound: The Sky’s The Limit! 3 Daisy Pearce quote sourced from Sarah Olle’s article on www.foxsports.com.au, 27 February 2016. See: http://tinyurl.com/gkvzdoj. 4 To watch Melbourne’s Daisy Pearce set up teammate, Tayla Harris, to take her great contested mark, see: http://tinyurl.com/zo6zxnk.

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05 COACHING

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WELL TRAINED: Hawthorn champion Jarryd Roughead is one of many of the game’s stars who learned their craft at the Gippsland Power under head coach Peter Francis. This photo shows Roughead’s perfect kicking action.

cOAcHiNg YOUNg PLAYeRS

COACHING YOUNG PLAYERS The game begins in the backyard, as fathers and mothers teach sons and daughters the skills of the game, and its innate beauty. On it goes, through underage footy, through the national Under 18 competition, to the elite.

here can be few more rewarding roles in football than teaching juniors and youth-aged players1 the skills of the game, then seeing that player go on to be drafted to an AFL club. Between 1946 and 1991, the VFL/AFL had seniors, reserves and thirds grades—known as the Under 19s—all playing matches every weekend, more often than not at the same ground. Indeed, many future League stars owe their beginnings to their time spent in the Under 19s, such as Collingwood quartet Gavin Brown, Damian Monkhorst, Mick McGuane and Gavin Crosisca, who all played in the Magpies’ 1986 Under 19 premiership, then, four years later, were all key members of Collingwood’s 1990 senior premiership side.2 At the end of 1991, with the AFL intent on cementing the national game throughout Australia, a more streamlined approach to game development was established. Backed by sponsorship from the Transport Accident Commission, in 1992 the Under 18 TAC Cup was born. Originally consisting of five teams in its inaugural season, as of 2016 there are 12 sides based throughout metropolitan Melbourne and country Victoria.3 The TAC Cup has not just been a breeding ground for players, either, as many prospective AFL coaches have cut their 1 The AFL refers to junior players as those of primary school age, and youth of secondary school age. 2 The Age, 5 March 2016, p. 53. 3 For more information on the TAC Cup, visit: http://tinyurl.com/h6hg3zx.

teeth in this competition before gaining the confidence to apply for coaching roles at AFL level. The regional manager at Gippsland Power for many years has been Peter Francis, a premiership player with Carlton (1979) under Alex Jesaulenko. Having played 158 games with the Blues, Fitzroy, Richmond and Essendon, on retirement Francis coached at Box Hill for two years before accepting an assistant-coaching role with St Kilda, then coached by Francis’s former Carlton teammate, Ken Sheldon. Francis worked closely with the St Kilda players in developing their skills, a role he later continued under Stan Alves (who replaced Sheldon at the end of 1993). In 1995, Francis made the bold decision

COACHING THE NEXT GEN: Peter Francis,

a premiership player for Carlton in 1979, has devoted his post-playing career to coaching, and has an enviable record with the Gippsland Power.

to step away from AFL level and utilise his teaching skills at Gippsland Power. Gippsland, to the south-east of Melbourne in recent years has consistently produced quality AFL players, such as Scott Pendlebury, Jarryd Roughead, Brendon Goddard and Dyson Heppell. “The most rewarding thing with coaching young players is seeing them develop their skill level, and then be able to go and put it into place out on the ground,” Francis said. “When I went to Carlton all those years ago, I had come straight out of the minor leagues and nobody was anywhere near as fit as these kids are today. I certainly think if the Bendigo Pioneers were around back then, I would have been better prepared and may have played a bit earlier than I did. (Francis debuted with Carlton as a 21-year-old in 1979). Many of our kids today are going to the AFL and playing senior footy in their first year, and that’s because of their far greater preparation.” Francis tells the boys who pass through the Power that their time at the club should be treated as an apprenticeship. “I like them to come here as 15-year-olds,” Francis says. “That way they can have a pre-season as an Under 15 which won’t be as hard as it is for the Under 16s or the Under-18s later on. Then they would do the Under-16s program the following year, which is watered down from the Under 18s, then they move into the Under 18s system which ramps up that bit higher. And of course, if they are fortunate enough to get drafted to an AFL club, then the training requirements really go through the roof.”

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05 COACHING

POINTING THE WAY: Collingwood’s

High Performance Manager, Bill Davoren (left) says coaching young players is a “whole of team” experience. “It takes a team of people to turn a teenage draftee into a fullfledged AFL footballer,” he says.

Although the pathway for a young player through the TAC Cup system provides a far greater platform than in the 1970s, Francis believes that the coaching of young players remains an issue. “It’s absolutely critical. In fact, it’s our most important thing,” he says. “I actually think that clubs get it the wrong way around. They employ a senior coach and pay him a lot of money, whereas I believe it should be a bottom-up approach as junior and youth-aged players need the best coaching. “They are your future. And instead of a dad putting his hand up because he’s the only one who will do it, they actually need to go out and find someone who can coach the kids properly, and who has some really good knowledge about football. At this stage of a player’s development the coach is the most critical person. Number two is a very, very good development coach— not a scoreboard-focused coach. “We have a curriculum here at Gippsland Power that we put together some years ago about what different levels and age groups need to be coached, and how they need to be coached. We know how we want our kids to be coached, and the skills they require to be taught, and the coaches follow that curriculum. Yes, there is some leeway, particularly with the Under 18s, but aside from that we believe that the certain skills we want them to be taught as they go along are very important to be adhered to. Coaches at that level can’t be worried about the scoreboard, they need to be focusing on those basic skills. We still do those basic skills all the time here: that’s kicking, marking, handball, picking the

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ball up off the ground, the contested ball, all those sorts of things. They are all basics, but very, very important,” Francis said. But, as Francis explains, there is a limit. “Most of them are doing their VCE, some are working, and then they have to come and train that night with us, so we have to be careful with how much work we give them.”

ith Francis’s direction, current Gippsland Power coach, Leigh Brown (himself a former Power player and pick number five in the 1999 AFL National Draft, who went on to play for Fremantle, North Melbourne and Collingwood), insists that every player brings their own football with them to each training session. And his reasoning is simple: in tennis you have your own racquet, cricket you have your own bat, and golf you have your own clubs; so, why don’t footballers have their own football? “All our boys have to have their own footy,” Francis said. “We get big numbers in—as many as 140 for the Under 18s alone—and they all need a ball. In our drills we want them to touch the ball 1000 times a night, not just four or five times. So it’s no good having 40 players out there and having two balls. You want them getting as many touches, and kicking the ball as many times as they can. I did that when I was at St Kilda as skills coach—I made the players have their own footy. It is something I have always done and have always believed in.” And if they forget their football? “If a kid doesn’t bring it along, then what he’s telling me is that he’s skilful enough and

he doesn’t need to do skills training with us that night. And I say to him: ‘You need to work on your fitness then, because clearly you think you’re good enough to not do the skills part’ and I send him over to work with the fitness coach. If you do that to them one night, they soon bring their footy the next!” Although the Power players are urged to use the football as many times as possible at training, the old adage still applies: quality over quantity. “You should make sure they are able to kick short before they have to kick long; if you can’t hit a target short, you certainly aren’t going to hit a target long. So start off with a short base and build out from there,” Francis says. “Kicking can be a real worry, and that’s where good coaches will come to the fore. It’s little things like how they hold the ball, and I’m not talking about how they hold it to kick; I mean how they will tuck it under their arm as they go back to have their kick. You don’t want that. You want them to have both hands on the ball, so they are alert and ready to pull the trigger on a kick if somebody is out in space ready to receive. They need to practise that at training.” To ensure that they are teaching their players the types of things that AFL coaches and recruiters are looking for, the Power coaches will visit a number of AFL clubs throughout each season. They will also spend time with recruiters, those keen football-watchers whose opinions carry so much weight come draft time. “The game moves on so quickly that you really need to do it,” Francis explained.

cOAcHiNg YOUNg PLAYeRS

“We need to be in constant dialogue with clubs and recruiters about what it is they are looking for. Number one is always kicking: they’ve got to be like Western Bulldog captain, Bob Murphy, and ‘kill’ the opposition with their feet. Contested ball is obviously important also, and having really good hands. But at the same time, we’ve got to be careful because we’re dealing with Under 18 boys who are still growing.” And the role of a TAC Cup coach is not limited to just teaching the basic skills of the game. At Power, aside from Francis and Brown, the club also employs a number of assistant coaches, doctors, trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, a welfare manager, a psychologist, team managers, and, in more recent times, female specialist coaches. Francis said: “We teach them off the field as well as on; they go through the same programs that all the AFL players do. They are taught about responsibility, illicit drugs, and performance-enhancing drugs. They can be drug tested here, so they need to understand the consequences of all that. The character of the player is really important. The thing with the kids here at Power, it’s so bloody hard to do—with all the training, travel and everything else that goes into it—so you’ve got to be a pretty good person to manage all that anyway. And I think the program changes them, too. “We have a kid here now who, when he first started he was a bit of a lad and didn’t fully commit to everything that was being asked of him. But he’s a great kid now, and it’s been evident to me that the system is designed to help them to become better people. And Mum and Dad still have a massive role to play in that. If they are from a good family it makes a huge difference at our end.” Francis cites Heppell as an obvious example of a graduate of the underage system who then found the transition to the AFL far easier, thanks in no small part to his well-grounded upbringing. He also explains that they have coaches, mentors and systems in place to accommodate young indigenous footballers; particularly those who have had less than ideal living environments. “We put Peter Mongta on last year as an assistant coach to Leigh Brown. Pete came through the system and was a really good player who just missed out on being drafted. But he’s since coached premierships around Gippsland and has done very, very well, and is a respected person within our community; as well as within the indigenous community. So one of his roles here as an assistant is to mentor those indigenous boys who come through, and he keeps close tabs on them

to make sure that everything is okay, and he gives me feedback on their progress.” And by no means is the AFL’s pathway program limited to young men; women, too, are now being provided with every opportunity to train and learn from the best coaches, with a national women’s competition offering a large carrot to aim for in the not too distant future. “We are actually running the pilot program this year for young girls,” Francis explained. “They have had a youth girls shield team for the past 18 months or so, and we had a pilot program this year with AFL Victoria for a youth girls challenge team—that’s 15 to 18 year-olds, whereas the shield team is 13 to 17 year-olds—and this is fully integrated and run by me. “We train on the Tuesday night and Scott McDougal is the coach of them and he does a fantastic job. We then have Nikki Schroeter who coaches the shield team and acts as an assistant to Scott, Brett Sherriff (former Draftee to Hawthorn) and (former North Melbourne player) Troy Makepeace is an assistant as well, and Leigh (Brown) and a number of other coaches help out, too. “We have set the women’s program up very much like the TAC Cup boys team. There are 14 or 15 staff in there, and it’s just our first year! They are different to coach than the boys, but we still apply the same principles. We wanted to put a really good coaching panel behind our girls because they’re coming from a lower football base in terms of the training and coaching that they have had access to. “The great thing with working with these girls is, from week to week you can actually see a massive improvement because they are coming from that lower base. And they go home and practise because they are that keen to get better. There’s no fear and they just love playing the game. I have been blown away. And they prepare differently; it’s not as tense in the change rooms before a game, for example. But they still go out and are ready to go when the game starts. It has been great for me, and has allowed me to really see how my teaching skills can be applied with some pretty quick results. Again, we make them all have their own footy and we focus heavily on teaching them the skills correctly, plus we teach them how to use their bodies properly.”

o what can a young player expect when they do get drafted to an AFL club? According to Collingwood’s high-performance manager, Bill Davoren, it takes a team effort to help mould a new draftee into an AFL player. “It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a team of people to turn a teenage draftee into a full-fledged AFL footballer,” he

said.4 According to Magpies’ assistant coach, Steve Grace, “People talk about compliance and buy in and ownership, and they’re so different. A first-year player might comply without truly understanding something, but someone who understands and has ownership will drive the standards. The sooner that happens, the better for the whole group because those players start to put pressure on the older players, not just in terms of position, but influence.”

draftee’s first pre-season is heavily focused on learning good habits— which is building on habits ingrained in their time in the pathway system, their ‘apprenticeship’, in areas such as managing gym work, their diet, as well as their general conditioning in relation to injury management and effectiveness on the training track. “The big thing for me is where they are at psychologically and socially,” Davoren says. “There’s a lot of conversations in the first pre-season about habits: what are the decisions and choices you’re going to have?” Things such as eating the correct foods to help build body size or to recover after a training session, as well as an often-overlooked aspect of recovery: sleep. “The young fellas tend to go home, crash on the couch, sleep for three hours, not get back to sleep until midnight and then wake up feeling tired,” Grace said. “They come in scratching their heads thinking why am I so tired?” As young players begin to adapt to the AFL system at club land, their individual programs will change, with the intent of allowing each player to reach his or her full potential. “As they move through, each player will start working out his own action plan—strengths, RFIs (“Room For Improvement”, or, in laymen’s terms: “weaknesses”), short-term needs, longterm needs,” Grace says. “Over those first few years you want them to be firm and to keep adding to their games, not limiting themselves and starting to push others.” In their second pre-season the amount of work each draftee will do will increase, and likewise again for the third year— albeit, still less than the more senior players at the club will do. “They work their way through the system, they get the fundamentals down and then it’s how do I take the next step?” Davoren said. “They’re all different and they’ll develop in their own ways, but by the end of year one you can see them starting to grow.” 4 Bill Davoren and Steve Grace quotes sourced from Emma Quayle’s story, titled ‘How to Build an AFL Footballer’ on www.theage.com.au, 2 March 2016. For a detailed look at the year-by-year expectations of a new AFL draftee, see Quayle’s dot-point list at the end of her article.

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06 UMPIRING

READY TO GO: Umpire Jeff Dalgleish holds the ball aloft as the umpires make their way onto the ground before the 2015 AFL Grand Final. It was Dalgleish’s first Grand Final. Accompanying him were Brett Rosebury, to umpire his sixth Grand Final, and Matt Stevic (on Dalgleish’s right) his third.

UMPIRING The game began without independent adjudication, unthinkable in the modern era. As the game has evolved so too the standards required of our umpires, now close to fully professional.

hey have football’s most difficult, and most scrutinised job—these men and women in white (or green, or blue, or yellow) who bare the brunt of our weekly frustrations: the umpires. But where would our great game be without a strict policing of the rules. Indeed, when Australian football began to emerge in Melbourne in the middle of the 19th century, the captains of both competing sides acted as the ‘umpires’, monitoring the scant set of Laws of that era; a situation that, in any 50/50 deliberation, would surely have led to a bias towards their own team. The game needs umpires at all levels, just like it needs players, coaches and supporters. According to the former national head of umpiring at the AFL, Wayne Campbell1, 1 Wayne Campbell stood down from his post as head of Umpiring in March 2016 to take up the role of General Manager, Football Operations at GWS. He was interviewed whilst still at the AFL.

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“If you speak with people who umpire, they love it, which people who don’t umpire find strange. The umpires are absolutely committed to it, and there are not too many who get in it who don’t love it.” For Campbell, who played 297 games for Richmond (1991-2005), captained the club and won four best and fairest awards, the thought that one day he would be overseeing umpiring at the national level was one he had not even considered. “Did I ever think I would be in this role when I was playing? No, I didn’t,” he said. “But it’s been great, I’ve loved it. It’s changed my whole perspective of them, too. I was completely unaware. Some people are obsessed with the rules and the umpiring, and some aren’t. And I was completely in the ‘aren’t’ category. I knew they did the job and that it is a really hard game to umpire, but this role has opened my eyes up to a whole new world really.” As national head of umpiring,

Campbell’s role has him overseeing umpiring at AFL level, but also at local level in every league throughout Australia. “Theoretically, half my job is AFL umpiring and the other half is development of umpiring around Australia,” he says. “We have talent identification programs which are managed by a talent ID manager (Adam Davis oversees the identification program, and Tim Shearer is the talent manager), and he has recruiters underneath him who search the leagues for the next best field umpires for the AFL. The states have a fair bit to say in that as well; they’ll put up who they think are the next crop of four or five umpires, which creates a national talent pool, of 20 to 30 umpires. A talent program is put in place, which is like an academy for those umpires, and we have about 13 in that. Then that gets whittled down at the end of the season and we have a combine at the same stage as the potential AFL players have their

UmPiRiNg

combine, and we bring five or six to that, depending on how many available spots on the list we have at that time.” The challenge for Campbell and everybody involved with umpiring throughout Australia is in recruitment, particularly of young boys and girls. It has meant that Campbell had to alter the marketing that the AFL does around the role. “We changed the way that we market umpiring at the local level,” he says. “We used to talk a lot about respect and things like that, but now we’ve changed our focus to show how much fun umpiring actually is. We’ve got a new campaign called ‘Get In The Game’, where we look at it from an umpire’s perspective, which is out on the ground—the best seat in the house. We talk about being part of the best game in the world, and how you have a really important role to play. You get fit, you meet friends, you get paid, and so we focus on all that stuff. The general message is that it’s good fun.” And the benefits of umpiring extend outside the boundary line. “There’s a real camaraderie amongst the group,” Campbell says. “They are out in the middle by themselves and no-one’s barracking for them, so the bond they form in order to service and assist the game is a really strong bond that they have. You get a physical workout at the same time, you get to help your teammates out, and there’s a fair amount of conflict resolution as well; the skills that it takes are really transferrable to other aspects of your life.” The popular misconception is that one has to have played footy in order to understand how it should be umpired, a notion Campbell is quick to refute. “I think it’s become a cliché that they automatically know more about footy if they have played the game, but I don’t think that’s actually true,” he says. “We have umpires on our AFL list who are not traditional ‘football people’, but who still have a really clear understanding of what footy is all about. But for people who are involved in footy and want to stay in footy, we see this as a good way to do that, which is why we are trying to involve past players at AFL level. We see this as a way to help promote local level players to umpire (including those who may have played an Under-18s game in the morning, and then stayed on to umpire a seniors or a reserves game either that same afternoon, or the next day), which is a way to get more numbers, and it also gets people umpiring at those levels who have a good understanding of footy. “At AFL level we’ve had some good success with Jordan Bannister (Essendon and Carlton), Leigh Fisher (St Kilda) and Brent Wallace (who played at VFL level and is the son of Hawthorn triple-premiership player, Terry, who later coached at the Western

Bulldogs and Richmond), and we’ve just had Andrew Carrazzo (Carlton) come onboard. But by no means do we think they automatically make better umpires than anybody who hasn’t played at AFL level.” With that in mind, Campbell is also bullish about highlighting the need for female umpires at all levels of football. “It’s incredibly important that we involve female umpires in what we are doing,” he says, “for two reasons: One, diversity in sport—or any organisation—is important, and two, we need numbers. If we ignore half of the population, it doesn’t help us. The fact that there are lots of girls who are wanting to be involved is terrific. There have always been girls wanting to be involved, but it’s only recently that they have realised there are now serious opportunities to umpire at the top level. And that’s a great thing. As with any industry, people need a trailblazer, or someone that they can see in themselves to be achieving. “So when they see what Chelsea Roffey has done with the goal umpiring (which culminated in her being selected as a goal umpire for the 2012 Grand Final), we start to see lots of girls wanting to follow in her footsteps. And we now hope that what Eleni Glouftsis is doing (by becoming the first female to umpire an AFL pre-season match) will open the doors for female field umpires as well.”

ampbell stresses that once you become an umpire you become part of a unique and supportive team— just like you do when you’re a player. “We have essentially modelled our umpiring department on an AFL team,” Campbell said. “We have a head coach, an assistant coach, a head of conditioning, a rehab coach, doctors, psyches, pretty much everything that an AFL club would have.” Indeed, the possibilities are enormous: a chance to umpire in a Grand Final, plus be a part of the voting system for the AFL’s highest individual award, the Brownlow Medal. “They take their Brownlow voting quite seriously,” Campbell says. “It’s really on a whole new level of integrity and confidentiality. There are no jokes about it, there’s no talking about who voted for whom, and we fully respect the fact that it’s the AFL’s greatest pride, aside from a premiership. We are given the honour of voting for it, so we take that very seriously2.

2 After every home and away match, the three field umpires award votes of 3, 2 and 1 for the best three players in that game. Those votes are then placed in a sealed envelope and stored in a safe until the Monday of Grand Final week, where the envelopes are opened for the first time, the votes read out on national television and the player, or players, who receive the most votes are declared the winner.

“As for Grand Final selections, it’s incredibly competitive each year. It’s the pinnacle for every umpire, so there are some very happy people on the Monday of Grand Final week, and there are some very unhappy people,” Campbell said. “We start with a list of 32 and that gets whittled down to three, and as 32 people all want to do it we have some tough decisions to make. “I didn’t have any say in that decision though, there are coaches who look after that. Former umpire, Hayden Kennedy (who umpired a staggering 495 AFL games, including five Grand Finals), is the coach and he gets the say, and between him and his assistants they work it out. They are very capable people, so I left it to them.” The key to a good umpire is communication, and that also rings true for the man in charge, Campbell, whose job it was to develop and engage in constant dialogue with clubs and coaches, in order to ensure that there are no doubts when it comes to rule interpretations and respect for umpires. “We put out a monthly email to the clubs, which gives them an update on anything that is going on,” he says. “We also go out every pre-season and see them all, where we go through all the Law changes, and if need be we consult with them fairly heavily, particularly when there are new interpretations of the Laws. Certainly on the odd occasion throughout the season they would ring me for a chat as well.” What about grumpy coach calls on a Monday morning? “Yes, I certainly received a few interesting phone calls from various coaches throughout the season!”3

3 For an introductory guide to umpiring, watch: http://tinyurl.com/hmmu2d3. For further information on becoming an umpire at your local club, and opening up a new and rewarding career path, visit: http://www.afl.com.au/umpires.

HONEST ASSESSMENT Self-appraisal through video footage of matches can be a key to improvement as an umpire. After each round, AFL umpires are given DVDs of their performance, which have been dubbed with their on-field communication with players. By the time their Monday night coaching review comes around, most umpires will already know which of their decisions were correct, how well they positioned themselves at contests, and whether they communicated effectively.

SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 125

AFL NATIONAL ACADEMY: The best of Australia’s youth is gathered for the AFL National Academy team, which, in 2015 played against the TAC Cup’s

Northern Blues at the MCG. The Academy’s Head Coach is Brenton Sanderson (second from left back row), with Kevin Sheehan (kneeling, middle row), the AFL’s National Talent Manager. Launched in 1997, the Academy provides elite young players with a NAB sponsored AFL Academy scholarship, as an opportunity to develop their football and personal skills in an accelerated AFL program over 12 months. The level one squad of 25 players is selected following the NAB AFL Under-16 Championships, and the level two squad includes the best 35 under-18 players in the country. In 2015 there were 203 graduates of the NAB AFL Academy on AFL lists, including nine captains.

AFL COACHING MANAGERS AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL LEAGUE

NORTHERN TERRITORY

NSW/ACT

QUEENSLAND

Wally Gallio High Performance Manager

Anthony Stuart Coaching Development Manager

AFLNT PO BOX 43196 Casuarina NT 0811 aflnt.com.au

AFL (NSW/ACT) PO Box 333 Strawberry Hills NSW 2012 aflnswact.com.au

Steve Wildschut Coaching, Volunteers and Education Manager

Wally.Gallio@aflnt.com.au 08 8980 4834

Anthony.Stuart@aflnswact.com.au 02 8333 8050

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

TASMANIA

VICTORIA

WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Brenton Phillips High Performance Manager – Talent & Coaching

Mick Arnold Coach Development

Steve Teakel Coaching & Umpiring Development Manager

Kane Benson Manager Programs

Lawrie Woodman Coaching Development Manager Australian Football League GPO BOX 1449 Melbourne VIC 3001 afl.com.au Lawrie.Woodman@afl.com.au 03 9643 1859

SANFL PO BOX 606, Tynte Street North Adelaide SA 5006 sanfl.com.au Brenton.Phillips@sanfl.com.au 08 8424 2281

AFL Tasmania PO BOX 405 Rosny Park, TAS, 7018 afltas.com.au Mick.Arnold@footballtas.com.au (03) 6282 1816

126 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

AFL Queensland PO BOX 3132 Yeronga LPO QLD 4104 aflq.com.au Steve.Wildschut@aflq.com.au 07 3033 5435

AFL Victoria GPO BOX 4337 Melbourne VIC 3001 aflvic.com.au

West Australian Football Commission PO BOX 275 Subiaco WA 6904 wafootball.com.au

steve.teakel@aflvic.com.au 03 8341 6015

kbenson@wafc.com.au 08 9287 5551

AFL cOAcHiNg mANAgeRS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Copyright © The Slattery Media Group Pty Ltd, 2016 The Slattery Media Group Pty Ltd 1 Albert Street, Richmond, Victoria, Australia 3121 www.slatterymedia.com First edition published 2009. Second edition—revised and updated, 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. The AFL Logo and competing team logos, emblems and names on this product are all trade marks of and used under licence from the owner, the Australian Football League, by whom all copyright and other rights of reproduction are reserved. Australian Football League, AFL House, 140 Harbour Esplanade, Docklands, Victoria, Australia, 3008 Images courtesy of AFL Media unless otherwise indicated. Images copyright © Slattery Media Group Pty Ltd: 12-13, 15, 17, 22-23, 24-25, 28-29, 34-35, 38-39, 47,48-49, 52-53, 54-55, 64-65, 78-79 All images reproduced with permission. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Eddy, Dan, author. Title: Skills of Australian football / Dan Eddy. ISBN: 9780987420503 (paperback) Subjects: Australian football. Dewey Number: 796.3360994 Group Publisher: Geoff Slattery Project Manager: Courtney Nicholls Editor: Geoff Slattery Designer: Chris Downey Cover Design: Chris Downey Printed in Australia by Graphic Impressions.

BEST OF THE BEST (COVER): Some of the AFL’s best are those who work hardest at their games. From top, clockwise: Nick Riewoldt (St Kilda), Scott Pendlebury (Collingwood), Cyril Rioli (Hawthorn), Joel Selwood (Geelong), Nic Naitanui (West Coast Eagles), Gary Ablett (Gold Coast Suns), Trent Cotchin (Richmond), Nat Fyfe (Fremantle); doing battle in the ruck are Jordon Roughead (Western Bulldogs) and Todd Goldstein (North Melbourne).

o book like this can be put together without the help of many people, and I am grateful to everyone who assisted me along the way. I was able to draw on a number of interviews with players, coaches and, in some cases, their families, some of whom I have interviewed for other projects. These included Peter Bosustow, Nathan Buckley, Barry Cable, Ron Clarke, Jason Dunstall, Ken Fraser, John Goold, Robert Harvey, Ken Hunter, Bruce Hutchison, Allan Jeans, Alex Jesaulenko, Steve Johnson, Paul Kelly, John Kennedy, Matthew Lloyd, Simon Madden, Mick Malthouse, Sam Newman, John Nicholls, David Parkin, Matthew Pavlich, Paul Roos, Ken Sheldon and John Worsfold. While researching this book I also spoke with Dom Ambrogio and Kall Burns at the Gold Coast Suns, Richmond’s Peter Burge, national umpiring manager Wayne Campbell, St Kilda’s Peta Searle and Sean Dempster, Peter Francis at Gippsland Power, Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe, AFL Academy coach Brenton Sanderson, Dylan Shiel at Greater Western Sydney and Melbourne’s Bernie Vince. Thank you to all of you for helping me to simplify all the elements of Australian football. Thanks must also go to Meagan Lechucki and Craig Rowston at St Kilda, Leigh Meyrick at Greater Western Sydney, Dan Richardson at Richmond, as well as Matthew Goodrope and Ryan Larkin at Melbourne. None of this would have been possible without the love and guidance of my parents, David and Heather, sister Kristen (and Ben), brothers Nick (and Nikki) and Adam (and Ez), and my wonderful extended family of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews. Boys, those countless games of ‘flick footy’ that we used to play—and which I rigged, a luxury only afforded to the oldest grandchild—have finally paid off! So, too, the countless conversations on footy, and sport in general, over many years with my three best mates, Brad Koetsveld (and Karyn), Mitch Burns (and Lucie) and Adam Laidlaw (and Leah), which have helped to give me a greater understanding of the game. Here’s hoping there are many more, boys. I am forever indebted to the kindness and generosity of Glenn McFarlane, Ben Collins, Dr Rob Hess, Dr Matthew Klugman, Tony De Bolfo, and Dr Lionel Frost. Not only did you all show faith in an untried but ambitious writer from the very start, but you all helped to educate me and mould me into the author that I am today. For a number of chapters on the various aspects of coaching, I drew on the wonderful work of coaching “guru” David Wheadon, whose book The Art of Coaching is a must-have for any budding coach. AFL Coaching Development Manager Lawrie Woodman and AFL National Talent Manager Kevin Sheehan’s advice and input into creating this edition and the first edition (2009) has been invaluable. Thank you to the entire ‘family’ at Slattery Media Group, particularly the tireless Courtney Nicholls, Jeffrey Sickert, Rose Vagilli and the brilliant design team who make all SMG books stand out on the shelves. Speaking of “family”, to my interviewing partner, best friend and fiancée, Renee Maskell, your support and ability to keep me on the right track is something I greatly admire you for. This book happens because of your patience and understanding. And because you allow me to follow my dreams, no matter how crazy they seem! Both you and my little buddy Dennis keep me half sane. Hopefully Owen and Liam can make full use of this book as they start their own footy journeys in a few years’ time. Finally, when I write of appreciation and for “giving me a go”, I want to thank Geoff Slattery for not only taking on an unknown writer some three years ago, but for opening new doors, defining my craft, listening to my suggestions, and, most of all, dealing with my inability to master those damn apostrophes! — DAN EDDY SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL 127

06 UMPIRING

THAT’S WHAT THIS BOOK’S TALKIN’ ABOUT:

A rather loose version of those famous words uttered by Shane Crawford after Hawthorn’s 2008 premiership, applies to the totality of the content in Skills Of Australian Football. It’s about hard work, practice, practice and more practice, blending with team strategy, and applying all that on the most important day of the year, Grand Final Day. Hawthorn’s champ Cyril Rioli exemplified all that in 2015, when he took home his fourth premiership medal (2008, 2013, 2014, 2015), and first Norm Smith Medal for best player on Grand Final day.

128 SKILLS OF AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALL

BY DAN EDDY Foreword by Brenton Sanderson AFL National Academy Head Coach

They make it look easy, those footy idols of ours. We may be forgiven for thinking that they are born with the skills that set them apart from the thousands of all ages who lace up a pair of footy boots each week — they’re not. For every great mark, running bounce, lightning handball, bone-crunching tackle, and spectacular goal, there is sweat, long hours in the gym, repetitive skills training, and kilometre after kilometre of aerobic training; all done to prepare the stars of the game to play to the best of their ability. Their disparate journeys to the AFL began by learning the basic skills of our great game, under the direction of parents, friends, and junior coaches.

Skills of Australian Football is the ultimate guide to playing the AFL way. It is designed to teach players of all ages and all levels the skills crucial to football success: from kicking, marking, and handballing correctly, through to the importance of smart running, of teamwork, and of understanding the different game plans that have been devised by the best coaches in AFL history. Skills of Australian Football is your one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about Australian football. With tips from the game’s champions, all supported by instructional photographs, Skills of Australian Football will provide you with the grounding required to become a successful footballer, no matter the level of competition you reach.

Skills of Australian Football is the most comprehensive guide to learning all parts of the game — from the fundamentals of kicking and handball to what happens in the coaching box. It has all the hallmarks of a classic. — GILLON McLACHLAN, ceo afl