Attractive footy or winning footy

[comrade]

Last night on the post match show First Crack, Tom Morris said that Bevo is his favourite person in footy because he speaks his mind and coaches his team to play in the 'right' way, meaning we put emphasis on trying to score.

And it got me thinking about the essence of winning football and if attractive footy is conducive to winning.

I think Morris did touch on some truth in that Bevo prefers us to play the 'right' way, rather than doing whatever it takes to win, and this leads to some of the roller coaster performances we've seen since he entered the club.

Unlike Chris Scott, he won't immediately throw an extra back and give up attacking options by clogging up the defensive 50.

But it does beg the question...

Can the 'right' way win us another flag?

And one more question...

Would you prefer us to eek out more ugly wins & honorable close losses compared to the (by 2020 standards) huge wins and losses we've experienced this year?

[bornadog]

I really don't care how we win as long as we do win. Of course I prefer attractive footy and plenty of goals but I just want wins.

In 2016, during the H & A, we won lots of games with ugly footy. I remember watching us against Carlton and really belting them, but walking away and thinking we didn't play that well.

[Bulldog Joe]

I am in the camp that the most attractive footy is high scoring but only by us or two teams playing a game not involving us.


I will take an ugly win any day and can even tolerate an ugly loss. There needs to be extraordinary circumstances for honour in a loss.

I absolutely detest high scoring against us. That is never attractive footy for me.

[bornadog]

On the other hand, watching other teams this year there have been some appalling matches. No one seems to know how to score any more and the ball seems to go from one 50 metre arc to the other 50 metre arc for the whole game.

[Twodogs]

I am in the camp that the most attractive footy is high scoring but only by us or two teams playing a game not involving us.


I will take an ugly win any day and can even tolerate an ugly loss. There needs to be extraordinary circumstances for honour in a loss.

I absolutely detest high scoring against us. That is never attractive footy for me.

When Bevo took over one of the first things he said was that he wanted us to be hard to score against. In games in 2016 that's exactly what we were. We weren't overly defensive in that we flooded our defensive 50 but by gee did we fight every possession and keep the ball away from the other mob. We would go for vast stretches of games without playing well but when the game turned and we got it back more onto our terms we weren't 10 goals behind because we'd given up heaps of simple goals and often wed win.

That's the way I'd like to see us play. That's the way successful teams play IMO. It's watchable and you win more often than you lose.

[Bulldog Joe]

The coach prior to Bevo also talked a lot about being hard to score against.

However, his view was just defend which also made it impossible to score.

Winning is actually important and surprise to no-one you actually need to score to be able to win.

[Raw Toast]

I generally love the way Bevo wants us to play - it's so very beautiful when we're on.

However, I'm not sure that means he's committed to shoot-outs. Or to letting other teams move the ball against us with ease.

The foundation of our game-plan, as I understand it, is pressure generated by our mids and forwards. When we get that right, everything else pretty much follows. Which includes the opposition not scoring much.

If you look at our wins this year, we've generally kept our opponents to a low score, and especially strangled a few teams in the first half. The problem is that when our pressure drops off for whatever reason, we're very vulnerable to teams rushing the ball forward and getting us over the back. Which is unattractive footy at best (at least from a Dogs perspective).

I think that 2016 is testament to what our pressure game can do, so yes, I think our preferred style can win a flag, and the other major finals that precede that. But like Richmond (who also rely a heap on intense pressure), we seem to be a side at the moment that either looks very good, or very ordinary.

I've loved watching us play beautiful footy, and loved us winning ugly. There's glory in both, though the way Bevo can get us on song has been my favourite style to watch (but only just).
I've lo

[Mofra]

Last night on the post match show First Crack, Tom Morris said that Bevo is his favourite person in footy because he speaks his mind and coaches his team to play in the 'right' way, meaning we put emphasis on trying to score.

And it got me thinking about the essence of winning football and if attractive footy is conducive to winning.

I think Morris did touch on some truth in that Bevo prefers us to play the 'right' way, rather than doing whatever it takes to win, and this leads to some of the roller coaster performances we've seen since he entered the club.

Unlike Chris Scott, he won't immediately throw an extra back and give up attacking options by clogging up the defensive 50.

But it does beg the question...

Can the 'right' way win us another flag?

And one more question...

Would you prefer us to eek out more ugly wins & honorable close losses compared to the (by 2020 standards) huge wins and losses we've experienced this year?
Right now we're playing English as a virtual 7th defender and we're the number one team in the competition for scoring chains from the back half. In most circumstances I think we are actually playing an extra number behind the ball.