Chicken and the Egg - Defending possession chains

[mjp]

Just a question after the Essendon game.

Was our 'high' defending - which was causing the Bombers to switch the ball back and forth across half back what caused them to just 'take what we gave them', uncontested mark themselves to death and allow our defenders to get 'set' behind the ball behind our success last night?

OR.

Were Essendon just stuffing around with it for reasons even their coach didn't seem to understand and THAT allowed our defenders to get set behind the ball/have success?

I don't think it can be both. But I really couldn't tell from tv.

[EasternWest]

Yes.

[macca]

I was wondering why we went to the wing so often and not through the centre

Thanks for the explanation , as I could not tell watching from tv

[Mofra]

I suspect they wanted to try and get the ball to the fat side of the ground and run it into the F50 as Wright & Langford are good one on one players.
Our wings (as far as I could tell on TV) did a lot of 'unrewarded' running last night to stop that. Once we slowed their movement the game was going to be played on our terms as we are a much better stoppage team than Essendon, and have been for 15 years.

Seems a stupid strategy as their best 'run and gun' D50 player (Hind) was the sub.

[bornadog]

Just a question after the Essendon game.

Was our 'high' defending - which was causing the Bombers to switch the ball back and forth across half back what caused them to just 'take what we gave them', uncontested mark themselves to death and allow our defenders to get 'set' behind the ball behind our success last night?

OR.

Were Essendon just stuffing around with it for reasons even their coach didn't seem to understand and THAT allowed our defenders to get set behind the ball/have success?

I don't think it can be both. But I really couldn't tell from tv.

I mentioned this in the other thread, Essendon found it difficult to break through our zones - so yes first reason