This Week In Football is a collection of some of the best in football currently outside the walls of AFL clubs or broadcasters. Each week a curated grab bag from regular contributors and special guests will provide insight into and beyond the game on subjects of their choosing. For more about our contributors, click here.
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Before the Bounce
On Tuesday SEN’s Sam Edmund reported something that has been a long time coming – a crackdown on injury list reporting from clubs.
Focus was placed on one club – Geelong.
But that’s a bit of a narrow target, and a bit away from the broader point.
TWIF said that the crackdown was a long time coming. Well…that’s because it also happened last year.
Last year Nine’s Anna Pavlou reported that:
“It is not permissible to provide general availability windows, ie. short term, medium term, long term,” the AFL confirmed in its 2024 policy.
So this week isn’t so much a new crackdown, but a crackdown on a crackdown.
TWIF also understands the perspective of clubs. Injury management is hard, and the expectations of those who rely upon injury reports for personal gain is sometimes unrealistic. But there also has to be some transparency in a league where there are meant to be guidelines and standards for almost anything imaginable. What may be a more palatable solution is some type of middle ground – one that doesn’t provide definite dates but instead windows of availability.
Mastering the dark arts of defending the control game
The Brisbane Lions won the 2024 premiership on the back of some of the best ball movement we’ve seen since the Clarkson-era Hawks. They sliced and diced through opposition zones with quick-release kicks —finding uncontested marks in tight spaces to suck in defenders and opening space for their dynamic forward line to exploit.
In what is typically a copycat league, you’d expect more clubs to adopt Brisbane’s blueprint in 2025. Yet, surprisingly, many teams appear to be zigging when we expect them to zag.
Consider the question: Are opposition defenses tightening the screws to nullify the strengths of the reigning premiers? Or is there a broad acknowledgment that Brisbane’s style is difficult to replicate without the right personnel?I lean toward the former—led by the likes of Collingwood, teams are beginning to master the dark arts of stalling opposition movement without conceding a 50m penalty. So much so, Brad Scott requested a please explain to the AFL umpiring department.
If we revisit each team’s use of quick-release kicks in 2025, similar patterns emerge.
Note: The available data is rounded to the nearest second and may lack precision depending on capture timing.
Most of last year’s leaders—Brisbane, St Kilda, Essendon, and Fremantle—have experienced a noticeable drop in their ability to find uncontested marks through quick-release kicks.
With a shift back towards chaos across the league this year – 54% compared to 44% in 2024 – the control brigade, led by Brisbane, will be hoping the umpiring department are listening.
Different Ruck Roles and who does them best
Jack Turner / TheBackPocketAU.com
Rucks have a lot of responsibilities in football, and arguably many of the most important ones happen outside of the ruck contest. Different players have different strengths – and the best rucks in our game are multitalented – but we decided to drill down into what some of these roles entail and who excels at them.
The numbers below are based on the 21 players who have appeared in at least four games this season, and attended more than 50% of ruck contests.
Defensive Ruckwork – Using height as a shield
There are a few ways in which rucks can defend. You may have heard recently some commentators talking about how well Darcy Cameron intercepts opposition possessions down the line, and though most of this is done in the front half, it is a key aspect of team defence.
There are currently seven rucks who average more than 2.5 intercepts a game, and only two who average more than two intercept marks. Darcy Cameron and Max Gawn leading the way with an average of 2.63 and 2.38 intercept marks respectively.
Another way rucks are able to assist with team defence is dropping back to help out with spoils and one percenters to help create stoppages where they can utilise their ruck craft.
Matt Flynn has averaged five spoils a game form his appearances for West Coast this year, while a total of eight rucks average more than two spoils a game.
Rucks as a Midfield Weapon – Using rucks as an on-baller
Modern rucks are notable much more agile and skilled than the rucks of yesteryear, and the best rucks are able to rack up as many disposals as some midfielders.
There is an old adage of “don’t handball to a ruckman,” but the game has evolved past that in many cases, and there are multiple rucks receiving upwards of five handball receives per game.
As well as racking up touches from handball receives – or more commonly marks – the more agile of our modern game’s giants are able to pick up the ball below their knees and create attacking possession chains for their teams.
As many as six rucks currently average 4.5 or more ground ball gets per game, and Brodie Grundy averages a whopping 3.25 post-clearance ground ball gets.
Attacking Through Rucks – Creating scores through ruckwork and possession
Which rucks contribute most to the score? Of our 21 nominal rucks, ten average 4.5 or more score involvements a game, some off their own boot, some goal assists, and some involvements in scoring chains.
While some rucks average more scores themselves, these ten are involved in the most scores for their teams.
Big Targets up Forward – Using Rucks as keys
While some rucks rest forward, some also drift forward after a contest to create an option – think the way Petracca or Heeney does, only a foot taller and significantly slower – with ten rucks taking a mark inside 50 at least every second week but only Sam Draper averaging better than a goal a game.
Where do they get their footy?
Looking at possession locations, we can see that the majority of rucks get their ball in the front half, with just the following nine players receiving more footy in the defensive half of the ground.
From the others – the majority of rucks who average 50% or more front half possessions – just four average 60% or higher front half possessions. This obviously makes sense with Jackson and Darcy sharing duties, but speaks to the team structure of Geelong and Brisbane that Stanley and McInerny spend so much time down there.
But what does it all add up to?
While all of these skills are individually valuable, the best rucks in the competition string multiple of these together to become more than just a hitout and mark player.
You will notice that the best rucks in the competition appear on multiple of these lists of roles and skillsets – players like Max Gawn, Rowan Marshall, Darcy Cameron and Tom De Koning – and this is what makes them so valuable in relation to their peers.
The days of the tap only ruck are well and truly behind us, and you have to be talented at much more than just ruck craft in order to be picked over a lesser ruck who outperforms you in other parts of the ground.
What might Dean Cox be adjusting?
Sean Lawson
In a radio interview this week, Sydney Swan Matt Roberts summed up the experience of a successor coach, noting the change that comes with a previously subordinate internal voice taking over as the primary voice.
Where previously Cox “had to listen to Horse” and couldn’t “put his full spin on it”, now he can be fully clear about his own preferences about how he wants the team to play.
Even without a new coach, one imagines that a big source of change for the Swans would be addressing the way they lost the grand final last year and were also soundly beaten on some other occasions. We can assume that changes this year pushed by the new coaching team are heavily driven by those experiences.
So after two months of football, against the backdrop of poorer performances, what can we glean about the changes Cox might be implementing?
First up, the Swans seem to be taking the game on more. No team has taken more running bounces per game in the last five years than Cox’s Swans, and they’re also gaining a bit more ground per disposal.
This may be a response to the way opponents sought to cut off Sydney’s transition game with a high defensive line and corridor density last year. If short kicking options are cut off, the running game can be a risky but rewarding alternative method of transition.
The run and bounce by Blakey, Bice, and Warner (all in the top 20 for most bounces) are most notable and visually striking, but Wicks, Florent, Roberts, Heeney and Campbell all chip in here with a variety of options. Most are also among Sydney’s preferred distributors, the better to put opponents in two minds.
Second, the defence is… changing.
Dean Cox has talked of a new defensive approach multiple times this year, and famously tried to move McCartin forward to cover injuries while leaving new players like Paton and Hamling to cover the gaps.
Watching live, there have been notable moments of confusion about handovers and trade-ups, despite many of the same personnel involved. This suggests changes in role assignments, a shift in philosophy about when to hand off, when to provide help, when to come up or sit deep, and so forth.
What we can say from the statistics is that this new approach, so far, seems to be resulting in more isolated defenders and more defensive contest losses. Sydney last year spoiled more than just about anyone, relative to the defensive load faced, they feasted off spilled ground ball in rebound, and they kept moments of defensive isolation to a minimum.
The Swans after two months with Cox at the helm, are facing more 1v1 contests per game, and losing more of those than in previous years. They’re also spoiling less, and although as Cody notes below, spoils are down across the league, Sydney have also slipped from having the most spoils to merely 4th most.
Last year, Sydney were notably vulnerable to possession and control games, most dramatically in the grand final when the Lions’ uncontested marking was off the charts. Clubs looked to deny the turnover game by keeping the ball away from them.
This year, Sydney appear to be making more of an effort to push up and apply pressure and deny that possession game. Opponents are marking the ball less often, and the average metres gained point to longer ball use and perhaps less shorter and more lateral options.
All of these things are very preliminary, and occurring in the context of significant midfield and forward line absences, and and unsettled defence, but they are elements to watch as Sydney tries to find their feet under the partial break with the past represented by their successor coach.
Where have the clunks gone?
Cody Atkinson
I got into a discussion yesterday.
On the internet.
So not a discussion but more a character limited amalgam of words, ideas and preconceived notions. Not an argument either, although the internet is good for them – and the line is often fine between fight and discussion.
When researching some items around ball movement, something glaring stood out.
A lack of clunks. What happened to the big men, and their ability to fly and take big grabs?
It’s still early days this season, but the 8.8 taken per team per game this year would be the lowest in the era we have records for. It was 9.6 last year – which doesn’t seem like a huge drop, but it’s been as high as 11.5 per game in the last five years. That’s almost two a quarter across both teams.
The first reaction is to look at whether it’s an attacking strategy symptom – going for more open targets down the ground – or a defensive improvement. All up, there’s a slight downtick in the number of overall marks, but nothing dramatic that would indicate a massive course correction.
Looking at the number of spoils, we have some indications that it might not be a pure – or traditional – defensive cause either.
This season has also seen the fewest spoils per game of any season since 2012. There’s about seven fewer spoils per team per game than in 2019. That’s 14 per game across both teams, or nearly four a quarter.
If you take the spoils and contested marks together there are twenty fewer contests than in 2019, or 20% fewer.
Kicks are down in that time period as well, but only about 5%. Total marks are down about 5% too – which makes sense. That’s proportionate.
The easiest conclusion is that in the past few years there has been an emphasis towards teams finding open short and intermediate targets at the expense of bombing the ball long to packs. Football is a battle between position and possession, and the former may be taking precedence over the latter. This has happened before – note the massive rise between 2005 and 2010 in that first graphic. It could be a sign that the tide might be turning leaguewide, as James alludes to above.
There could also be some personnel issues. There’s been a number of noted contested markers missing time this year, from Sam Darcy to Jesse Hogan and Harry McKay. As availability shifts for the league this number may rise.
But it is worth tracking over the coming weeks. Keep a look out for the clunks and the fists.
Around the grounds
Here’s some more stuff that isn’t from here but is good to take in about footy
- Tasmania stadium updates – the Tasmanian Government has decided to go it alone on the funding front (for their portion of the stadium). They also look like bringing the matter before Parliament in the next few weeks. Things might be heating up for Team 19.
- Squiggle’s Power Rankings sees a new club (the Bulldogs) take top spot.
- Ricky at The Shinboner takes a long look at one particular centre bounce set up to a very entertaining effect.
- The AFLW season opener has been announced as being Carlton v Collingwood, to some general consternation.
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