Media Release 16 April 2005
Wheel of evolution turns
There is always plenty of hand-wringing at the start of each new AFL season about whether football as we've come to know it is on a one-way spiral towards a soporific, glorified version of "keepings off". But it's angst also served up with an apparent dose of amnesia.
This week, I happened to stumble across an article I'd written almost five years ago to the day, which - in view of the increasingly hysterical debate between those who demand legislative change and those who want the game to evolve naturally - seems pretty instructive.
It was early 2000 and, after a good five years of increased emphasis on defence and possession with average scores continuing to fall, the negativity had been blown away in a hail of goals and long, direct kicking. The reigning premiers at the time, the Kangaroos under Denis Pagan, knew no other way, but even they would be trumped that year by an Essendon team that played with an efficiency and tempo opponents simply couldn't match.
Switch forward five years and there's more than a touch of deja vu. The game has been getting shorter since 2000 and the number of long kicks has fallen by the year, as has scoring, with fewer contested marks being taken than ever before. But could that trend be about to be reversed and the cyclical nature of football underscored once more thanks to the emergence of a new power team?
It's early days, but the Melbourne of 2005 is beginning to look a lot like that Essendon powerhouse of five years back. The Demons are quick, direct and decisive, moving the ball at a rate too rapid for flooding or seemingly any other counter-strategy opponents can find.
Melbourne is by some margin the longest-kicking team in the competition so far this season. Its percentage of kicks to handballs is higher than all but two other teams, it's running second for contested marks, and, most significantly, with average scores at present a dismal 86 points a game, the Demons are averaging 115, nearly three goals a game better than their nearest rival.
After several years where it seemed most of the competition was attempting to ape the styles of the pre-eminent teams of the time - Brisbane Lions, Port Adelaide and Collingwood - the Demons are very definitely going their own way, perhaps sparking another major turning of football's evolutionary wheel.
It was Brisbane's rise to dominance that sparked the last shift in how the game was played. While the Lions have popularly been seen as a no-fuss, direct team, the reality is a little different.
Brisbane matched, then surpassed, Essendon in 2001 by adopting a game plan in which it controlled the tempo of play, a phrase that has since become popularly associated with Paul Roos' Sydney. The Lions were patient, holding the ball up and sharing it around, drawing opponents like the Bombers out of position, then attacking into space. Brisbane was direct when it could be, but, in its more measured build-ups, used plenty of short-passing and uncontested possession.
Its grand final opponent in 2002 and 2003, Collingwood, and another leading rival, Port Adelaide, used them even more. Sure enough, the competition followed suit, the AFL average for long kicks falling from 106 in 2000 to just 76 in 2003, short kicks up from 89 to 106.
But the trend has slowed. Last year, long kicks were down by an average of only one, while the number of short kicks remained unchanged. It's as if teams have taken the possession game as far as it can go - which means it is only a matter of time, if it hasn't happened already, that they'll begin to look for something different.
Melbourne already has. And perhaps a couple of others took the first steps last weekend. Collingwood pussyfooted around against Carlton for a half before going long and straight for a matchwinning 15.1 in the second.
Sydney released its game-long handbrake on Brisbane to rattle on seven goals after managing only six in the first three quarters. And Hawthorn kicked only one goal in the first half against Essendon before booting 10 after the long break.
We'll need to see plenty more evidence yet before we can conclude that the comparative scoring drought and the abundance of short-kicking possession-style football is being reversed. But it's more a question of when than if.
Rohan Connolly
The Age
Click here to see the original article.
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