From Arnie's time, there have been are three formations that we use at different phases. One to play out, one in possession higher up the park and one in defence. They're very set and predictable, so everybody knew their jobs. Moss is adding to that with different options in attack and defence and changing slightly the way we play out. Not everyone knows the roles 100% yet, and squad rotation isn't really helping (though it will help us in the last month of the season when we're again going to be playing lots of games with limited recovery and everyone will need to know their roles).
Playing out from the keeper:
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Dates back to Arnie's era. In past years, option 1 has been to try to play to 3, 6 or 4 directly and have them able to turn, face forward and get us going up the park. With Mat Ryan, this got mixed up with occasionally hitting pinpoint passes to 7 or 11 on halfway to then attack with a quick counter.
What's new (relatively) is that because Reddy doesn't have Ryan's feet, we've taken that option out, and we are much more rigid with the short game. It's more difficult to play and we're mucking it up sometimes, but Brisbane do it well and have three championships to show for it and Adelaide do it too.
I think Mossy wants us to persist - Reddy is no less naturally talented with his feet than Galekovich, there's no reason why it can't work for us. We want the opponent to come on and press high so we can pass in behind, but we're not getting it quite right.
Ball in possession higher up the park:
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Again, same as with Arnie. Hutch leans left, Monty leans right, we try to get fullbacks linking with wingers and 8 and 10 offer quick wall-passes to open up the flanks as we get behind the opposing fullbacks. Hutch is the quarterback - he steers the team around.
Yesterday when Monty was replaced by Trifiro, 8 moved higher:
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--2---------------6---------------5--
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This changed the way they had to defend us, and gave us a little more flexibility. I can see us using it again.
Defensive block:
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Same as with Arnie. We don't give a flying if the opposing CBs have the ball unless they're actually advancing up the park with it. 9 and 10 get interested if the ball goes to the fullback. Say it goes to their left back: 9 will close off the bail out pass to the CB and 7 and 8 squeeze in to get them to cough the ball up.
What's new is that we've been changing this up occasionally with a really high press to force errors:
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I think the reason is simple - it's easiest to win the ball back within 5 seconds of losing it. If we can press hard and win it, we will, but if we can't we drop back into the block. City exposed this a few times where they were able to take advantage of broken play to get in behind 2 and 5 particularly, but we also got some chances out of it.
In all, with the change to playing out and the change to how we press, we're actually playing a less controlling, tight game than under Arnie, but looking to trust ourselves to either pass our way into positions to score or steal opportunities through pressure. We're going to have to move the ball better though, and make fewer mistakes.
