My Observation - Season 2008

[The Jeff]

Throughout the pre-season and first three rounds of the real stuff there seems to be a pattern to the Saints style of play.

It appears that we break open games and then seek to protect our advantage or lead. As teams work us out, this is going to be a problem going forward.

How do we overcome this - we need to take advantage of our early momentum and kill games off when we have a chance. One needs to just look at the Sydney and Doggies games to see evidence of this. Particularly after quarter time we seemed prone to get more numbers back and play tempo football once we have established a reasonable lead.

We cannot allow our opponents to get back into games. 3 goals to 1 in our favour to start the second quarter would have iced the game. There is nothing wrong with adapting our game during matches and structuring ourselves differently to match our opponents however sometimes we need to stick with what works.

In the Bulldogs Vs. Adelaide game, Adelaide did not shut the door on them when they had the chance and as a result were overrun. We should have learnt from this. To score 7 of the first 8 goals and then change tact was a mistake last night. We gave them a sniff and they exposed us.

I hope to see this change going forward.

[saintsRrising]

. To score 7 of the first 8 goals and then change tact was a mistake last night. We gave them a sniff and they exposed us.

I hope to see this change going forward.

Nice theory...but the Saints did not change tact in the manner you describe..

We just STOPPED and got overun.

First quarter we PRESSURED the Dogs....after that we gave them space and room to run in.

At the ball ups we got smashed in the clearances.

I WISHED that we had of played hard tempo football for the last 3 quarters. If we had of we would have won.


Instead we played SPECTTOR football...or PASSENGER football...

[The Jeff]

Nice theory...but the Saints did not change tact in the manner you describe..

We just STOPPED and got overun.

First quarter we PRESSURED the Dogs....after that we gave them space and room to run in.

...


Instead we played SPECTTOR football...or PASSENGER football...

I think you'll find after the Bulldogs scored early in the 2nd we became decidely more defensive.

The fact that we were second to the ball and that they had more space was because we were zoning off them more. In my opinion this has been a common occurence from us this season when we are protecting the lead.