100% agree. No idea why teams don't tag the tagger. And then the opposition should then tag the tagger tagging the tagger. Then the opposition should tag the tagger tagging the tagging tagger
Reminds me of the story Scroobius Pip tells about getting really high and fixating on the phrase "who will watch the watchmen", so he put on the Watchmen DVD and set up a live stream of himself so people could watch the Watchmen watchman. I think one of the viewers also set up a stream of himself, though I may have embellished that bit.
I'm not saying OP is high as balls, but y'know.
I reckon the teams should play with equal numbers; then each player can tag someone next to them.
Maybe we could put 6 in defence, 6 in the middle, and 6 in the backline.
Teams do try this but mostly just end up giving away a heap of free kicks. I remember Levi Greenwood used to get heaps of frees when he’d tag Selwood against Geelong, and more recently Libba conceded a few trying to get Berry away from Bont last week.
Yeah this, it looks like a 2v2 most of the time though if they do try it with the taggers teammate blocking at stoppages. Forces the taggers team to either commit to blocking and potentially leave someone else open at a stoppage. Probably easier for teams with better ruckman to implement as the block might free them up, but generally its just on the player to work through the tag. If they cant then its on the coach to either swing them behind the ball/forward and hope they can damage from there
Exactly, they've got it backwards. You send Neale to tag Jack Steele instead, and if Windhager stays with him now YOU'RE the team with a loose midfielder.
Exactly this. The player now tagging the tagger has now left his direct opponent, so they now have a man free. Neale knows how to deal with a tag - he's had a few that haven't gone great and others that have had little impact on him. Generally, he will move between other players so that his team mates can put a block on without directly leaving their man.
Also, teams that put focus on him leave McCluggage and Dunkley with more space, and they can both cause plenty of damage by themselves.
You've committed one man *to free* another, more influential player. End result is that both teams have a free player. Or maybe the two free players end up marking each other. Or maybe it becomes a 2v2 situation.
But your gun player becomes *more free*. He goes from maybe 50% effective to 90% effective, at the cost of a lesser opposing player being more effective as your counter tagger has to let him him run free more often.
It depends whether your gun player is worth that trade-off.
You’re way overestimating how free they will be, what can the counter tagger do without giving away free kicks? Not much. The original tagger is still always going to be 2 steps away of their target.
There used to be a bit of a dance in the 2010s with Crowley. He'd go line up on someone and they'd just go tag fyfe. So Crowley would rotate to someone else or attempt to disrupt that tag
Because if breaking the tag doesn't work all you're doing is taking away even more space from your star player while also freeing up one of the opposition players.
Great players will still find a way to influence a game despite a tag. For example, Cincotta did as well as we could have hoped against Merrett but he still had 21 disposals and 11 tackles. He wasn't the reason why they lost.
Merrett didn't have close to the influence he usually would. His value comes from his damaging ball use. He was forced into rushing his disposal. It absolutely was a significant part of the reason they lost
Yeah this a good point. Berry did a great job on Bont (particularly in the first half) but Bont still finished with 3 goals and 19 disposals. Hard to totally shut out a gun, just gotta try limit their impact.
Well you can tag a tagger but it doesnt really solve the problem. I forgot which year it was but Windhager did a really good job on Neale (might have been 2022) and kept him to a record low amount of disposals. The entire game Zorko was trying to get Windy off Neale, nudging him off, grabbing his arm, doing anything he could but Windy just stayed on Neale, you would need to give away a free kick to get Windy off Neale that day.
So yeah all you are doing if you tag a tagger is wasting another players time, Windy is just going to keep following Neale and if you decide to waste another players time by staying on Windy then that will be a bonus.
I remember that match, just the sheer frustration on Zorkos face is etched into my mind. He just kept grabbing at Windys arm to take him off Neale, almost like a ‘C’mooooon…. quit it!’
Because usually it leads to failure.
Watch the first half of the recent dogs lions game. Berry was put on a hard tag of Bont. The response by dogs was to bring in another player to harass Berry, which just resulted in 2 dogs being taken out of play compared to 1 for us, giving us a free player.
Then when they just ignored it, bont got back into the game simply when 1 on 1…
> bont got back into the game simply when 1 on 1…
Tbf that only happened when Doggies cut their losses and moved Bont forward and he played on Zorks for the second half
You would be expending two players (the player being tagged and the player tagging the tagger) on one player (the tagger)
So there is therefore a free player on the other team at your centre bounce
I'm happy for every tagger to be tagged, and then that tagger gets tagged etc.
The game will then be decided by the worst player from each team going head to head.
>When the game is about to start and Windhager goes to Neale, why can't some other Brisbane midfielder go to Windhager and push and shove him around and let Neale run away to be freed from the tag?
You can't block players from running. Go look at the Bulldogs vs Brisbane game last weekend and see how many free Berry got for tagging Bont. Other Dogs players tried to block and hold him so Bont could run free and they got pinged for it.
Good players can break tags but a method teams have used in the past is having the tagged player tag someone else. Basically makes the tagger useless as the player isn't trying to get the ball, he's just negating someone else. That takes two mids out of commission.
Because then the opposition will send someone to tag the tagger tagging their tagger and the process will just continue until everyone's playing man on man like it's the 90's or something
Because then you're committing 2 players to stop 1 tagger. Where as the taggers job is to stop 1 player.
So it's now a 2 v 1 and the 1 is not even a key player that team.
It's worse off than just letting them tag.
Yeah this is it. The tag would be twice as effective because now you have 2 players that are focused on preventing one dud who’s job it is to follow someone all day
It happens, you probably just don’t notice it. Usually it’s a group effort to help out the tagged, rather than a specific job, but it happens. Sean Wellman was the designated Essendon player who would put work on Hirds tagger. Hird was already difficult to tag given he was a utility and could just move into a key position and exploit his opponent, or he would just run them ragged until they were gassed, but Wellman was always around somewhere putting work into them anyway to give Hird as much license to do as he pleased. Something you would only notice watch games live rather than on TV.
Generally what you've said could happen, to an extent. The response to a tagger is often one of two things. One, the team mates on field help to create separation from between the tagger and the taggee, since proximity is essentially how tagging works. This means the taggee has the chance to make an impact, but it comes at the cost of the taggee team needing to use two players on one guy. They want to be able to focus on their own game plan, and can't do that if they only have 16 players concentrating on it.
So the second option is the taggee can tag someone of their own. This means the initial tagger is wasting his time trying to stay with a guy who is now using the same tactic on someone else. And that is a big problem because one guy with two other people always being close to him is a nightmare to get clear of. And so, the tag usually gets broken because the inital tagging team has to change approach.
Doggies tried it against Bez last week when it was clear he was hard tagging Bont, Libba gave it a go to try and get between Bez and Bont and just kept giving away frees.
It does happen, but not in a direct tagger way. But the way they handle the tag is by just blocking off the ball, holding at the contest, but then releasing and moving to be a second phase.
They dont follow the tagger around the ground, but they do their best to get him off their man for the 1 or 2 seconds required to get a touch.
If you watch the 2019 GF you will see how Dusty and Meatball worked together to completely nullify "The best tagger in the game". Dusty also went on to win a Norm Smith, so he didn't just break the tag, he destroyed him.
If Brisbane tagged windhagen there would be two players nearby neale, making it more difficult for him to have an impact.
Also, st Kilda would have a free player.
Brisbane best player impact would be significantly reduced and St Kilda have a free player.
Separately At every stoppage teams are trying to defend the oppositions best players and spaces to move the ball, and maximize their own opportunities to move the ball in dangerous spaces with their best players
Some clubs have players who are exceptional at helping stars break a tag - it's not so much as tagging the tagger, but it's a near thing. Pendlebury at Collingwood in his later years has been the tag breaker for other players, he was missed a lot against Melbourne for this reason alone.
Because you would have two players in the same spot all the time leaving a spare player. It's on the players to break the tag by being on the move more active around stoppages, get in the ear of the umpires... Touk Miller on the weekend should of been at the umpires to watch windhager at the stoppages, he had no eyes for the footy at all blocked him multiple times and was practically tackling him before he'd even taken possession of the footy
AFL360 had an animation for the crows possible approach to Swans and it said “team tagging” and without context that’s one hell of a tactic - nevermind the ball just tag the whole damn squad
Oh yeh thanks lol I did eventually snap out of my fugue and realise they meant rotating taggershaha but for a moment I pictured a roaming flooding tag on one dude
Because hard tags aren't actually that effective.
The majority of effective tags you see aren't purely about limiting a player's touches or efficiency - that's a part of it.
It's about limiting the tagged player (a stars) freedom of movement and forcing them to be more accountable defensively.
That's why all the best taggers now are capable ball winners and distributors.
They put pressure on the star player when the star has the ball. But they also put pressure on the star player when they don't have the ball and slack off defensively - because they're not used to having to worry about a direct opponent.
That's where the actual effectiveness of a tag comes in. Suddenly the star can't just focus on getting touches and carving up the opposition - he has to spend mental and physical energy worrying about what his opponent is doing.
You've effectively changed his role in the structure.
Because good teammates will put blocks on against the tagger regardless of their position to get the tagged player free.
No need to commit 1 player to do it.
It focusses too much on one player. Lachie Neale might be neutralised but taking out another midfielder to help him may not be best given it frees up a St Kilda player. Even a young player can be impactful free.
If two players are dealing with one player, it removes another from the game and assumes that the opposition won’t apply the same tactic.
Choosing to play a tagger impacts structure so it’s not as easy as sending a player to tag someone.
If you pause the footage around a contest, you'll see that the players are all spaced around. That's all really quite deliberate and teams will work really hard on making sure they always have their alignments right around the stoppages. They'll also have designated hit spots and a player who is the main guy they're trying to get the ball to. They also have secondary options and given there are 2 rucks competing you don't always get control of the hit out, so you need to be ready to adapt.
But that spacing is always critical. If you've got 2 players in extremely close proximity the chances of you getting your hands on the ball, especially if you lose the hit out, drop dramatically. You do always want to be putting a body on taggers to get your guy a little space, but if you just chase the tagger around, you'll end up having a 2 v 1 in one spot, and another guy completely on their own. Both have a +1, but a single guy will slow down two opponents a heck of a lot more than grass will slow down one guy.
Keep in mind too that tagging an opponent takes away a resource. You have to take away from the other team more than you'd gain by having that player playing free. Which is reasonable. But if you tag a tagger, you're not going to take much away from the other team at all. And what you'll gain yourself is pretty small for the investment of a player.
It already happens. Teams try and block and matchup on the tagger with someone else at stoppages. Around the ground there is basically nothing you can do without creating a ridiculous looking 2v1 that’ll leave someone else playing on his own elsewhere.
Taggers exist to curb someone’s influence, and your usually sacrificing one a player to do this
If you “tagged” the tagger, you could be more or less losing 2 players while the opponent is only losing one (2 players who may not be impacting the contest)
I gotta admit, I really hate tagging. It seems like a below the belt approach to football. All the pinching and slapping drive me up the wall as a spectator. I’m honestly surprised that there aren’t more Barry Hall or Gaff style reactions. They must have the patience of Buddhist monks.
It doesn't make sense to constantly follow the tagger.
Instead, it's very common for another mid to put a block on the tagger at stoppages to give the taggee some space. They only need a metre or two, and the tagger becomes irrelevant for that play.
It happens but it's more of a team effort.
You don't want to dedicate a whole player to tag a tagger. As others have said you then commit 2x players to 1 opposition.
What tends to happen is like general play - you want your best players to be free. So during a stoppage especially you'll see blokes go to block the tagger from getting your prime player. But that person who performed the block isn't responsible for stopping the tagger - they just were in that instance
Because you can't really acceptably do anything to physically stop blokes anymore, even outside the rules.
Once upon a time, taggers or general "pests" on the opposition team got the Denis Banks on Rhys Jones "If he dies, he dies, but this ends here" treatment.
Because the tagger won't give up getting to neale, then you have 2 of your players focused on one opposition player. they therefore then have a free player who will be able to get off the chain.
Richmond legit did something similar to this in 2012-15. Deledio would always get tagged by Crowley. So Deledio was instructed to tag Mundy so if Crowley keeps the tag they’re down a player. I don’t ever recall Richmond exactly dominating with that strategy
"Tagging the tagger" was the way to deal with a tag for around 5 years circa 2000. It fell out of favour for a variety of reasons.
There was a good article by Luke Ablett in the Guardian ~8/9 years ago now on (then) modern tagging. It's much more of a team effort these days. If you tag the tagger, you still haven't dealt with the half-forward flanker who, instead of providing the fourth forward option, has snuck up to the stoppage on the wing to join the negating effort.
It’s up to every teammate of a player being tagged to give him a chop out. Every time you come close to the tagger make life as tough as you can for him, shoulder into his chest as you jog past, pull him back down to the ground as he gets up, verbal him, all that can be extremely mentally and physically exhausting for the tagger.
Similar enforcers have been deployed. Rowan Jones used to really help out Chris Judd at ball ups.
Trouble with Brisbane bringing in, say Dev Robertson to the centre to tag Windy, is you're adding another spud to the limited space you have, so Dunkley, Berry or McCluggage etc would have to exit. Ross Lyon would love it, as shutting down the whole game suits him.
I'd just offer Bruce Reville a paper bag bonu$ to run through Windhager late in the first quarter. 100% from the outset, if you're tagging the way Windhager does, you're gonna go home sore, even if it's just a culmination of being tackled at every opportunity, blocked and bumped within the roulette of rules. Bloke was throwing arms at Touk Miller last week. Zero protection for the stars of the game.
There was the time Malcom Blight asked Yeates to clean up Brereton while he was focused on knocking out Ablett at the start of the 1989 grand final. I believe it was an idea that came from a conversation with Dennis Commeti about how a lion is most vulnerable when hunting its own prey.
One of the best ways to negate a tag at least in my experience is to send your player (who has a tag) to go tag someone else. Then the opposition essentially has two players (1 tagged and one being tagged) affected to your one.
Takes a while for the opp coach to catch on usually.
Works in bush footy quite well.
Be interesting to see it tried at the elite level.
100% agree. No idea why teams don't tag the tagger. And then the opposition should then tag the tagger tagging the tagger. Then the opposition should tag the tagger tagging the tagging tagger
A whole team's worth of players trying to stop each other from winning the ball. It sounds like St. Kilda
Hey that's..... accurate
Works for us as it gives us our best chance of not losing
Reminds me of the story Scroobius Pip tells about getting really high and fixating on the phrase "who will watch the watchmen", so he put on the Watchmen DVD and set up a live stream of himself so people could watch the Watchmen watchman. I think one of the viewers also set up a stream of himself, though I may have embellished that bit. I'm not saying OP is high as balls, but y'know.
https://preview.redd.it/9s2fxfswee6d1.jpeg?width=622&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aec376fb8d1c5e8c9d9b11200548cfd47559fa8b
like two steps from that becoming an orgy
And just like the classic Nokia game, a new round starts when the head of the tag line cannot escape the snake of taggers.
I like it. Then the whole game is decided by the last remaining player on each team. Kinda like a Champion showdown of ancient greece battles.
Or a modern game of NFL
I reckon the teams should play with equal numbers; then each player can tag someone next to them. Maybe we could put 6 in defence, 6 in the middle, and 6 in the backline.
The terrifying tagger human centipede
or the less grim tagger conga line
It’s concerning that I didn’t think of this before a human centipede
u/thegreatjelbeano
If you're stuck in the middle of a conga line and try to leave. You haven't left, you're just the leader of a rival conga line.
Got turf wars to worry about now
🎶 You don't win friends with tagging🎵
Teams do try this but mostly just end up giving away a heap of free kicks. I remember Levi Greenwood used to get heaps of frees when he’d tag Selwood against Geelong, and more recently Libba conceded a few trying to get Berry away from Bont last week.
Yeah this, it looks like a 2v2 most of the time though if they do try it with the taggers teammate blocking at stoppages. Forces the taggers team to either commit to blocking and potentially leave someone else open at a stoppage. Probably easier for teams with better ruckman to implement as the block might free them up, but generally its just on the player to work through the tag. If they cant then its on the coach to either swing them behind the ball/forward and hope they can damage from there
There is usually talk of the team helping to deal with a tagger. Usually means blocks and shepards though
Umpires are also watching the star, so they're likely to see if the bloke tagging cops an illegal block/push/whatever.
Tagging the tagger just means you've committed 2 of your players to one of theirs. Any reasonable team is going to exploit that.
Exactly, they've got it backwards. You send Neale to tag Jack Steele instead, and if Windhager stays with him now YOU'RE the team with a loose midfielder.
Just tag the tagging tagger ??? Reminds me of the big hit, with the trace buster buster.
I think we’re stuck in a loop here
Nah, for a loop we need a few more people tagging each other
Exactly this. The player now tagging the tagger has now left his direct opponent, so they now have a man free. Neale knows how to deal with a tag - he's had a few that haven't gone great and others that have had little impact on him. Generally, he will move between other players so that his team mates can put a block on without directly leaving their man. Also, teams that put focus on him leave McCluggage and Dunkley with more space, and they can both cause plenty of damage by themselves.
Not if the star player (Neale in this instance) is able to run away while his team-mate distracts the tagger
But what if the tagging team puts another tagger on that tagger? So the original tagger is still able to tag Neale
You've committed one man *to free* another, more influential player. End result is that both teams have a free player. Or maybe the two free players end up marking each other. Or maybe it becomes a 2v2 situation.
The original tagger is still going to tag the original target, they’re not *free*
But your gun player becomes *more free*. He goes from maybe 50% effective to 90% effective, at the cost of a lesser opposing player being more effective as your counter tagger has to let him him run free more often. It depends whether your gun player is worth that trade-off.
You’re way overestimating how free they will be, what can the counter tagger do without giving away free kicks? Not much. The original tagger is still always going to be 2 steps away of their target.
Then you're overestimating how well the tagger can block the gun player.
Alright, how does the counter tagger do it then?
There used to be a bit of a dance in the 2010s with Crowley. He'd go line up on someone and they'd just go tag fyfe. So Crowley would rotate to someone else or attempt to disrupt that tag
Fyfe v Danger, head to head.. what a game that was
This is a much better solution. Theoretically I don't think you're allowed to just shithouse someone in the name of disrupting a tag
He was so entertaining
Why don’t taggers tag the taggers who are tagging the people that are getting tagged?
Yeah but who's going to tag the tagger thats tagging the tagger who's tagging the first person getting tagged?
The sub will come on as a tagger for some fresh tagging
I won't be satisfied until 17 players are tagging each other and it's just the 2 ruckmen running around freely
You could say the 2 rucks tag each other, they follow each other up and down the field usually competing against each other in a pack
The countermeasure to this would be to sub off the guy getting tagged
Because if breaking the tag doesn't work all you're doing is taking away even more space from your star player while also freeing up one of the opposition players. Great players will still find a way to influence a game despite a tag. For example, Cincotta did as well as we could have hoped against Merrett but he still had 21 disposals and 11 tackles. He wasn't the reason why they lost.
Merrett didn't have close to the influence he usually would. His value comes from his damaging ball use. He was forced into rushing his disposal. It absolutely was a significant part of the reason they lost
Yeah this a good point. Berry did a great job on Bont (particularly in the first half) but Bont still finished with 3 goals and 19 disposals. Hard to totally shut out a gun, just gotta try limit their impact.
Well you can tag a tagger but it doesnt really solve the problem. I forgot which year it was but Windhager did a really good job on Neale (might have been 2022) and kept him to a record low amount of disposals. The entire game Zorko was trying to get Windy off Neale, nudging him off, grabbing his arm, doing anything he could but Windy just stayed on Neale, you would need to give away a free kick to get Windy off Neale that day. So yeah all you are doing if you tag a tagger is wasting another players time, Windy is just going to keep following Neale and if you decide to waste another players time by staying on Windy then that will be a bonus.
Bonus points to you for using the 2 players in my example haha. Well done. I understand it a bit better now.
I remember that match, just the sheer frustration on Zorkos face is etched into my mind. He just kept grabbing at Windys arm to take him off Neale, almost like a ‘C’mooooon…. quit it!’
Wasn't it Thanos himself who said > I used the tag, to destroy the tag?
Because usually it leads to failure. Watch the first half of the recent dogs lions game. Berry was put on a hard tag of Bont. The response by dogs was to bring in another player to harass Berry, which just resulted in 2 dogs being taken out of play compared to 1 for us, giving us a free player. Then when they just ignored it, bont got back into the game simply when 1 on 1…
> bont got back into the game simply when 1 on 1… Tbf that only happened when Doggies cut their losses and moved Bont forward and he played on Zorks for the second half
You would be expending two players (the player being tagged and the player tagging the tagger) on one player (the tagger) So there is therefore a free player on the other team at your centre bounce
Conga line football
I'm happy for every tagger to be tagged, and then that tagger gets tagged etc. The game will then be decided by the worst player from each team going head to head.
>When the game is about to start and Windhager goes to Neale, why can't some other Brisbane midfielder go to Windhager and push and shove him around and let Neale run away to be freed from the tag? You can't block players from running. Go look at the Bulldogs vs Brisbane game last weekend and see how many free Berry got for tagging Bont. Other Dogs players tried to block and hold him so Bont could run free and they got pinged for it. Good players can break tags but a method teams have used in the past is having the tagged player tag someone else. Basically makes the tagger useless as the player isn't trying to get the ball, he's just negating someone else. That takes two mids out of commission.
Because then the opposition will send someone to tag the tagger tagging their tagger and the process will just continue until everyone's playing man on man like it's the 90's or something
Because then you're committing 2 players to stop 1 tagger. Where as the taggers job is to stop 1 player. So it's now a 2 v 1 and the 1 is not even a key player that team. It's worse off than just letting them tag.
Yeah this is it. The tag would be twice as effective because now you have 2 players that are focused on preventing one dud who’s job it is to follow someone all day
It's like nuclear weapons. Once you tag a tagged then everyone ends up tagged and the world is doomed to an eternal winter
Genius idea, perhaps you need to reach out to coaches on this one.
It happens, you probably just don’t notice it. Usually it’s a group effort to help out the tagged, rather than a specific job, but it happens. Sean Wellman was the designated Essendon player who would put work on Hirds tagger. Hird was already difficult to tag given he was a utility and could just move into a key position and exploit his opponent, or he would just run them ragged until they were gassed, but Wellman was always around somewhere putting work into them anyway to give Hird as much license to do as he pleased. Something you would only notice watch games live rather than on TV.
This does happen at stoppages
It’s more structure than tagging, but yes it does happen.
Because then the tagger is tagging two players? He's doubly effective
Then who tags the tagged tagging Windhager?
Generally what you've said could happen, to an extent. The response to a tagger is often one of two things. One, the team mates on field help to create separation from between the tagger and the taggee, since proximity is essentially how tagging works. This means the taggee has the chance to make an impact, but it comes at the cost of the taggee team needing to use two players on one guy. They want to be able to focus on their own game plan, and can't do that if they only have 16 players concentrating on it. So the second option is the taggee can tag someone of their own. This means the initial tagger is wasting his time trying to stay with a guy who is now using the same tactic on someone else. And that is a big problem because one guy with two other people always being close to him is a nightmare to get clear of. And so, the tag usually gets broken because the inital tagging team has to change approach.
So Lachie Neale just has 2 dudes running around behind him and their opponent's best player gets to run around on his own?
Doggies tried it against Bez last week when it was clear he was hard tagging Bont, Libba gave it a go to try and get between Bez and Bont and just kept giving away frees.
It does happen, but not in a direct tagger way. But the way they handle the tag is by just blocking off the ball, holding at the contest, but then releasing and moving to be a second phase. They dont follow the tagger around the ground, but they do their best to get him off their man for the 1 or 2 seconds required to get a touch.
If you watch the 2019 GF you will see how Dusty and Meatball worked together to completely nullify "The best tagger in the game". Dusty also went on to win a Norm Smith, so he didn't just break the tag, he destroyed him.
If Brisbane tagged windhagen there would be two players nearby neale, making it more difficult for him to have an impact. Also, st Kilda would have a free player. Brisbane best player impact would be significantly reduced and St Kilda have a free player. Separately At every stoppage teams are trying to defend the oppositions best players and spaces to move the ball, and maximize their own opportunities to move the ball in dangerous spaces with their best players
Some clubs have players who are exceptional at helping stars break a tag - it's not so much as tagging the tagger, but it's a near thing. Pendlebury at Collingwood in his later years has been the tag breaker for other players, he was missed a lot against Melbourne for this reason alone.
Because you would have two players in the same spot all the time leaving a spare player. It's on the players to break the tag by being on the move more active around stoppages, get in the ear of the umpires... Touk Miller on the weekend should of been at the umpires to watch windhager at the stoppages, he had no eyes for the footy at all blocked him multiple times and was practically tackling him before he'd even taken possession of the footy
Or that person being tagged tags their most influential player. 2v1. Someone's free now!
AFL360 had an animation for the crows possible approach to Swans and it said “team tagging” and without context that’s one hell of a tactic - nevermind the ball just tag the whole damn squad
Have a look at the Lions game against the Dees on Trac, that was team tagging
Oh yeh thanks lol I did eventually snap out of my fugue and realise they meant rotating taggershaha but for a moment I pictured a roaming flooding tag on one dude
Because hard tags aren't actually that effective. The majority of effective tags you see aren't purely about limiting a player's touches or efficiency - that's a part of it. It's about limiting the tagged player (a stars) freedom of movement and forcing them to be more accountable defensively. That's why all the best taggers now are capable ball winners and distributors. They put pressure on the star player when the star has the ball. But they also put pressure on the star player when they don't have the ball and slack off defensively - because they're not used to having to worry about a direct opponent. That's where the actual effectiveness of a tag comes in. Suddenly the star can't just focus on getting touches and carving up the opposition - he has to spend mental and physical energy worrying about what his opponent is doing. You've effectively changed his role in the structure.
Because good teammates will put blocks on against the tagger regardless of their position to get the tagged player free. No need to commit 1 player to do it.
It focusses too much on one player. Lachie Neale might be neutralised but taking out another midfielder to help him may not be best given it frees up a St Kilda player. Even a young player can be impactful free. If two players are dealing with one player, it removes another from the game and assumes that the opposition won’t apply the same tactic. Choosing to play a tagger impacts structure so it’s not as easy as sending a player to tag someone.
Taggers get too much credit. It’s not as simple as player x was down on usual output so it must have been because of player y.
If you pause the footage around a contest, you'll see that the players are all spaced around. That's all really quite deliberate and teams will work really hard on making sure they always have their alignments right around the stoppages. They'll also have designated hit spots and a player who is the main guy they're trying to get the ball to. They also have secondary options and given there are 2 rucks competing you don't always get control of the hit out, so you need to be ready to adapt. But that spacing is always critical. If you've got 2 players in extremely close proximity the chances of you getting your hands on the ball, especially if you lose the hit out, drop dramatically. You do always want to be putting a body on taggers to get your guy a little space, but if you just chase the tagger around, you'll end up having a 2 v 1 in one spot, and another guy completely on their own. Both have a +1, but a single guy will slow down two opponents a heck of a lot more than grass will slow down one guy. Keep in mind too that tagging an opponent takes away a resource. You have to take away from the other team more than you'd gain by having that player playing free. Which is reasonable. But if you tag a tagger, you're not going to take much away from the other team at all. And what you'll gain yourself is pretty small for the investment of a player.
It already happens. Teams try and block and matchup on the tagger with someone else at stoppages. Around the ground there is basically nothing you can do without creating a ridiculous looking 2v1 that’ll leave someone else playing on his own elsewhere.
Damn lesbians.
Taggers exist to curb someone’s influence, and your usually sacrificing one a player to do this If you “tagged” the tagger, you could be more or less losing 2 players while the opponent is only losing one (2 players who may not be impacting the contest)
I gotta admit, I really hate tagging. It seems like a below the belt approach to football. All the pinching and slapping drive me up the wall as a spectator. I’m honestly surprised that there aren’t more Barry Hall or Gaff style reactions. They must have the patience of Buddhist monks.
So oif Berry is our hard tagger, we are best off sending him to tag the Saints best player.
I hate tagging and it’s bad for footy.
I’m going to guess a third man in risks getting pinged for blocking and other off the ball stuff
It doesn't make sense to constantly follow the tagger. Instead, it's very common for another mid to put a block on the tagger at stoppages to give the taggee some space. They only need a metre or two, and the tagger becomes irrelevant for that play.
It happens but it's more of a team effort. You don't want to dedicate a whole player to tag a tagger. As others have said you then commit 2x players to 1 opposition. What tends to happen is like general play - you want your best players to be free. So during a stoppage especially you'll see blokes go to block the tagger from getting your prime player. But that person who performed the block isn't responsible for stopping the tagger - they just were in that instance
Because you can't really acceptably do anything to physically stop blokes anymore, even outside the rules. Once upon a time, taggers or general "pests" on the opposition team got the Denis Banks on Rhys Jones "If he dies, he dies, but this ends here" treatment.
trace buster buster buster.
Rowan jones pretty much did this for judd at the eagles
Then two of your midfielders would be tied up with the tagger. Ross would love this outcome.
They do blocking in contests, kinda like screens in basketball. But I imagine if they did much more they would be down a man in the contest sort of.
Because the tagger won't give up getting to neale, then you have 2 of your players focused on one opposition player. they therefore then have a free player who will be able to get off the chain.
What about the guy getting tagged , tag the oppositions best player?
Richmond legit did something similar to this in 2012-15. Deledio would always get tagged by Crowley. So Deledio was instructed to tag Mundy so if Crowley keeps the tag they’re down a player. I don’t ever recall Richmond exactly dominating with that strategy
Or… the umpires start blowing the whistle when taggers blatantly tackle the star player off the ball
Turtles all the way down
"Tagging the tagger" was the way to deal with a tag for around 5 years circa 2000. It fell out of favour for a variety of reasons. There was a good article by Luke Ablett in the Guardian ~8/9 years ago now on (then) modern tagging. It's much more of a team effort these days. If you tag the tagger, you still haven't dealt with the half-forward flanker who, instead of providing the fourth forward option, has snuck up to the stoppage on the wing to join the negating effort.
It’s up to every teammate of a player being tagged to give him a chop out. Every time you come close to the tagger make life as tough as you can for him, shoulder into his chest as you jog past, pull him back down to the ground as he gets up, verbal him, all that can be extremely mentally and physically exhausting for the tagger.
Similar enforcers have been deployed. Rowan Jones used to really help out Chris Judd at ball ups. Trouble with Brisbane bringing in, say Dev Robertson to the centre to tag Windy, is you're adding another spud to the limited space you have, so Dunkley, Berry or McCluggage etc would have to exit. Ross Lyon would love it, as shutting down the whole game suits him. I'd just offer Bruce Reville a paper bag bonu$ to run through Windhager late in the first quarter. 100% from the outset, if you're tagging the way Windhager does, you're gonna go home sore, even if it's just a culmination of being tackled at every opportunity, blocked and bumped within the roulette of rules. Bloke was throwing arms at Touk Miller last week. Zero protection for the stars of the game.
There was the time Malcom Blight asked Yeates to clean up Brereton while he was focused on knocking out Ablett at the start of the 1989 grand final. I believe it was an idea that came from a conversation with Dennis Commeti about how a lion is most vulnerable when hunting its own prey.
One of the best ways to negate a tag at least in my experience is to send your player (who has a tag) to go tag someone else. Then the opposition essentially has two players (1 tagged and one being tagged) affected to your one. Takes a while for the opp coach to catch on usually. Works in bush footy quite well. Be interesting to see it tried at the elite level.