Freo’s Jackson Era

Freo’s Jackson Era

GuyWhoLikesSport

The Golden State Warriors we know today, coached by Steve Kerr, are the standard bearer for modern team basketball.

They move the ball and themselves, shoot 3s at high volume and efficiency, and defend aggressively.

Their style of play – initially built around Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green – blended a modern, three-pointer dense offensive attack with perfect personnel.

It is the perfect union of a modern coach and modern players.

But before Steve Kerr, there was Mark Jackson, and no, despite this being an AFL column, I do not mean Mark “Jacko” Jackson.

I am an individual but you can’t fool me.

Despite having two of the three greatest shooters ever with Steph and Klay, Jackson’s Warriors were outside the top-5 for threes attempted in his final year.

It felt like a regressive organisation with progressive players. Imagine if Troye Sivan was raised by the Exclusive Brethren.

Steve Kerr changed that. In his first year at the Warriors, they were fourth for threes attempted. In his second year, they were first, and NBA champions the first of four times.

Fremantle, with Justin Longmuir, is in their Mark Jackson era.

Before the negatives, you have to point out how much elite talent they have.

They have a ball-winner with Caleb Serong and one of the best inside/out mids in Andy Brayshaw.

They have the kind of high score involvement, forward/mid hybrids that the elite teams need with Hayden Young and Shai Bolton.

They boast game wrecking key-forward talent with Josh Treacy and a capable number two in Jye Amiss. At their feet, they have small forwards with Michael Frederick and the emerging Isaiah Dudley and Murphy Reid.

While they lack run off half-back, they have strong defenders with Alex Pearce and Brennan Cox, while Luke Ryan provides some bounce.

They have everything you need to be a good team that prioritises speed and explosiveness, but they just kicked 33 points.

How? They want to play a 2006-style slow and steady game in a season where every good team moves the ball quickly.

No team defends more aggressively with ball in hand than Fremantle.

Modern teams like Collingwood exit defence quickly, either by hand or foot.

To do it, the Pies are like your girlfriend if she’s tossing up leaving you – they need space. They get it by keeping their forwards deep to stretch defences, leaving them space to run and kick into.

Against St Kilda on Friday night, it was like Fremantle forgot that they could handball or play on out of defence. Every exit was a bomb kick up the line and a prayer that they’d win a ground ball.

When they did take a mark they stopped, waited, and looked for a chip up the wing before reverting to a long-bomb. They moved it from their defensive half to a score about 7% of the time – Essendon’s season-long rate.

Unlike Collingwood, they also devoted nobody ahead of the ball. This meant that when they did take a mark, they either had nothing to kick to up the line or were outnumbered on their kicks up the line.

That recipe is how you lose the ground balls by 38 and give St Kilda – who went into the game 14th for time in forward (47%) – about 60% time in forward half.

They’re making The Power of the Dog in an Uncut Gems world.

It’s not how they win.

That issue was most stark in the second quarter with the score 15-6. Pearce dumped another kick up the line. Treacy, their best forward, took a genuine pack mark on half-back.

He randomly played on to try and get some speed in the game and looked corridor for one of the only times in the game by any Freo player.

He found that he had nothing to kick it to and just slammed it on his boot trying to get the ball forward. St Kilda predictably chopped it off, rebounded, and hit Mitch Owens inside 50 for a goal.

That passage of play encapsulated the issues. Even when a dump kick is marked, your best forward has to mark it in your defensive half.

Beyond that, any attacking intent is punished because of your structure.

Their ball movement exacerbated another issue – too much height in defence. Fremantle went into the game with four key defenders – Alex Pearce, Brennan Cox, Josh Draper, and to a lesser extent Luke Ryan.

The Saints entered the game with 0 key forwards.

With how they exited defence, in combination with their unbalanced defence, they let the Saints kick the same goal 10 times in the second half.

A Freo defender would roost a ball out of defence, a Saint would pick up an the ensuring ground ball and enter 50 dirtily. The ball would hit the deck, and Jack Higgins would swoop on the loose ball and kick a

goal.

I could write more about how they were spanked around the ball or even how their season-long statistical profile would put The Rock to shame in terms of its grandiose mediocrity.

But it’s not worth it. This is a team of good players playing an old-school game style that doesn’t work.

They need to find their Steve Kerr quickly.

 

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