by John Mcdougall

Created on: September 06, 2010

As in all sports, especially at the elite level, elevated decision making skills of any given player differentiates him from his competitors.  And of course greatly aids his team mates!  In Australian Rules, or ‘footy’ as it is colloquially known in Australia, those players who are exemplars of the modern game seem to have been born with a Sherrin in their brain (a Sherrin is the brand of football used in the premier competition and is often used as shorthand to name the ball).  The creativity of their thought and execution often defies belief and creates a spectacle that draws sometimes in excess of 100,000 people through the turnstiles to marvel and cheer...

With the contest for the footy tight and rugged, some players seem to be able to find the ball among the unwieldy scrum of competing hands and feet and then find a way to emerge from the pack and kick or handball (the only two legal options for any player to ‘dispose’ of the ball in the rules of the game) to their team’s advantage.  Or they even more magically seem to get the ball clear of the ruck and into their team mate’s hands, often while seeming to be looking the other way, almost out of nowhere.

But there are a range of scenarios a player could face when he takes possession. 

First, he might win a free kick, or have taken a ‘mark’ (catching the ball on the full – or at least controlling it sufficiently for the umpires to award a mark – when kicked by another player, it having travelled in excess of fifteen metres), which means he now has the freedom of a little time to weigh up what he does next.  If he is in range of the goals he may elect to have a set shot at goal, but even this may entail some creativity of thought if he is on a tight angle; he may choose to run around to give himself a better angle, or try to kick a ‘banana’ (a curved flight path) of even kick under the man on the mark (at such a free kick, the opposition is permitted to have a man stand at the point from where the free kick or mark is paid, so in effect the player kicks even further out than where he is paid the kick) and dribble the ball towards the goals. 

Otherwise, he might kick to a team mate in a better position, whether or not he is in range, and the opposition of course will be attempting to thwart this play by marking their opposition and/or the spaces around them, so this becomes a potential hazard for our

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>