Fremantle coach Ross Lyon has his Dockers playing good football. Source: PerthNow
IN the rooms immediately after last Saturday night's massive win over Melbourne, James Hird told his players that Fremantle was "the one we're after".
"We're going to have to be on our toes and going to have to play our best football and confront some of the best defensive pressure in the competition," Hird said.
His assistant coach, Mark Thompson, echoed those sentiments at training during the week: "We know that defensively (the Dockers) try to put pressure on us and that when we get the ball we're going to be under pressure and have less time to get rid of it. We know all that stuff, so it just depends how we handle that."
Both men were referring to Fremantle's enormously improved defensive record under coach Ross Lyon. Since Round 15 last year the Dockers have conceded an average of just 69 points a game - the lowest figure in the AFL and well down on the 96 points against they averaged in their final two seasons under Mark Harvey.
What's more, in that 13-game stretch the Dockers have conceded fewer inside-50 entries than any other team.
It took Fremantle the best part of a season, but its fanatical tackling, chasing and harassing - particularly in the forward half - has become the new defensive-pressure benchmark.
In recent years we've had Clarko's Cluster and the Pie Press, but in 2013 the Dockers have become the Lyon Tamers.
Paul Roos - a former Fitzroy teammate who had Lyon on his successful coaching staff at Sydney - said like it or lump it the Dockers coach had a distinctive lockdown game plan and he stuck to it.
"It's very difficult to go coast to coast against them," Roos said. "If the ball gets in their forward line, it's very difficult to get it out.
"Rossy did it extremely well at St Kilda and he's got over to Freo and has never wavered or buckled. He's sold it to the players and obviously they needed to embrace it, which to their credit they have done. What Freo is doing very well this year is setting up (its zone) and making it very difficult for teams to come through.
"I think it's very similar to what he was doing at St Kilda, except that you're looking at different personnel. Ross is very good at analysing what each player's strength is and who struggles with other aspects of the game. So that's where some subtle differences would come in that only he and the Freo players would understand."
Roos said another reason why Fremantle's defensive efficiency had lifted this season was that - unlike last year - midfielders Michael Barlow, David Mundy and Nathan Fyfe had not had injury-interrupted preparations. Barlow and Mundy are both in the AFL's top 10 for tackles this season.
"The Dockers overall fitness level is a lot better, which just makes it a lot easier to run both ways to set up your defensive structures," Roos said.
"That's what makes this game against Essendon so fascinating. The Bombers have been so good at bringing the ball out of their backline and moving it around. They've been pretty effective with their disposal."
In fact Essendon leads the AFL in disposal efficiency (77 per cent) this season.
Another intriguing aspect of tonight's match is that Patersons Stadium is such a long and narrow oval.
It is 14 metres longer than the MCG but 18 metres narrower.
Those dimensions are not conducive to the Bombers' preferred method of bringing the ball out of their backline: switching the play and having runners fanning out ahead of the ball carrier.
Roos said it was "a long way to get from one goal square to the other end, which means that if you do set up an effective zone it becomes even more difficult to counter".
He added, however, that Essendon was a team with strengths suited to countering the Dockers' style.
"Obviously there are a lot of ways to get it into your forward 50, and one of them is centre clearances," Roos said. The Dons are ranked first in the AFL for centre clearances, while the Dockers are equal 13th.
Furthermore, former Saint Brendon Goddard has offered some inside knowledge on Lyon's tactics to his Bombers teammates during the week.
Also worth considering is that Essendon has won five of its past six games against Lyon-coached teams.
The other comment about Fremantle that Hird made last Saturday night was: "You know who else is good at defensive pressure? Us."
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