the bulge

Football has a new system to overcome.

Brian Taylor called it the jigger.

Gerard Healy called it something I’ve already forgotten.

And when Stuart Dew was part of it, it looked like the bulge.

The Hawks have won 7 on the trot with this corridor defying form of football.

Like flooding before it, it makes the other team look like a bunch of old dudes looking for the bus.

Today the pies repeatedly found themselves going around the boundary line, with a lack of skill.

Occasionally their bumbling boundary like plan worked, but not often.

They then reverted to a run and gun style of football.

Trying to run the ball at the bulge and pop it over the top.

They didn’t get a lot of pop.

Most of the time they got confused and coughed the ball up.

So far Clarkson has a system that works, but the season is oh so young.

As a Collingwood supporter I have seen two systems from coaches get wins early in the season.

Tony Shaw with his set plans, and all that jazz won four of six with a dreadful team before we all realised he wasn’t a coach.

And Mick baffled teams in 2002 with a system where one midfielder sits 10 meters behind the pack at stoppages.

Both of these plans worked, until they didn’t and football was played again.

Problem is with Hawthorn, they have a team that can actually play football, and by the time people have worked out to beat this they will already be entrenched in the top four.