Once just a part of the much talked about but not really quantified 'one-percenters', tackling is the flavour of the month statistic it seems.
Tigers coach Terry Wallace says while tackling isn't the main indicator of how a team is travelling, it's certainly up there.
"I think our tackle count was the best that we'd had for the year, and it's something that we've had a strong emphasis on," he said.
"I think it's been something that's been pretty strong across the competition in general, but we believe that we've really improved in that part of our game, and they're the sort of things that we really want to be focusing on.
"I think it's one of the key indicators, but I don't think it's the only key indicator. I think what happens with this game is that everyone's trying to get an angle or get ahead of somebody else -- whether it be Hawthorn's rolling zone, or higher tackle efforts, or more interchange rotations – everyone's trying to get ahead of everyone else.
"So what happens is one part of the game will step up to a higher degree than where it's been previously. In recent times, the defensive aspects of the game have probably increased more so than other aspects of the game."
Wallace said tackling well was like a team-wide hard tag.
"We all go out and put taggers on keyline players, and you're doing that to not allow the best players in the land to have their own way.
"The tackling aspect is trying to do that over the course of a whole team. It's putting pressure on them not to be able to use their skills and their ability to the degree that they want to.
"The last two years we've had the Melbourne Storm boys down working with us on tackling technique, and they've done a heck of a lot of work with these guys in that area."
