POSTGAME: Rd 19 vs Adelaide

[Graeme Yeats' Mullet 6,775]

2 minutes ago, binman said:

Agree.

But we are not fully wound up yet, and haven't got our best 22 in yet. 

Spargs to come back in the next game or two, chin to play closer to goal, brodie back and of course clarry and fritter back too

We are two games and percentage clear of 5th, so top 4 is a lock - which really is massive this far put.

Premierships are won in September not July. And we are in great shape, poor inside 50 pressure notwithstanding (it's worth noting it was good in the first 9 games, so no reason to think it won't be moving forward).

 

Who's spot does Spargo take if Chin stays in?

[loges 6,767]

4 minutes ago, Gawndy the Great said:

Crows are a good team. Season on line expected nothing less today. 

Yes they can play quite well, it's consistently struggling against sides lower on the ladder that really bothers me.

[Stiff Arm 4,419]

2 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

No I’m asking who do you think is a better side? Because the Saints are 6th and they are, IMO, rubbish. 
Adelaide are inconsistent because they’re young. But they are a much better side than Saints. Ladder position aside. 

Well then, you've answered your own question 

[Chook 15,012]

Sorry for the repost, but still it deserves to be said twice.

[Bang Bang Bang 5,825]

That was a stressful last quarter, but an otherwise enjoyable game of footy with the Dees faithful. Glad the rain went away and 33,000 was a strong showing IMO, particularly with very few Crows fans at the City End.

Don’t care how we win them at this time of year. That’s 8 incredibly value points in our last two outings when it could easily have been 0. Collingwood and Port have made winning close ones an art form this season, why can’t we? 

Kosi was the difference between the two sides and for all the “LoSt At SeLeCtIoN” comments I’ve read over the years, can we say this match was WON AT SELECTION? Tomlinson was excellent and we don’t win without Chandler. Brown off for Smith was genius too. Onya Goody. 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Bang Bang Bang

[Bimbo 940]

Over the last 6 weeks we have played 5 teams currently in the 8 and Adelaide.  The two games we lost were in shocking conditions - at Mordor and at Alice Springs (which game I still have problems accepting as a loss).

Adelaide has only played 2 games at the MCG this year.  They lost to Collingwood by a point and to us by 4 points.  Their style suits the ground.  I would add that the points they kicked were generally from a fair distance from goal.  Not much in the way of gimmee's.  For us, we did kick 3 goals 6 in the last quarter to their 7 goals 2.  It was not all their way.

For that entire 6 game period we have been without Oliver.  For much of the time without Fritsch.

Because of our results over this 6 week period, we have now all but sewn up a position in the top 4.

Although we do not play another team curently in the 8 before the finals there is no such thing as an easy game (except West Coast who we do not play again).  However, the pressure is going to be very different to last year when we had to have wins against top teams playing seemingly injured players.

With Oliver and Fritsch back a few games before the finals, Hibbard playing a blinder at Casey and Petty the only other injury worry, I reckon we are in a pretty good position.

Edited July 23, 2023 by Bimbo

[CHF 2,734]

Some people on this site only see the mistakes and the negatives in a game without appreciating the big picture. 

I watched the game and saw a willing close contest with the ebb and flow of momentum. All the players made mistakes, some under pressure and others without pressure. It happens in a game of footy.

What I see is that we have a few rounds to go in the season and we are in forth place on the ladder a couple of games and percentage clear of 5th. We have been playing the last 8/9 weeks without one of the top 5 mids in the competition and without one of the leagues top goalkicking forwards. Add to that Petty injured and I think it is commendable that we are winning matches under those circumstances.

We also have players like Grundy and Spargo playing for Casey ready to step up when required.

Melksham has been great cover for Fristch and Tomlinson has been a seamless replacement for Petty. A great position to be in.

We do not have to rush anyone back into the team. We have the time and space to allow them to be 100% when they come back into the team.

Good wins over the last two weeks and a good position to be in.

I will state for the record that the Demons team in the '21 Grand Final played the best footy I have every seem a team play. As close to perfect as you will see. 

EDIT: forgot Hibberd who is also worthy of a team spot.

Edited July 23, 2023 by CHF

[FabDemon 30]

We are very likely  going to finish top 4 and we have shown we can beat any of the top 3 teams …

Collingwood only beat Adelaide by one and two points this year and yet they are praised for their close finishes… Adelaide are a good , plucky , young team with some very talented players like Rankine.

Since Round 12 ( midway point ) we have won 5 and lost 2 games. One was small loss to Geelong at the Cattery, where they hold a formidable home ground advantage . The  other to an in form GWS at Alice Springs in wet conditions and only by a couple of points. 

All of this without one of best players , Clarrie , and more recently without last year’s best goal kicker, Fritsch.

I simply can not understand the unjustified, negativity of so many so called Melbourne supporters 

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by FabDemon

[jayceebee31 760]

2 hours ago, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

Defence was spread, mids beaten on rebound

I felt Lever put in a bad one.Hecseems to do stupid things at the wrong time.Needs to shut up more and concentrate on own game.

[von 1,565]

14 minutes ago, Graeme Yeats' Mullet said:

It was for a push

Melksham (I think) pushed the Adelaide player over line and they ended up close to fence

I thought very little in it at all, but Adelaide player stayed down a few seconds and sucked umpire in, so instead of a ball in, ghere was a free

Melk then stood the mark about 5m out, ump yelling at him to come back to level with end of the square... He was oblivious to it... Just a brainfade

Kossie's 50 just as dumb, confusing handover of who was going to mark the malr, Kossie went and stood the mark about 2m over the actual mark, ump paid 50m immediately 

Thanks for that. Makes sense. Still think that melk 50 doesn’t get paid more than it gets paid. Sometimes they are lenient sometimes they are not. When they choose to be one or the other is the interesting part. 

[Dee-monic 620]

If the Crows are as good as some posters are suggesting, I wonder why they have lost 10 of their 18 matches this season. Their overall record suggests they are an average mid-table outfit at best.

[Willmoy1947 4,085]

The only reason they got as close as they did was because of bloody maggots.

The holding was let go all match. Especially in the forward line.

I would think that we are the worst off team for free kicks paid in all our last quarters over the season so far.

[Bitter but optimistic 22,237]

Successfully evaded the breath testers and am safely back at The Manor.

Pretty good game of tough footy - had both arm wrestling moments and free scoring moments.

As usual, however, good teams find a way.

Jack Viney is undoubtedly a super athlete - his physical intensity and brutality is beyond reason.

Loved Chandler's return game. I also heard him interviewed post game. A very articulate and clever young man.

 

PS. Met a couple of Demonlanders today and , as you would expect, complete lunatics.

Gotta love this place !!!!!

[Engorged Onion 10,215]

2 minutes ago, Dee-monic said:

If the Crows are as good as some posters are suggesting, I wonder why they have lost 10 of their 18 matches this season. Their overall record suggests they are an average mid-table outfit at best.

[Jaded No More 68,903]

1 minute ago, Dee-monic said:

If the Crows are as good as some posters are suggesting, I wonder why they have lost 10 of their 18 matches this season. Their overall record suggests they are an average mid-table outfit at best.

Because they are a very young side. So they are going to be inconsistent. A side that takes it up to all top 4 teams is not a bad side. 
They play very aggressive footy. Like the Pies that is fraught with danger. Unlike the Pies, they don’t have the experience. Pies are on average the second most experienced side playing week in week out. That helps. 
 

Adelaide will be a very good team in a year or two. I know I would rather play any side currently sitting 5th- 12th over them. 

[Adam The God 30,220]

It was a funny old game.

We were scintillating for patches of that game, our best ball movement since the first 9 rounds, completely cut them up. Our handball through the corridor and our runners forward of centre is what I hope we see more of across 3 or 4 quarters in the finals series and the lead up, because it's utterly devastating football. Topped off by accurate kicking. That's our blue print.

But on the flip side, we had patches of really poor football where we failed to defend the runner (that handball receive game that Collingwood love), lost critical 1v1s repeatedly (May has had his two worst games for Melbourne two weeks on a row, a deadset liability in the contest and ball in hand most of the time) and gave away silly free kicks (think Melksham in the last - we had them pinned in for a forward 50 stoppage, he gives away a silly free kick, then mouths off and concedes a 50m penalty - pressure valve released for Adelaide).

I thought Max's ruck work was superb for most of the game. I'd argue it was his best connection with the mids all season, but around the ground he dropped too many marks/was spoiled too often. And to me, this is where Grundy has huge value in being able to give Max longer chop outs in the ruck and provide the team with an additional tall target around the ground, so it's not Max being clobbered every contested marking situation. 

I'm not totally sure whether they'll go 2 or 3 KPFs at the pointy end, but Grundy probably gives us a similar contest to both JVR and BB today. And maybe that's fine if we have a firing Fritta?

I thought Viney was great (I know he was buggered, but Smith's goal in the last was a direct result of Jack not being able to go with him though); Trac had a funny game, very dominant but also sloppy at points; Kozzy and Chandler were a terrific 1-2 act, and doesn't straight kicking make Chandler look like a completely different player? Tomlinson was also solid and Rivers explosive off half back. It was probably Gus' best game for the year too IMO.

But back to the forward set up, I felt the balance was off last week given how easily Brisbane kicked some of their transition goals from the back half, and again, this week, we allowed the runner off half back to repeatedly get handball receives and move the ball through the corridor.

My feeling is it's either personnel or what we're trying to do with our ball movement. By which I mean, we seem to be pushing quite a few of our forwards up the ground, so that there's then space in behind for our forwards to slingshot back into. The problem with this is, there's not enough defence from behind the opposition kicker at their half back. So we're seeing handball receives or simple uncontested possessions from half back and it's setting up scoring chains against us.

Would be great to know how many points Adelaide scored from back half chains too.

And for large portions of the game, we actually lost the territory battle. Unusual, particularly given we won CP and stoppage.

I don't want to have a go at Woey Jnr, because he's a young player and I think he'll have a good future (kicked a great goal and did a couple of nice things too), but the last two weeks in particular, he seems to have been really lost in our zone a fair bit, and I wonder if just one chink in the chain at half forward for us is enabling the opposition to score from defensive half chains in the manner they have. I think ultimately Spargo will replace him, whether it's next week or the week after, but is that enough to fix our inability in the last fortnight to defend transition from the back to the front?

Anyway, very happy to take the 4 points, and I hope we get Clarry back soon, because I felt JJ faded quite noticeably in the second half and struggled at half forward. 

Top 2 is still a shot, although I think Brisbane may well go ahead of Port now, and with Brisbane's superior percentage to us at this stage, it's going to be a hard road finishing top 2 unless we have some big wins (North and Hawthorn?) and win every game from here.

Edited July 23, 2023 by A F

[Bitter but optimistic 22,237]

2 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

Because they are a very young side. So they are going to be inconsistent. A side that takes it up to all top 4 teams is not a bad side. 
They play very aggressive footy. Like the Pies that is fraught with danger. Unlike the Pies, they don’t have the experience. Pies are on average the second most experienced side playing week in week out. That helps. 
 

Adelaide will be a very good team in a year or two. I know I would rather play any side currently sitting 5th- 12th over them. 

Agree Jaded. They played some terrific footy today with fast ball movement and excellent forward entry.

We passed a very stiff test.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

24 minutes ago, Demonland said:

 

Adelaide are much better than their ladder position suggests and St Kilda much worse.

[FabDemon 30]

10 minutes ago, Dee-monic said:

If the Crows are as good as some posters are suggesting, I wonder why they have lost 10 of their 18 matches this season. Their overall record suggests they are an average mid-table outfit at best.

The Pies only beat them this year by one and two points and they should have beaten them on both occasions. They are a young side but plucky and with some very talented players like Dawson. They are far from easy beats.

[DeeSpencer 25,678]

3 minutes ago, FabDemon said:

We are very likely  going to finish top 4 and we have shown we can beat any of the top 3 teams …

Collingwood only beat Adelaide by one and two points this year and yet they are praised for their close finishes… Adelaide are a good , plucky , young team with some very talented players like Rankine.

Since Round 12 ( midway point ) we have won 5 and lost 2 games. One was small loss to Geelong at the Cattery, where they hold a formidable home ground advantage the other to an in form GWS at Alice Springs in wet conditions and only by a couple of points. 

All of this without one of best players , Clarrie , and more recently without last year’s best goal kicker, Fritsch.

I simply can not understand the unjustified, negativity of so many so called Melbourne supporters 

 

The Crows were without Laird, Doedee, Rachele and we put a lead on them 3 different times on our home deck, with an 8 day break and 3 times let them come back in to it.

We couldn’t consistently stop their run and we had large period making really dumb unforced mistakes.

Thats not what good teams do.

There’s less and less evidence that Fritsch - unless cherry ripe - actually makes us better than a Melk/Petracca combination. He can’t contest like Melk so would have to be added, which means Tracc on ball which is good, but not if it’s the turnover and lazy defensive running midfield Tracc.

Oliver certainly does make us better but the contested ball and drive he gives the midfield has to come with at least not terrible kicking. Too many of his games this year were incredibly wasteful.

There’s still no solution to:
- Tall forwards
- Half forwards with genuine pace, skill, ability to halve a contest
- Midfield and wing run and skill 
- Getting consistent run and carry out of a backline that the default setting is slow and safe and the change up setting is whatever May did today.

No team is ever perfect but this Melbourne side look short on polish and confidence to stick to the right tempo required.

[binman 42,896]

1 hour ago, titan_uranus said:

How do Chandler and Spargo play in the same side from here? Does ANB get dropped? Or are you assuming Pickett plays more midfield? And if so, who gets dropped from today’s side? Woey?

There were at least 6 or 7 games in the first half of the season where Chandler, Kozzy, Nibbler and Spargs all played - and there would have been more if not for Kozzie's suspension. Not sure why it is suddenly a problem.

Woey is not best 22 and will make way for Spargo in the next 2, 3 games tops. And the band will be back together. 

[Jaded No More 68,903]

4 minutes ago, Clint Bizkit said:

Adelaide are much better than their ladder position suggests and St Kilda much worse.

Exactly this. 
Ross Lyon is the best coach in the game at taking the worst possible lists and turning them into mediocre teams. Saints have a bottom 4 list IMO. 
If Ross coached Adelaide they’d be top 6. They’d never kick more than 4 goals a game, but they’d be top 6. 
 

[Jaded No More 68,903]

1 minute ago, DeeSpencer said:

The Crows were without Laird, Doedee, Rachele

I’ll raise you Oliver, Fritsch and Petty. Three much better players. 

[rpfc 28,383]

18 minutes ago, Bimbo said:

Over the last 6 weeks we have played 5 teams currently in the 8 and Adelaide.  The two games we lost were in shocking conditions - at Mordor and at Alice Springs (which game I still have problems accepting as a loss).

 

[von 1,565]

19 minutes ago, Dee-monic said:

If the Crows are as good as some posters are suggesting, I wonder why they have lost 10 of their 18 matches this season. Their overall record suggests they are an average mid-table outfit at best.

Not all mid table sides are equal. Some are sliding some are growing. Adelaide aren’t far from being a top 4 team, whilst still being young and prone to dips in form as a result. They have a scary forward line and clearly fancy themselves for a dip against the better teams, where they have nothing to lose and a lot to gain.