18 minutes ago, rufus said:

Defence was poor. Our senior players had another one of those games that completely belies their experience and played like first year players. While they are pretty good most of the time, our senior backs just have too many brain farts to lift our defence to the levels that other repeat premiers were able to get to.

47 tackles to 69 on our home ground is abysmal. 1 to 13 tackles inside 50 actually suggests we just don't understand what makes our current style of play work. That lack of pressure on the oppo is exactly what causes our crowd to lose engagement in the game as we enact our 'by the numbers' ball movement.

Thought Adelaide were the better team and were probably hard done by with umpiring too. Still, we have lost some close ones where we were probably the better team, so it seems to be evening out.

End of the day, we certainly didn't look a class above a 13th placed team who were out of form and coming to our patch. Was hoping last week's win might have started building some momentum as it really is time to start pressing for the home run now. But from the perspective of winning finals we look miles behind Coll and Bris who I think are the pack leaders, and would struggle with Port and Carlton the way we are playing right now.

They really weren't

Pies beat the crows by 2 pts on the G after giving up a huge lead

Crows are a good team. last chance at finals and they gave it everything. 

we held firm and got the win

Edited July 23, 20232 yr by DubDee

2 hours ago, Hopeful Demon said:

The biggest positive of today's game was our small forwards. Pickett looked very threatening and it was great to see Chandler get his confidence back.

Kozzie was great, chin worked hard and that love that he took his chances. 

But he needs to play close to goals (which i expect he will once spargs comes back in), not high half forward.

Why? Because with kozzie up around the ball or at half forward, we don't apply enough pressure inside our 50. 

If we had lost that game It would have been because our pressure inside our 50 was appalling.

I think it was 13 tackles inside 50, to our paltry one. It was 10-1 at half time I think. 

That's not good enough.

They won in it back in their front half, and we let them waltz it out of ours.

Edited July 23, 20232 yr by binman

We should be celebrating the win by wresting back the momentum when it was severely against us.

22 minutes ago, BDA said:

It’s children’s round Dub

they do it every week. it’s not your 200th. get over it. kids and partners after the song 

1 minute ago, binman said:

Kozzie was great, chin worked hard and that love he took his chances. 

But he needs to play close to goals (which i expect he will once spargs comes back in), not high half forward.

Why? Because with kozzie up around the ball or at half forward, we don't apply enough pressure inside our 50. 

If we had lost that game It would have been because our pressure inside our 50 was appalling.

I think it was 13 tackles inside 50, to our paltry 3. It was 10-1 at half time I think.  

They won in it back in their front half, and we let them waltz it out of there.

How do you see them playing in the same team? I personally don't see Kozzie or ANB being dropped so it seems to be one or the other. 

1 minute ago, binman said:

If we had lost that game It would have been because our pressure inside our 50 was appalling.

This is exactly right. And it's getting way too close to the pointy end for us still to be lapsing in that regard. If we can't apply that pressure to a finals level consistently then we'll have simply wasted another season in a way that was in our control. 

29 minutes ago, Gawndy the Great said:

Did anyone think Adelaide were just going to sit by and do nothing. Rankine’s season is done. They gave it everything. 

Umps were very poor in the last quarter and were directly responsible for 3/7 goals . 

promising sign was our response when the kicked 4 to start the 4th. 

What is concerning is that all 3 of the other top 4 can play that way with their running game off HB. Have to learn how to defend that better. 

cmon mate we had almost double the free kicks. we can’t blame the umps for them getting back into it 

22 minutes ago, Deebauched said:

Crows have lost 3 games by a total of 7 points? against theoretically the two best sides in the comp.

Coll 2  Dees 1

Cant be all that bad a side. Good win.

I agree. The other games against top 4 teams they are 2W -0L. 

Well if the Crows can play like that next week but kick straight it will make things very very interesting. 

48 minutes ago, DubDee said:

Top 4 locked in for 3 years in a row. 

not a sentence i thought i’d ever say

Is that the new definition of a  "dynasty"?

6 minutes ago, rpfc said:

We have a battlin’ midfield right now and that’s ok but it’s going to be cut up for periods. Our press ain’t death atm which doesn’t help. 

Amazing how stars keep you winning; Viney, Brayshaw, Kozzie…

…Chandler…

We are still a work in progress with the major frustration being - we are a defence first team but sometimes we are butter to a hot knife.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. 

We won’g win it if we can’t learn to score from our defensive half and if that means we relax the forward press a bit and learn to accept a game that isn’t played entirely in our forward half, I think that’s ok.

Not totally convincing, but a very important win today. Puts us two games and percentage clear in 4th position.

Really shows me how far the team has come.  In years gone by, we'd be the Adelaide, scratching for wins at this time of year just to make finals.

1 minute ago, mauriesy said:

We should be celebrating the win by wresting back the momentum when it was severely against us.

Reallt great call.

I went with a friend who is out from Germany for the world cup, and we were talking about how taking advantage of momentum is critical in both sports.

As is stopping the opposition's momentum when they have it. 

It was all going their way when they levelled the scores, and there was heaps of time on the clock.

Brilliant to stave them off and whilst it never felt we really got the momentum back, we stopped theirs.

Just now, IRW said:

Is that the new definition of a  "dynasty"?

no. just of a very good consistent team

7 minutes ago, binman said:

Kozzie was great, chin worked hard and that love that he took his chances. 

But he needs to play close to goals (which i expect he will once spargs comes back in), not high half forward.

Why? Because with kozzie up around the ball or at half forward, we don't apply enough pressure inside our 50. 

If we had lost that game It would have been because our pressure inside our 50 was appalling.

I think it was 13 tackles inside 50, to our paltry one. It was 10-1 at half time I think. 

That's not good enough.

They won in it back in their front half, and we let them waltz it out of there.

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?

50 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

Idiots will say we weren’t good. They’ll also say Pies are going to win the flag because twice they beat Adelaide by under a goal. 
 

Go Dees!

The Pies will win the flag

They play bazball and it scares the bejeesus out of opposition teams

5 minutes ago, rufus said:

This is exactly right. And it's getting way too close to the pointy end for us still to be lapsing in that regard. If we can't apply that pressure to a finals level consistently then we'll have simply wasted another season in a way that was in our control. 

Last night, Collingwood laid 2 tackles inside 50 (Port laid 15).

The Crows are a good, young team and they always match up on us well. The problem for them is they still rely heavily on Tex. And he's not getting any younger. Thilthorpe might be good, but he's not that good. Gonna be a big hole to fill in 2-3 years

10 minutes ago, mauriesy said:

We should be celebrating the win by wresting back the momentum when it was severely against us.

Agreed...but we might wonder... indeed consider how that occurred 

2 minutes ago, IRW said:

The Pies will win the flag

They play bazball and it scares the bejeesus out of opposition teams

Thanks for the update. Hope you have a holiday booked in September then. 

25 minutes ago, Jaded No More said:

Tell me the difference? 

In both scenarios you let your opponent get the better of you for periods of the game. 
It is far less risky to hold a lead than to try and claw one back. 

If I have to explain it to you then there's something wrong.

All good teams will get the better of you at some point in the game.

A better team will not easily give up a decent lead. A good team will come back from 4 or 5 goals down in the last.

We need to be consistent more often to win the flag this year. As we were in 2021

Edited July 23, 20232 yr by Stiff Arm

Joel Smith is the perfect sub. He can play forward or back and make a really strong impact in limited game time. My choice for the sub role in September.

25 minutes ago, Diamond_Jim said:

Need Petracca back in the midfield.

 

Need Oliver back in the midfield 

53 minutes ago, Chook said:

We match up poorly on Adelaide and they are a high scoring side. What else do you want?

Not giving the opposition a sniff after them being 5 goals down maybe