Pates

When the rocks for brains umpire didn’t pay the deliberate I was actually thinking exactly this, for us a draw actually could’ve been massive ie the difference between top 4 and missing out. I get that the mindset should be go forward the win but I think Max can be a little stuck in his ways, smart thing to do would’ve been to thump it towards goal into space. Instruct the players that’s where it’s going and if they get the chance take it but otherwise force it through. I said it in the post match thread, a draw would’ve been a very fair result for both teams.

I hope every Melbourne listed player was watching the Adelaide game licking their lips. Put in a good performance and a call up could be on. BBB in particular should really put his hand up for selection now.

It’s a massive cliche but you learn more from losing, I think our wins have been solid but it’s covered a couple of cracks in our games. We are yet to get off to a dominant start in any of our first 10 games. We have consistently allowed teams to stay in the contest, Adelaide was finally the team to take advantage of this. We aren’t clinical either with opportunities on goal We have been beaten regularly in the middle with centre clearances, we have relied on our defence standing tall. Adelaide put enough pressure on to stop this. We rely heavily on forward pressure players putting in even if they don’t kick goals. Pickett, Spargo, and ANB were all off and aside from little cameo spots they did very little. In fact Pickett missed the chance to kick after the siren to win it for us by dropping an uncontested mark. We failed a test with tonight’s game but the good news is that we now have the chance to learn from it, and the boys should be fuming they’ve dropped that game.

I haven’t watched the full 2min, but I had to rewatch the last clearance and deliberate. We all love Kozzie but you can’t drop that mark from the clearance. Uncontested I think he wilted under the pressure. As for the deliberate; nothing clearer. After paying so many soft ones (and Spargo’s earlier in the night) that had to be given. I’m annoyed but I enjoyed the ride we had, now we see how this team responds to losses.

This might sound silly but I think a draw would’ve been the exact right result. I think it was even Steven the entire night with us pulling away slightly and then them hanging in there. Unless Nibbler gets the chance to play on (which I doubt) I think it would’ve been a behind, which would’ve been fair. I actually would’ve loved a player to thump it towards goal to squeeze a draw out.

Oliver - simply the best

I think he would be the first to admit he had an off night, he did some very uncharacteristic mistakes.

6 Oliver Daylight 5 Petracca 4 Langdon 3 Lever 2 Harmes 1 Max I gotta say that from 5-1 they just more did good things but were still sloppy. Max did enough but cost us goals with dropped marks, bad taps, and being painfully slow at the end. Oliver should get the 10 coaches votes tonight.

I really hope Salem is ok for next week, we looked really lost without him and sadly (because he has been a warrior for us) Jetta is past it. Weid barely got a look at it tonight, poor delivery at times but we looked like we regressed to kicking long in hope. My instincts are to bring in Brown but I worry about the dogs pace out of defence and Brown is painfully slow. Sadly Weid gave us nothing tonight. If Brown plays well for Casey: In Salem, Brown Out Jetta, Weid

I see that the hard comments are coming from the usual posters. Let’s just take a breath, we are still 9-1 and in some ways yes this was a loss we needed to have. Despite us being top of the ladder I’ve never really felt we were the best. We’ve had very good wins vs the Tigers and Cats, as well as solid wins against the Saints and Swans. But I’ve also felt we’ve just been doing enough, we haven’t once taken the game away from a team until early-midway through the final quarter. That is a ruthlessness that a true top team has. Twice tonight we broke the game open to a 3 goal lead but failed to land the killer blow. If we’re talking about lessons learned (or learnings) that’s something to take away from not only tonight but all season. We do have good fitness but the crows players had enthusiasm and determination, they forced it out of themselves. We had passengers tonight who will have to take a long hard look at themselves. A loss this week sucks, but what if we’d fallen over the line and continued to think things are hunky dory going into a tough couple of weeks? Take the loss, learn from it. That’s what the best teams do.

Firstly, tip of the cap to the crows. I think there’s going to be a lot spoken about how we lost, but they won through commitment and daring. These are stirring wins for young teams and they should be very proud of it. They deserved it, across the board they played better than us. Onto us though: Oliver is a star and almost single-handedly dragged us over. When he kicked his goal I thought we were going to run over them. He was immense. The team was shocking though, deer in headlights for most of the night. Our brilliant defence was a failure tonight. Our forward system didn’t function at all, we had chances to win it but Fritta, Spargo, ANB, Kozzie (despite some cameos), Weid, and TMac were well off. Kozzie had an uncontested mark opportunity in the final minute but dropped it. Our captain Max made critical errors that cost us goals, none more so than doing his best slow motion impression at the end. Adelaide brought the heat, I felt like this was a danger game because it was our first true enemy territory game. The crowd built in confident which brought the best from the Adelaide players. I can’t finish this without mentioning the umpires though. And this is a general comment for the entire competition. Let’s look at the decisions they’ve made when the heat is on in matches and the decisions are critical: - Cats v Lions at KP: clear HTB but called play on - Swans vs Cats at SCG: clearly more than 15m kick but called play on - now Crows v Dees in Adelaide: clear deliberate out of bounds, but called play on The umpires are wilting under home ground pressure and failing in their jobs. They didn’t cost us the match, but they cost us the opportunity at levelling/winning the match.

CHEATING UMPIRES THAT WAS DELIBERATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

May been killed tonight.

Got out to 3 goals and stopped again.

Oliver is a bonafide star. What a goal.

Big goal Langdon!

Jordon has been awful tonight.

Adelaide have been better than us tonight.

Crows aren’t going away.

Oliver and Petracca, what the hell was that?

Yep I don’t know what the hell Fritta was thinking.

Spargypants! Great work Oliver.

Well we’re being put under the pump, now we see what the players are made of.

Oliver big goal, he’s been easily our best this quarter.

It’s a push, poor from Lever there.