Review R2: The Good, Bad and Ugly vs. Essendon

[1970crow]

Neither Essendon nor St Kilda are as bad as we made them look.

I mean, they're really bad, but Richmond, WCE and North all look worse.

It's genuinely hard to assess when you're full strength against a side that has 1/3rd of their best 23 unavailable. You bank the wins and % but you have to discount the outcome to some extent. And 2 games into a season with both against injury hit opponents means I wouldn't reassess too drastically. Have our flag and/or finals odds moved much?

 

[Harris Pilton]

Good:
Breaking an eight year G hoodoo
Rash is going to realise his potential this season
Rankine - reminiscent of McLeod
ANB >>>> Murphy
Thilthorpe
We're unironically stacked in the midfield now. Rankine, Dawson, Soligo with the likes of Draper, Crouch (who has a great role with pace and skills around him) pitching in.
Keays - did his job in the midfield in his early years when we were so thin there, but he's a forward through and through, and a damn good one at that
Curtin showed some promising signs, must persist
Our marking was on song

Bad:
Conceding 100 points to an anaemic forward line - our defence needs some tidying up still, especially in the skills department. We gifted them a few through some very sloppy errors.

Thank you for the first intelligent comment I have seen in this thread.

 

[Pugsley]

Derpy derp. What a laughable response.

I’ll say it again so you can take it in.

We played with 1 ruckman. They played with 2.

We lost the hitouts.

The 2 collective rucks had 7 clearances to ROBs 1.

Essendon won the centre clearances 23-15 which kinda suggests maybe their rucks were putting it in better spots than ROB.

ROB was not in the best 40 players out there.

Can you simplify that?

 

[Samcro24]

It's genuinely hard to assess when you're full strength against a side that has 1/3rd of their best 23 unavailable. You bank the wins and % but you have to discount the outcome to some extent. And 2 games into a season with both against injury hit opponents means I wouldn't reassess too drastically. Have our flag and/or finals odds moved much?

$10 for the flag

 

[Samcro24]

Good: scoring options

We haven’t had this much firepower at the club since Neil put his life savings into the stock

 

[Pugsley]

Good: scoring options

We haven’t had this much firepower at the club since Neil put his life savings into the stock

with the DVD player and bicycles. Richard Tambling still has nightmares.

 

[Mutineer]

 

[Pugsley]

 

[Danger in Texas]

$10 for the flag

Equal 5th favourite. Dawson equal 3rd favourite for the Brownlow

The lid has flown all the way to Timbuktu

 

[adelaidecrows]

Well what a result hey.

I didnt get to see the game. Only highlights on the AFL app but there is a lot to like. Trying to temper my expectations though. We are playing our absolute best 23, a luxury neither Essendon or St Kilda had. The key will be to see what happens when we get a couple of injuries. North Melbourne shouldnt be an issue for us, but the following two games against Gold Coast and Geelong could really determine how we are shapping our season and if we are pretenders or the genuine article.

 

[adelaidecrows]

Equal 5th favourite. Dawson equal 3rd favourite for the Brownlow

The lid has flown all the way to Timbuktu

If our best side remains fit all season anything can happen.

 

[VictorianCrow85]

It's genuinely hard to assess when you're full strength against a side that has 1/3rd of their best 23 unavailable. You bank the wins and % but you have to discount the outcome to some extent. And 2 games into a season with both against injury hit opponents means I wouldn't reassess too drastically. Have our flag and/or finals odds moved much?

Yep but what we can take out of it is that we did all we could & beat up on them, particular Essendon away is important. Bank the wins and build momentum but cant go getting ahead of ourselves. Still leak goals a bit easily and I wouldn't want to purely bank on over powering the best sides offensively. Really organized defensive outfits and sides who can stifle ball movement will be much trickier.

 

[CrowBloke]

View attachment 2257561

No need for you to comment .
His post is ridiculous; just a pattern of tiresome, irrational Keays-hating that goes back years.

 

[1970crow]

$10 for the flag

From about $14?

 

[WeeBlake]

Good
Big win at the MCG
Big score
Forward line
Field kicking
Good players everywhere

Bad
The Dons got a big score too. Some ppl are saying it’s just junk time stuff but it wasn’t. They scored plenty each quarter - 3, 2, 4, 6. They were terrible and we made them pay, which is good. But still, like last week, we failed to really lock them down. A team who played they badly shouldn’t kick 100.

Ugly
I didn’t go

 

[cleanhands]

Have to put myself in the ugly, haven’t seen a ball kicked all summer, only been going on reports on here

 

[adelaidecrows]

It's genuinely hard to assess when you're full strength against a side that has 1/3rd of their best 23 unavailable. You bank the wins and % but you have to discount the outcome to some extent. And 2 games into a season with both against injury hit opponents means I wouldn't reassess too drastically. Have our flag and/or finals odds moved much?

Pretty much, the first half of the season is all about banking wins. A win is a win is a win. The second half of the season is consolidating, making sure you learn the lessons of the losses and prepare for finals. Nicks in 2023 was astonishingly crap at learning lessons from losses. Hopefully the wise heads of Davies and Balme really change that in 2025 and we can put our best foot forward this season by making right decisions. The use of the sub to rest star players is a novelty Nicks never thought of and I for one like the bigger picture thinking which is likely to have Davies and Balme written all over it.

 

[Shaunbkk]

We're obviously much better overall, but the (relatively) simple additions of Peatling, Cumming and ANB are a key part of that. They're doing nothing more than playing their roles, but doing that has allowed guys like Dawson, Rachele, Soligo and Rankine to just play their roles too. They don't need to bust a nut to win it off their own boot. The even spread of contribution means that the pure talent is the icing, not the cake.

It's early, and we haven't needed to use our depth yet (and we eventually will), but the list management team needs props even though a lot of us have sh*t on them over the last decade.

Oh also, in the past there's no way that Nicks would've done something as common sense as subbing Rankine when 50 points up in the 3rd quarter, even if it meant not winning by 80. Kudos Murray Davis.

Haven't read many comments but prove me wrong: Nankervis a better player than Cumming....was Cumming playing today?

 

[adelaidecrows]

Good
Big win at the MCG
Big score
Forward line
Field kicking
Good players everywhere

Bad
The Dons got a big score too. Some ppl are saying it’s just junk time stuff but it wasn’t. They scored plenty each quarter - 3, 2, 4, 6. They were terrible and we made them pay, which is good. But still, like last week, we failed to really lock them down. A team who played they badly shouldn’t kick 100.

Ugly
I didn’t go

They were never in the game though. We are playing a highly attacking brand of footy which means we are essentially flooding the forward half with runners. This will impact us during games with teams being able to get goals against the grain. In these games it doesnt matter. But its games against top end teams, that could prove to be dangerous where we may not get the space to play this attacking style, turn it over and we are all out of position. So the question is are we being too attacking and are not balanced enough in our approach. But its a good point you have.

 

[Samcro24]

From about $14?

No idea

I just saw 10 and though heck surely have f been that short in eons

 

[CrowBloke]

It's early, and we haven't needed to use our depth yet (and we eventually will), but the list management team needs props even though a lot of us have sh*t on them over the last decade.

Yes, they've been extra good additions but let's face it. The grumbling they got for previous acquisitions were justified.

Oh also, in the past there's no way that Nicks would've done something as common sense as subbing Rankine when 50 points up in the 3rd quarter, even if it meant not winning by 80. Kudos Murray Davis.

Serious question to anyone: what is Davis' role?
If the Tex sub from last week and Rankine today plus other Game Day (or Selection) suggestions come from Davis, why do they need Nicks?

 

[Danger in Texas]

Haven't read many comments but prove me wrong: Nankervis a better player than Cumming....was Cumming playing today?

Did Cumming actually do anything wrong today?

Not everyone in the team can have leather poisoning within a single game

 

[50BC]

How much better does Crouch look without Laird?

He's much more effective now he's got quality ball users who can take advantage of his ability to get it and extract it.

In my day we didn't talk about midfielders, we talked about Centremen, Rovers and Ruck Rovers. People seem to think the concept is redundant but Crouch is pure Centreman and Soligo a Rover. It actually still works.

 

[CrowBloke]

Rankine. McLeod-esque.

Yes.
I said same to my sister today when he burst out of the centre and laced out Thilly for a goal.
Sooo much like the great McLeod.

His run-and-double-bounce goal at full pelt from that angle in the third was phenomenal. Jaw-dropping.

 

[Carmo]

The worry: Dunderhead Nix over correcting cause we conceded 100 points

The main corrections we need though is 1) not do really dumbshit kicks in defense and 2) have some fair umpiring