Review 2024 Season Review - The Goodest, Baddest and Ugliest from the season

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Hawthorn proved that a bad start doesn't mean you can't make finals but our bad start felt like the club gave up straight away like oh well maybe next year by round 9

We put too much trust in senior players and didn't drop them until it was too late.
 

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Nicks - Just a horribly arrogant and pathetic coach. Time to go.

The football dept. Bottom 3 standard.

The AFC Board.

Riccuito - Cancer. It sucks this leech profits off of Crows games given how much damage he has done.

The development of our youngsters. Some of the weekly selections have been mind boggling.

Another year passes and we still haven't found an A grade midfielder. Not even one. Yet the filth has 3 that will keep them in contention for a long time.

Murphy, Laird and Smith - all woeful.

McHenry and Jones and the reminder of the 2018 draft disaster.

Pedlar (who?) on Stewart.

Senior players publicly bullying younger players. A new low even for this club and its toxic culture.

Pick 4 in the hands of Ogilvie. Watch him stuff this up.

One of the thinnest ruck stocks in the AFL.

Cook, Schoenberg, Gollant, Berry - In the past they have showed glimpses. All 4 are not AFL standard.

Culturally a bottom 3 club in the competition. Our sister club, Nth Melbourne, with a similar culture.

Milera's injury.

The majority of the supporters base not demanding a better club.
 
One absolute positive I can find and I’m sure others have said it as well is Riley Ththorpe coming back from injury.

Played 7 games since returning and kicked 15 goals at an average of 2.1 a game.

vs ST.Kilda - 2 goals
vs Essendon - 2 goals
vs Hawthorn - 2 goals
vs Geelong - 3 goals
vs Western Bulldogs - 2 goals
vs Port - 1 goal
vs Sydney - 3 goals

Keep this average up next season and he’s on track for a 50+ goal season. Going to be huge next season, fingers crossed he has an injury free interrupted pre-season/season
 
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Good

- Several young players stood up and showed they can hack it at the level.

- Thilthorpe and Fogarty showed their pedigree. I think we can see a life after Tex.

- Winning away in Melbourne and in close games.

Bad

- Only ever putting speed on the ball when we are five goals down. The blueprint is there - why don't we play that way from the start?

- Missed Rankine too much both in terms of quality and quantity.

- Midfield problem still not solved.

Ugly

- Nicks

- Nicks' contract

- The way the club handled basically everything this year.
I agree with Tilthorpe and Fogarty.

Tilthorpe at Full forward is good.

I dont care what Non crows fans think of Darcy Fogarty. 41 goals and 16 behinds from 22 games prior to the swans game is solid.

There is gonna be games where Tilthorpe will have 2 or 3 defenders in the goal square. That could mean Fogarty frees up to kick 3 or 4 goals. If that type of tactics help wins crows games, then so be it.

Rachele and Rankine in the forward pockets can work. Just need a couple of damaging players on a forward flank.
 

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Only ever putting speed on the ball when we are five goals down. The blueprint is there - why don't we play that way from the start?
One of my biggest irritations, so many times this season we have stood there in the back pocket/half back and literally looked lost.

You literally sit there at the game/at the tv and yell "JUST RUN AROUND HIM!!!"
Or we stand there and wait until the opposition has got back, set up and THEN kick the ball forward. Only for it to be shanked for an easy rebound.

Fast entries are our friend.

Gameplan? Coaching? Players mental state/worried about mistakes? All 3 probably.
 
I think our list is too shallow. Failed draft picks like jones, mchenry, mcAsey etc don't help.

Our core group of dawson, rankine, Murray, worrall, michaellanney, Crouch, rachele, Fog, thilthorpe, soligo, nank, Hinge, keays, milera, Tex (uninjured), sholl are fine. 16 players.

The next group are developing. They are showing signs of moving into that above group, some will and some wont. Curtin, dowling, Keane, Taylor, bond, butts, berry and I'll add pedler. I feel he has had some kind of injury this season.

The rest are not up to it. Jones, mchenry, Murphy, Schoenberg, himmelberg, gollant, hamil, cook, borlase, Smith. 25% of the list.

In 2023 we had bugger all injuries. A quick glance and I see Murray missed 6, butts 6, rankine 3, rachele 2, doedee was easily replaced, most others were single digits. Dream run, we probably over performed as a result.

2024, butts 8, Crouch 8, milera 20, Murray 12, rankine 8, thilthorpe 16, Tex 5, worrall 10. Injuries to better players, end result is more plodders play.

Some goods
  • thilthorpe 15 goals in 7 weeks, Fog 36 in 16, keays, rachele and rankine 30+ will be scary if we can fix the midfield.
  • Emergence of nank, worrall, dowling, sholl, Taylor is promising.
  • Pick 4 and the possibility of adding ready made best 22 players lukosius and Neal Bullen is exciting.
  • Milera back round 1?

Bad
  • Ruck cupboard is still bare and we are 1 injury from having to take the bear out of the square. Thilthorpe rucking will probably be passable, but robs peter to pay Paul.
  • laird and Crouch are great ball winners, but 200m gained from each isn't cutting it. We need mids who gain distance.
  • Murphy continued selection. He cannot be named round 1
  • Nicks extension. Why did it happen when it did?
  • Not playing kids until injury forces it to happen. We will never have insight into whether the kids we want to play have AFL fitness levels, are carrying a niggling injury, whatever little things influence selection.
  • 10 games decided by close results, 2 went our way.

This off season we need an A grade performance. The result cannot be promising picks that we need to wait 3 years to see, it needs to immediately improve our best 22.
 
We all know the negatives.


My big positive is the backline. It was pretty unsettled through the year, but whoever was back there was well drilled and as a collective they performed well.

Worrell Murray and Michalanney are a very tight defensive trio.

The late addition of Bond was good as well, finally a genuine small defender to replace Luke Brown.


Hombsch is our stand out best coach.

Kind of ironic given the talk last year of us needing to bring in KPD and Nicks defensive gameplan that our backline did so well and so consistent over the season.
 
I've not read your reviews of possibles yet, but who do you think we should target with Pick 4?
1. Sam Lalor or Finn O'Sullivan almost lineball. Different midfield types but both versatile and both capable gamebreakers.

3. Tobie Travaglia
4. Sid Draper
 
I think our list is too shallow. Failed draft picks like jones, mchenry, mcAsey etc don't help.

Our core group of dawson, rankine, Murray, worrall, michaellanney, Crouch, rachele, Fog, thilthorpe, soligo, nank, Hinge, keays, milera, Tex (uninjured), sholl are fine. 16 players.

The next group are developing. They are showing signs of moving into that above group, some will and some wont. Curtin, dowling, Keane, Taylor, bond, butts, berry and I'll add pedler. I feel he has had some kind of injury this season.

The rest are not up to it. Jones, mchenry, Murphy, Schoenberg, himmelberg, gollant, hamil, cook, borlase, Smith. 25% of the list.

In 2023 we had bugger all injuries. A quick glance and I see Murray missed 6, butts 6, rankine 3, rachele 2, doedee was easily replaced, most others were single digits. Dream run, we probably over performed as a result.

2024, butts 8, Crouch 8, milera 20, Murray 12, rankine 8, thilthorpe 16, Tex 5, worrall 10. Injuries to better players, end result is more plodders play.

Some goods
  • thilthorpe 15 goals in 7 weeks, Fog 36 in 16, keays, rachele and rankine 30+ will be scary if we can fix the midfield.
  • Emergence of nank, worrall, dowling, sholl, Taylor is promising.
  • Pick 4 and the possibility of adding ready made best 22 players lukosius and Neal Bullen is exciting.
  • Milera back round 1?

Bad
  • Ruck cupboard is still bare and we are 1 injury from having to take the bear out of the square. Thilthorpe rucking will probably be passable, but robs peter to pay Paul.
  • laird and Crouch are great ball winners, but 200m gained from each isn't cutting it. We need mids who gain distance.
  • Murphy continued selection. He cannot be named round 1
  • Nicks extension. Why did it happen when it did?
  • Not playing kids until injury forces it to happen. We will never have insight into whether the kids we want to play have AFL fitness levels, are carrying a niggling injury, whatever little things influence selection.
  • 10 games decided by close results, 2 went our way.

This off season we need an A grade performance. The result cannot be promising picks that we need to wait 3 years to see, it needs to immediately improve our best 22.
Will we ever get a fit Milera back?

I agree with everything you've said here.
 
1. Sam Lalor or Finn O'Sullivan almost lineball. Different midfield types but both versatile and both capable gamebreakers.

3. Tobie Travaglia
4. Sid Draper
Are either of the other three likely to last until pick 4? (Lalor looks like a unit and a half!)
 
Are either of the other three likely to last until pick 4? (Lalor looks like a unit and a half!)
Tobie Travaglia would be almost certainly there. because he's not really proven as a midfielder...Yet...but I see a lot of Will Day in him who took time to transition into a midfielder.

Finn O'Sullivan - doubtful
Sam Lalor - probably
Sid Draper - probably

Depends a lot where recruiters see Josh Smillie and Jagga Smith.
 

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Review 2024 Season Review - The Goodest, Baddest and Ugliest from the season

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