Review AFL Round 7 autopsy - Adelaide defeats Geelong by 50 points

[fpm84]

While we are scratching our heads pondering what went wrong there seems to be a lack of kudos given to Adelaiade, they are rather good this year! Am I the only person here who didnt think twice about tipping them? (yes I do tip against us from time to time, Im horribly competitive )

Adelaide have troubled us for the past few seasons too - we beat them by less than a goal at home in 2009, lost there in 2010 and struggled to beat them over there last year.

 

[topic97]

Adelaide have troubled us for the past few seasons too - we beat them by less than a goal at home in 2009, lost there in 2010 and struggled to beat them over there last year.

Agreed, they have always been somewhat of a bogey side for us - its just that we have been so far ahead of the competition in recent times.

 

[MC Extra Dollop]

I always thought they were a chance, but at the same time thought it was the sort of game where the team would be up and about and respond to the challenge with a big win. I'll admit, once I heard Bartel and (particularly) Scarlett were out, I thought "Uh-oh", but I'm not a big one for changing my tips.

 

[Go Hoops]

This sort of stuffs unwarranted,disappointing and adds nothing to the debate.

Fair call. BUT! Why shoot the messenger?

Look for the cause of the problem, not the backwash. You were nowhere to be seen when footscore was unfairly personally attacked as vinum coupe repeatedly does to posters he disagrees with. He is a repeat offender.Footscore is entitled to put his views and criticised for what he writes without being personally attacked.Go back to the cause.

I am surprised you defend this stuff as you are usually very fair in your posts.

Back to the game.

As I said we were beaten by a hungrier team that had better cattle on the field on the day. The Crows are a serious final 4 contender.

We will know more after the Collingwood game as they aren't travelling as well as they were last year either. If we get monstered by them then maybe it is the end of a fantastic era.

 

[Jars458]

FWIW I didn't think you guys were that bad. You matched us for half a quarter, lost a quarter and a half and then were the better side for the second half. On another day, with straight kicking and the bounce of the ball going the other way you would have been much much closer.

Our movement into the forward line was brilliant and we really had an on-day. 2nd quarter probably the best quarter we have played in at least 5 years.

I think you guys will bounce back quickly. Stringer and Smedts both looked like very good players in the making. Good luck against the Pies.

 

[AM]

The Crows were very good and thoroughly deserved the decisive win. Their fierceness at the contest and their finishing was impressive. Factor in Sando and Dashers intimate knowledge of what we do and how we do it and the high number of under fifty gamers then a loss on their home ground wasn't that surprising. The margin, however, was.

A lot of focus has been on how poorly we are going with hard ball gets, which has been a feature of our game, but what I found equally worrying was our poor disposal. Sure, the Crows pressure was good but there were countless times we uncharacteristically butchered the ball.

I'm looking forward to Friday night. I'm confident we'll see a better effort and have a better idea of how far off the pace we are presently.

 

[vinum coupe]

Fair call. BUT! Why shoot the messenger?

Look for the cause of the problem, not the backwash. You were nowhere to be seen when footscore was unfairly personally attacked as vinum coupe repeatedly does to posters he disagrees with. He is a repeat offender.Footscore is entitled to put his views and criticised for what he writes without being personally attacked.Go back to the cause.

I am surprised you defend this stuff as you are usually very fair in your posts.

Back to the game.

As I said we were beaten by a hungrier team that had better cattle on the field on the day. The Crows are a serious final 4 contender.

We will know more after the Collingwood game as they aren't travelling as well as they were last year either. If we get monstered by them then maybe it is the end of a fantastic era.

Ya what?
My quoting of something Bobby wrote was pointing out that there is no need for people to slag off other posters. (and it looks like you want to join in. Knock yourself out)
Bobbys original comment was not directed at me.

It wasn't an attack. It was a defence of others. People who don't live in their own little fairy land but have considered and measured opinions of where we are at.

 

[winty]

Winty , I think this is true but its a usual sign of a champion side near the end.

A mature champion side is capable of being most resilient. It will come back from places that would rattle less experienced yet it also can turn up and look rather apathetic , overly confident , that the result will happen..as it has so many times before.

Haven't we seen it before in Mackie , Enright etc looking casual almost "arrogant" but really just super confident and when it doesn't happen and it can cause a rather poor impression. What in the world was Mackie doing when he got run down. Of corse mis judements have been made in the past and they have turned it round. Will they this time? Well it does get harder as you get older.

Your brain is writing cheques that you can no longer cash. The team or the players in the team are not the same as what they were when that confidence was created. Yet the brain still thinks it is. Its like the Boxer that thinks they have another fight in them.

Its common to players get angry at this, frustration , arguing , disputing umpires decisions , infighting are all signs I have seen in elite teams near the end. Have we seen that this year? Add to this this the gradual loss of ability that so many games , so many campaigns will exasperate and we have a giant wobbling at a tipping point.

The kids brought in are playing as hard as they can , they haven't got the engrained mindset. If the giants can rally again tie will only tell. If we get back most of the experience in time to make a difference , in the form to contribute then im sure their mind will become keener the closer we get to missing the finals.

Good post.

I wonder if the constant pressure of having teams lift and, to steal a line from Andrew Mackie, "have a shot at the title" for more than 100 straight games is starting to take a mental toll on the more senior players, along with Father Time starting to catch up with them physically.

In the last few years we used to be play a quarter or so of solid, high pressure, attacking football against our opponents, get a 6-7 goal break and then cruise for the rest of the game. Every now and then we'd extend the period of domination to a half or three quarters and really bury someone, but nowadays we can't just turn on that kind of form, and the older players are getting frustrated because of it.

We have been able to see glimpses of that form in the first 7 rounds, but it's only been for 5 minutes here or 5 minutes there. I don't know if this is because we've had so many youngsters in the side in the first few rounds, or because the competition is a lot more even this year and teams have been able to dictate play for longer than they have in the past, and making us pay on the scoreboard during that time.

We all knew in the back of our minds that our run at the top would have to end sooner or later, and early indications are that that time is nigh. However, it is only May, and if nothing else, we've seen how badly this team hates to lose. I fully expect the 22 Geelong players who run out onto the 'G on Friday night to be breathing fire and going all-out to win, both for their own pride as well as to honour Kel's 200th game.

One thing's for sure though. If this year is indeed the end of the era, we won't have long to wait for our next era at the top, if the performances of the likes of West, Selwood, Duncan, Menzel, Motlop, Christensen, T.Hunt, Hawkins, Varcoe, Vardy, Guthrie, Stringer, Horlin-Smith, and to a lesser extent Kersten, Bews, Murdoch and McCarthy in the VFL is anything to go by.

 

[Pivo]

One thing's for sure though. If this year is indeed the end of the era, we won't have long to wait for our next era at the top, if the performances of the likes of West, Selwood, Duncan, Menzel, Motlop, Christensen, T.Hunt, Hawkins, Varcoe, Vardy, Guthrie, Stringer, Horlin-Smith, and to a lesser extent Kersten, Bews, Murdoch and McCarthy in the VFL is anything to go by.

"The recession we had to have" We pump game time in to younger players, speed them along.

I don't like losing (especially after getting used to winning) but I see what Scott & Co. are doing and approve of it.

And when these kids start finding their legs - oh boy!!

 

[rocker_oz33]

I missed the start of the match when I turned on the telly the cats were 5 goals downstevie j missed a easy goal.Then coast to coast crows goal then geelong goal but no free kick crows then crows goal one of goals was metre short how could they get wrong.I knew it was not geelongs day thought the croweaters would win but not by 50 whatever points.

ps Texas holden ranger mullet head walker been given 2weeks for rough play on Harry T.

 

[Turbocat]

...
One thing's for sure though. If this year is indeed the end of the era, we won't have long to wait for our next era at the top, if the performances of the likes of West, Selwood, Duncan, Menzel, Motlop, Christensen, T.Hunt, Hawkins, Varcoe, Vardy, Guthrie, Stringer, Horlin-Smith, and to a lesser extent Kersten, Bews, Murdoch and McCarthy in the VFL is anything to go by.

Yes , I think we are very close in our thoughts.

No doubt that the group of kids we have put together look just as promising , if not more , as the we built 99-02. Perhaps we still lack a coupe of quality mids in that group , as when we drafted in 99 , 01,02 we had 3 single figure picks which got us a 2x B&F winner and 1xBrownlow,1xNormSmith.

Depending on what we do by years end , perhaps we made a little error in not using our comp pick this year.

Anyway the difficulty is going to be getting games into the Stringers, Bathies, Walkers etc so we can make judgements on them , and get games into the likes of Smedts, Guthrie, HS, Schroder etc who are already on the list all at the same time where the senior players may not be ready to move over.

Do we have to made hard choices like we made 10,12 years ago? Remember Arnott and Mench just being ignored in the 2's. The cast had been poured.
Counter this with , it appear like it will be very,very even year and if we hit form and strength at right time we still may threaten.

 

[Gogeelong]

The game on Friday night will determine the approach for the rest of the season.
If we loose you can back it in they will try the other youngsters to give them game time.
Friday night will be a ripper. Who knows???????

 

[Greg Brady]

With all due respect, it'd probably be expected that someone had seen more of the game than just the scores before declaring the season a write-off.

Yeah fair call. FWIW have seen almost every other game, including a few of the losses, and had it in my mind that anything worse than a narrowish loss (let's arbitrarily say 3-4 goals) and we were in real trouble.

Think you can make the argument just from a mathematical/ladder-related position, not related to any form.

We've got Swans and Eagles away - bookmark those as losses, we just have lost too much class to overcome those teams interstate with the form they've been in this year. Then there's two to come against Pies, and one against Hawks. Expect us to lose probably 2 of those, maybe all 3. Then teams like Carlton and Essendon - who have recent winning form against us - are going to be no easy-beats either. Throw in Sydney at Kardinia again.

It's not looking like a top 4 season, and historically, you will not win the flag from outside the top 4. That problem is compounded by the fact that with Sydney and West Coast potential top 2 winners, even finishing 3 and 4 makes life very difficult.

Happy to be proven wrong and we win out for the rest of the season, but I think we all agree that's extremely unlikely.

More than anything my point is people here should be ready to embrace our slide when it comes. You can't stay up forever, and 3 flags in 5 years is probably as good as any club will see for some decades to come with all the equalisation measures in place. We shouldn't, as supporters of this current team, get sucked into desperately clinging onto the thought we're the comp's best team when others start to go past us.

We should acknowledge that we've lost what will be seen in hindsight as all-time champions of the club and the game, and that other teams have gone past us. If we do so we'll be able to reflect properly on what this group of players has done the past 5 years.

 

[Ikan Bodoh]

Scott's not going to have the luxury of resting players with even the slightest niggle anymore.

Scott has already been doing this since round 1 and seems to be willing to do so irresective of the detriment of our win / loss record. I suspect he'd rather attack the finals from position 5-8 with a team as close to fully fit as possible, than scratch our way to top four and have to replace players at the death.

I'd much rather see the implications of this now rather than nearing the finals.