Wizard
Brownlow Medallist
Calm down.
The argument is simply that we have too many negating players in our team; Crowley is one of them. Of the rest, both McPhee and de Boer are performing at the required level, JVB has been about as poor as Crowley. That leaves one of Crowley or JVB who needs to go IMO.
The argument against Crowley is mostly that he hasn't laid a single tackle in 2 games, he's poor offensively around stoppages and his disposal is ordinary. Shutting a player out of the game and making it a 17 v 17 contest isn't enough anymore. You need to be able to hurt your opponent going the other way. Crowley isn't doing that at the moment.
Rather than having a crack at everyone, how about simply saying 'we need Crowley for such and such a reason' instead. If you think it should be JVB instead of Crowley who is dropped, make your case. If you don't think either should be dropped, again, make your case.
Why do we need his physical presence? Seriously?
At center bounces he generally stands in there with either Pavlich and/or Mundy along with either Sandilands or Bradley. Whilst around the ground there is a bunch of players who should be able to look after the smaller blokes. McPhee, de Boer are the first to come to mind but even smaller guys like Suban, Ballantyne, Palmer, Lower would be more than willing to help out.
Basically, there are enough other guys who can set blocks, shepherd defenders and generally just create space for the likes of Hill, Fyfe and Walters without carrying a guy along for that reason alone. We need some more players who are making a positive contribution to the side, not just having a break even effect with their opponent.
My issue is coming on here and reading all this ill-informed garbage, sure some have some very valid points and provide great reading but some its complete garbage.
He is an important part of our team IMO – he provides niggle and is an annoying prick that gets under the skin of his opponents.
Is he in good form at the moment? No, hes struggling but to say he is due to go is ridiculous. Hes very much in the Shaunny Mac mould for this club in my eyes, hes never going to be a star and win game after game off his own boot but he will do his role and stick to it. You always know you will get effort and commitment from Crowls and that’s what I love to see from our players.
His skills aren’t as bad as people make them out to be, hes a very good set shot for goal generally and his field kicking is much better then a lot of guys in our team. Just like DeBoer I think his kicking is unfairly criticised. His weakness skill wise is his goalkicking on the run, he seems to get under the ball and kick high rather then with penetration.
Lacks a bit of speed at times as well which to me means he needs to exercise his physical presence rather then rely on any athleticism etc.
His effort in the third term v Bris on Black almost kept us in the game, SB was dominating the game and Crowls slowed him right down. This is after he shut Adcock out in the first half of the match.
As far as defensive players in our side go, I think 3 is what we are probably looking at as they can all have a role.
Crowls goes with their best midfielder – his endurance is the best out of our guys, he also hurts them going forward. He is more dangerous offensively when taggign as well as he gets taken to the footy.
DeBoer goes with the running half back like he did majority of the end of 2010. If only his goal kicking was better he’d be amazing in this role.
JVB gets the high half forward type role and the small forward. God knows Duff can’t shut anyone down so we need someone like JVB down there.
McPhee isn’t playing a defensive role at the moment, not from what I have seen anyway.