Review Good/Bad vs Geelong

[King Elvis]

Because Nicks went back to his true form that we saw in 2021/22.

He's a defensive coach, the first thing defensive coaches think. If you play quick and use the corridor you can turn it over and leave yourself vulnerable for easy scores against. So you play slow, go down the line, if you don't mark it you kill the ball, set up for a throw in and chuck numbers at the contest to win it.

They saw the numbers last year. Great at scores for, bad at scores against. We gotta stop getting scored against, so let's slow it down, don't let the opposition get good field position and keep it in a contest where we can win an arm wrestle.

Would rather double down and back ourselves to outscore them.

 

[George Kramer]

Because Nicks went back to his true form that we saw in 2021/22.

He's a defensive coach, the first thing defensive coaches think. If you play quick and use the corridor you can turn it over and leave yourself vulnerable for easy scores against. So you play slow, go down the line, if you don't mark it you kill the ball, set up for a throw in and chuck numbers at the contest to win it.

They saw the numbers last year. Great at scores for, bad at scores against. We gotta stop getting scored against, so let's slow it down, don't let the opposition get good field position and keep it in a contest where we can win an arm wrestle.

This 100%

 

[MsTopG]

Because Nicks went back to his true form that we saw in 2021/22.

He's a defensive coach, the first thing defensive coaches think. If you play quick and use the corridor you can turn it over and leave yourself vulnerable for easy scores against. So you play slow, go down the line, if you don't mark it you kill the ball, set up for a throw in and chuck numbers at the contest to win it.

They saw the numbers last year. Great at scores for, bad at scores against. We gotta stop getting scored against, so let's slow it down, don't let the opposition get good field position and keep it in a contest where we can win an arm wrestle.

What he tried to do was fix our scores against. What he achieved is a reduction of our score for and made our score against either the same or slightly worse.

 

[adelaidecrows]

What he tried to do was fix our scores against. What he achieved is a reduction of our score for and made our score against either the same or slightly worse.

Its literally a rookie coaching mistake. The best coaches build a defence but they also back their side in to win it and take the game on. Nicks doesn't want to lose a game by 50 or more points. So he wants a dead contest where we build an attack from defensive counter attacks. FFS Roo

 

[Danger in Texas]

Would rather double down and back ourselves to outscore them.

With our forward talent, this should be the glaringly obvious move

It’s pretty jarring to see us go back to the 21/22 dross

 

[40porpoise]

We were the highest scoring team last year so we have the personnel. Nick's said all off-season he wanted us to be more defensive. I'm convinced he's basically spent the last 6 months ruining our major strength and now the players don't know what to do.

 

[ABAB]

We were the highest scoring team last year so we have the personnel. Nick's said all off-season he wanted us to be more defensive. I'm convinced he's basically spent the last 6 months ruining our major strength and now the players don't know what to do.

So that's the new "defensive" game plan, bombing it inside 50 to bring it to ground with Rachele and Rankine crumbing. This nearly pinch the game against GCS with Rachele's goals so Nicks doubled down with Rankine as well last night.....maybe he should use the chaos ball game plan instead.

 

[Eddie Murphy]

Main midfielders at the end of 2020

Adelaide: Crouch, Crouch, Laird, Sloane
Port Adelaide: Rockliff, Wines, Boak, Gray

Main midfielders round 2 2024

Adelaide: Dawson, Crouch, Laird, daylight
Port Adelaide: JHF, Rozee, Butters, Wines

Ouch.

 

[n4sir]

Much easy to blame the players than admit they ****ed u

Wait you’re suggesting Pedlar get dropped?

That’s the sort of thing you’d expect Nicks to do and leave Murphy and Smith untouched

Literally everyone should be accountable for their efforts... and Peds had a stinker. He was hardly alone and set up to fail early.... you will see the coaches mind set after this week... yes we screwed up on this... or yes we will cover our butt for this screw up and drop Pedlar. Truth telling time now.

 

[AFC979810]

External pressure building already. In the preseason Graham Cornes was critical of our midfield. Buckley was pretty scathing after the Gold Coast loss. Hodge now critical of our midfield mix. Many other pundits critical of letting Stewart dominate us.

Have seen people on here calling Nicks stubborn. He aint stubborn. Dude mixes it up more than any coach we have had IMO. Pedlar playing a defensive role on Stewart as plan A? Thats creative and as left field as you can get. Its clearly stupid as well - but you Can't argue he doesn't try things. He needs a tactical senior assistant to help guide him so he stops making dumb decisions and moves.

Talk about a massive game. If the noise is loud now - imagine what its going to be like at 0-3 with games up against Melbourne and Carlton....

 

[AmericanCrow]

Quick someone get a message to AmericanCrow don’t turn on

Isn’t that the truth

 

[moogerfooger]

Is it?

Our forward line was nothing really special in 2021 / 2022.

I would wager that our great 2023 was more of a product of Tex having a career best year and the injection of Rankine.

Connection between mids and forward has been poor in all our matches this year, even the PS game against the Eagles. That wasn't as much of an issue last year.

 

[craig crowing]

Of course being pick 1 wouldn't have anything to do with it..
Watching the VFL game Richmond vs Suns currently Kane McAuliffe 1 st quarter 13 disposals 8 kicks 5 HB's 4 clearances and a goal....might be that fleet footed big bodied mid we missed from right under our noses methinks. Pitted up against Suns 1st rounder Jake Rogers and giving him an absolute bath that quarter.

After seeing seen McAuliffe play during year and seeing his continued stats as a bigger mid, that actually gets the ball I couldn't understand the lack of interest in him from draft watchers amongst our posters leading to draft.

 

[FR0GGY]

External pressure building already. In the preseason Graham Cornes was critical of our midfield. Buckley was pretty scathing after the Gold Coast loss. Hodge now critical of our midfield mix. Many other pundits critical of letting Stewart dominate us.

Have seen people on here calling Nicks stubborn. He aint stubborn. Dude mixes it up more than any coach we have had IMO. Pedlar playing a defensive role on Stewart as plan A? Thats creative and as left field as you can get. Its clearly stupid as well - but you Can't argue he doesn't try things. He needs a tactical senior assistant to help guide him so he stops making dumb decisions and moves.

Talk about a massive game. If the noise is loud now - imagine what its going to be like at 0-3 with games up against Melbourne and Carlton....

How do we know it was us putting pedlar on Stewart?
The opening bounce (and my post is in the game thread at the time) Stewart was on Rankine.
Who knows if it was actually a plan by us (out of the two, our plan should have been Rankine - as he is way more hurtful than Pedlar potentially)
dumb by nicks to leave Pedlar on him for so either way.

 

[Bearded Clam]

something we all agree with here.

That bearded clam bloke’s been saying this for about 4 seasons now..

And he’s been constantly called a negative, repedetive “hater” by many posters in here for it. (To these posters - dont bother apologising - I dont give a fxxk about apologies)

For four to five years we’ve prioritised crouch, laird, sloane and Keays (crouch and keays less last year but only cause dawson emerged).. given these guys 80% or more of the mid minutes and CB attendances.. grab ball, wildly kick and hope, without looking, towards the forward line is this midfield groups idea of intellegent footy. Our club still thinks they are absolute guns!

And we wonder why we havent got young players ready to replace them with.. we havent fxxkn “blooded” any at AFL level in years!.. havent given them any real opportunity.

Chickens are coming home to roost.

Get ready for 4 more years of pain before another rebuild suckers…

because the frauds we currently have in control of the clubs coaching and team selection have shown time and time again they have no ability or williness to change.

They will stick with the current structure/22 untill around round 18 when they’ll finally try something different.. only to have the same unflushable turds in the list “show so much over preseason” that they’ll AGAIN revert back to them from R1 2024.

Rinse and repeat.

Anyone who hasnt been noticing this over the past 4-5 years is fxxkn blind.

Sloane
Murphy
Smith
Mchenry
sholl
Keays- he’s been ok but he still misses basic targets a couple of times every single fxxkn game.. you simply cannot have that type of momentum killing shite in this modern game. It destroys you.
Nicks
Roo

All shouldve been marched at the end of last season. Payed out, bags packed and told to fxxk off.

But… no sh*t… Nicks and Roo right now would be holding out hope that sloanes eye is good to go very soon.. so they can replace berry or pedlar with rory asap!..

 

[cleanhands]

That bearded clam bloke’s been saying this for about 4 seasons now..

And he’s been constantly called a negative, repedetive “hater” by many posters in here for it. (To these posters - dont bother apologising - I dont give a fxxk about apologies)

For four to five years we’ve prioritised crouch, laird, sloane and Keays (crouch and keays less last year but only cause dawson emerged).. given these guys 80% or more of the mid minutes and CB attendances.. grab ball, wildly kick and hope, without looking, towards the forward line is this midfield groups idea of intellegent footy. Our club still thinks they are absolute guns!

And we wonder why we havent got young players ready to replace them with.. we havent fxxkn “blooded” any at AFL level in years!.. havent given them any real opportunity.

Chickens are coming home to roost.

Get ready for 4 more years of pain before another rebuild suckers…

because the frauds we currently have in control of the clubs coaching and team selection have shown time and time again they have no ability or williness to change.

They will stick with the current structure/22 untill around round 18 when they’ll finally try something different.. only to have the same unflushable turds in the list “show so much over preseason” that they’ll AGAIN revert back to them from R1 2024.

Rinse and repeat.

Anyone who hasnt been noticing this over the past 4-5 years is fxxkn blind.

Sloane
Murphy
Smith
Mchenry
sholl
Keays- he’s been ok but he still misses basic targets a couple of times every single fxxkn game.. you simply cannot have that type of momentum killing shite in this modern game. It destroys you.
Nicks
Roo

All shouldve been marched at the end of last season. Payed out, bags packed and told to fxxk off.

But… no sh*t… Nicks and Roo right now would be holding out hope that sloanes eye is good to go very soon.. so they can replace berry or pedlar with rory asap!..

Too attempted to rush or even put Sloane into that side should be suicide to the coaching panel, we have younger players who are capable of producing more, it also should be a slur on our development programme which I have hade a big? Over for sometime

 

[SellarStardom]

Hate Kane Cornes but he was spot on which his analysis, coaching failure in not addressing Stewart, horrible delivery going forward and midfield too stagnant.

Need players lowering their eyes. Crouch does it, but Dawson and Hinge need to be told to stop blasing away, Laird is horrible, Pedlar needs a spell, Murphy is a kick high and long. We need to prioritise others Nicksy!!

Mantra needs to be slice and dice going forward not bomb and rush

 

[cleanhands]

Hate Kane Cornes but he was spot on which his analysis, coaching failure in not addressing Stewart, horrible delivery going forward and midfield too stagnant.

Need players lowering their eyes. Crouch does it, but Dawson and Hinge need to be told to stop blasing away, Laird is horrible, Pedlar needs a spell, Murphy is a kick high and long. We need to prioritise others Nicksy!!

Mantra needs to be slice and dice going forward not bomb and rush

Nothing is achieved by giving Pedlar a spell, spell the senior players we a getting embarrassed by

 

[George Kramer]

That bearded clam bloke’s been saying this for about 4 seasons now..

And he’s been constantly called a negative, repedetive “hater” by many posters in here for it. (To these posters - dont bother apologising - I dont give a fxxk about apologies)

For four to five years we’ve prioritised crouch, laird, sloane and Keays (crouch and keays less last year but only cause dawson emerged).. given these guys 80% or more of the mid minutes and CB attendances.. grab ball, wildly kick and hope, without looking, towards the forward line is this midfield groups idea of intellegent footy. Our club still thinks they are absolute guns!

And we wonder why we havent got young players ready to replace them with.. we havent fxxkn “blooded” any at AFL level in years!.. havent given them any real opportunity.

Chickens are coming home to roost.

Get ready for 4 more years of pain before another rebuild suckers…

because the frauds we currently have in control of the clubs coaching and team selection have shown time and time again they have no ability or williness to change.

They will stick with the current structure/22 untill around round 18 when they’ll finally try something different.. only to have the same unflushable turds in the list “show so much over preseason” that they’ll AGAIN revert back to them from R1 2024.

Rinse and repeat.

Anyone who hasnt been noticing this over the past 4-5 years is fxxkn blind.

Sloane
Murphy
Smith
Mchenry
sholl
Keays- he’s been ok but he still misses basic targets a couple of times every single fxxkn game.. you simply cannot have that type of momentum killing shite in this modern game. It destroys you.
Nicks
Roo

All shouldve been marched at the end of last season. Payed out, bags packed and told to fxxk off.

But… no sh*t… Nicks and Roo right now would be holding out hope that sloanes eye is good to go very soon.. so they can replace berry or pedlar with rory asap!..

Keays hasn’t been ok, he’s sucked except for the first half against Gold Coast.

Also has anyone tagged you lately about Keays playing well?

 

[CrowBloke]

Have seen people on here calling Nicks stubborn. He aint stubborn. Dude mixes it up more than any coach we have had IMO.

During the 1997 minor round Blight moved players around frequently, either experimentally to see what they could do or to make them more flexible/adaptable to plug a hole in case of injury.
With Modra out, Blight came up with a masterstroke after remembering seeing Ellen kick a few goals several years prior:
"An injury sustained by superstar Tony Modra in the 1997 Preliminary Final saw Ellen an unlikely choice as a full forward in the first half in that season's Grand Final against St Kilda. Ellen kicked two goals before half time before switching back to a more familiar defensive role but, as the Crows swarmed to victory in the second half, Ellen drifted forward on several more occasions and kicked three further goals, establishing himself as an unlikely premiership hero".
Blight took Ellen out of defence (!!), moved him back after kicking 2 goals, then gave him license to drift forward again later. In a Grand Final!
St. Kilda, whose defence looked at Ellen as if to say "what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here?", had no plan at all for Ellen forward-then back-then drifting forward again.
Coaching genius.

Pedlar playing a defensive role on Stewart as plan A? Thats creative and as left field as you can get. Its clearly stupid as well - but you Can't argue he doesn't try things. He needs a tactical senior assistant to help guide him so he stops making dumb decisions and moves.

Creative-but-dumb, as you said: Pedlar on Stewart gets no praise from me. Stewart is 10 years older, 7cms. taller and took 3 of his 10 marks in that first quarter. When it failed Nicks (to his credit) did move Pedlar.
Nicks admitted the damage had been done in his presser. Cats led by 20 at 1/4 time, had their tails up, and 19 was the winning margin.

Talk about a massive game. If the noise is loud now - imagine what its going to be like at 0-3 with games up against Melbourne and Carlton....

Yep, could be 0-5. I looked at the fixtures ahead.
The Crows have shown us nothing after 2 rounds to think they'll be any better than 2-8 after 10 rounds, with NM under Clarko in Hobart, Round 11. Clarkson will have a plan waiting for the Crows down there.

Forget about last year, we-was-robbed, and any promise they showed in 2023.

Imagine the "external pressure" and the internal pressure from the Admin., plus the melts in here if the Crows are 2-9 .

 

[MsTopG]

That bearded clam bloke’s been saying this for about 4 seasons now..

And he’s been constantly called a negative, repedetive “hater” by many posters in here for it. (To these posters - dont bother apologising - I dont give a fxxk about apologies)

For four to five years we’ve prioritised crouch, laird, sloane and Keays (crouch and keays less last year but only cause dawson emerged).. given these guys 80% or more of the mid minutes and CB attendances.. grab ball, wildly kick and hope, without looking, towards the forward line is this midfield groups idea of intellegent footy. Our club still thinks they are absolute guns!

And we wonder why we havent got young players ready to replace them with.. we havent fxxkn “blooded” any at AFL level in years!.. havent given them any real opportunity.

Chickens are coming home to roost.

Get ready for 4 more years of pain before another rebuild suckers…

because the frauds we currently have in control of the clubs coaching and team selection have shown time and time again they have no ability or williness to change.

They will stick with the current structure/22 untill around round 18 when they’ll finally try something different.. only to have the same unflushable turds in the list “show so much over preseason” that they’ll AGAIN revert back to them from R1 2024.

Rinse and repeat.

Anyone who hasnt been noticing this over the past 4-5 years is fxxkn blind.

Sloane
Murphy
Smith
Mchenry
sholl
Keays- he’s been ok but he still misses basic targets a couple of times every single fxxkn game.. you simply cannot have that type of momentum killing shite in this modern game. It destroys you.
Nicks
Roo

All shouldve been marched at the end of last season. Payed out, bags packed and told to fxxk off.

But… no sh*t… Nicks and Roo right now would be holding out hope that sloanes eye is good to go very soon.. so they can replace berry or pedlar with rory asap!..

Roo would tell you to go barrack for another club. That useless idiot ain't going nowhere.

 

[MsTopG]

Nothing is achieved by giving Pedlar a spell, spell the senior players we a getting embarrassed by

You know the team is picked of past deeds.

 

[Brett Cummings]

Roo would tell you to go barrack for another club. That useless idiot ain't going nowhere.

I'll partly take his advice. I won't watch afl anymore. Imagine wasting part of your life putting up with his trash.

 

[Carn The Texan]

without wanting to go back through 27 pages of stuff, has anyone linked to this yet? the interview with burgess is so strange, he's so upbeat.

 

[CrowBloke]

Isn’t that the truth

This post is really just for you, so it mighta been better as a PM, but I gotta come clean about my fears about Nicks & the Crows.
I was gonna contact you pre-Cats-game with a premonition of a Crows loss and suggest you wait for the replay.
Just in case.

The hype around the Crows after 2023, nearly-made-Finals, we-was-robbed, just-wait-until-next-year worried me.
11 wins, 12 losses (47.8% success rate) and 10th spot was mediocre, at best. 18th to 10th in 3 years.
I was apprehensive but kept pretty quiet lest the optimists shouted me down.

Nicks has several flaws which I think are fatal:
--- odd selection policies which favour seniority over actual performance + mediocre senior performances rewarded by re-re-re-selection.
--- he plays favorites. eg If Smith keeps his spot after the last 2 rounds, Nicks is weak/useless. Smith vs. Geelong was Petrenko-level pathetic. eg Sholl picked for Round 1, then "OH we forgot how bad Sholl was under pressure, drop him" . Again. Gonna be interesting to see what he does when Sloane is declared fit to play.
--- he's gone back to the around-the-wings then bomb-it-in style to minimise the size of losses, but which ensures losses nonetheless.
Then:
Murphy into Leadership group. Unfathomable.
RT injured, big out; Tex with back niggle.
Lose Round One. Crows are bad, fumbly, poor skills on show again, but "lots of positives" there according to Nicks.
Nicks extended to end 2026, but as reward for what?? The nearly-"success" of mediocre 2023? They couldn't wait until the bye, then base his extension upon 2024 results?
Lose Round Two --- Dawson copping close attention and effectiveness weakened, midfield dominated by Dawson/Crouch/Laird absolutely smashed by second-string Cats mids, Pedlar pasted by Stewart, depleted Cats run rings around us, Smith worst-on-ground, more fumbles/hesitaion, no composure, Crows taking each other out in marking contests, handballing to a close mate then running into him, high bombs into F50 and a grateful Stewart, so many poor kicks not under pressure go ootf, or to opponents etc etc
BUT
"lots of positives" there as well, according to Burgess singing Nicks' Company Song.

It's dire, mate.
I hope I'm wrong --- I'd love for the Crows to win and win well and be a force again --- but the early signs for 2024 are terrible.
I just can't see cheerful, affable, likable Nicks Coaching this team out of its funk into the Final 8 then contend for a Flag in 2025/26, but like I said, I really hope I'm wrong.

Hope you're well; any thoughts?