Review Good vs West Coast, R13 2023

[NSolis]

I've only managed to see the highlights so far, but the pressure, tackling, etc seemed pretty hot to me. It looked to me like they were right on from the start and were relentless - despite how poor the opposition was. Reckon we'll give a good account against Collingwood in a couple of weeks - can't wait for that one.

I can understand not putting too much stock in the result as obviously West Coast are very poor, but there's no way a reasonable person could say Adelaide didn't play well. Basically did everything you could do - dominated all over the ground, kicked accurately, lots of players involved etc. And the percentage boost is legitimately important, we are almost certain to make finals from here with 13 wins and a decent shot with 12 because of the percentage lead over the competition.

Obviously Collingwood is a totally different challenge but you can only play the opposition you've got each week.

 

[The Perfect Stranger]

What an amazing player Walker has been for us. One of the best.

Dreading his retirement as it will leave a massive hole in an already struggling club.

 

[pjcrows]

Ugly (or Hilarious?): Kane Cornes lamenting that the Coleman Medal is "skewed" this year if Walker wins it because Adelaide get West Coast twice.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

I've said in a couple of previous posts that the thing I most admire about Nicks is his patience which reminds me that I need to be patient too. 3+ years and counting!
I've disagreed with many of his selections, player positioning and lack of Game Day decision-making, but his patience during his time at the Crows is undeniable.
It's that policy-of-patience that has got our youth to where they are now (especially, say, Fogarty and Jones).
However, trying some of the young blokes as mids for a couple of stretches is hardly going to burn them out.

Having said that, Jones in particular was playing so well, leaving him where he was made sense.

A complete rebuild was never going to take shorter than this period of time ....patience was a key

Kids coming in & out of the side ....player positional experimentation .....all inc players that won't make the grade ..leads to inconsistency, brought about by team disconnect

What is happening now, is players playing next to each other, week after week to get that instinctive team connect

Yet people want the experimentation to continue .....those days are over, as I said in the PS .....you earn your spot now & looking at the SANFL yesterday, there's really no-one banging the door down

 

[The Perfect Stranger]

A complete rebuild was never going to take shorter than this period of time ....patience was a key

Kids coming in & out of the side ....player positional experimentation .....all inc players that won't make the grade ..leads to inconsistency, brought about by team disconnect

What is happening now, is players playing next to each other, week after week to get that instinctive team connect

Yet people want the experimentation to continue .....those days are over, as I said in the PS .....you earn your spot now & looking at the SANFL yesterday, there's really no-one banging the door down

This is a huge problem. When there is no one playing seconds banging down the door and McHenry, Murphy, Sholl and Keays are all in your best 22.

 

[1970crow]

Thilthorpe's game was interesting. Thought he was good considering the opposition. Influential in the middle, also good down forward. Really interested to see where he eventually lands though, if he's building up for a career as a key forward or a ruckman, or some sort of relatively unique roaming role like he's playing now. Could see a lot of potential outcomes for him, but overall he does feel like someone who will move from serviceable to elite pretty suddenly in whatever role works best for him.

Between Thilthorpe, Pedlar, Soligo, Rankine, Rachele, Michalanney etc. we have a lot of players who are already pretty good but have a lot of potential improvement ahead of them. Exciting stuff.

you learn about as much about players in that game as we do in a probables v possibles preseason demolition. That said, TT did some really impressive stuff last night. If I had to pick genuinely poor players last night, given the outcome, it'd be Murphy, Smith and Sloane. But reality is that 100+ point drubbings don't mean everyone gets to feast on the carcass. Those games can be hard to get into.

The other nice aspect was Butts moving really freely. Other than that, rejoice in Tex's 250 and 10, 100+ point win and Izaak letting me down having kicked 2 half way through the first, 3rd 10 minutes into the 3rd and then registering only a single point for the rest of the game. My $100 in bets was cashing out at $1,200 odd after he kicked his 3rd.

 

[1970crow]

A complete rebuild was never going to take shorter than this period of time ....patience was a key

Kids coming in & out of the side ....player positional experimentation .....all inc players that won't make the grade ..leads to inconsistency, brought about by team disconnect

What is happening now, is players playing next to each other, week after week to get that instinctive team connect

Yet people want the experimentation to continue .....those days are over, as I said in the PS .....you earn your spot now & looking at the SANFL yesterday, there's really no-one banging the door down

We still haven't corrected our midfield, if you think this is a genuinely contending group, then you need to start watching games.

 

[Stephen2]

You know it's a silly game when Murphy and Keays kick goals like that

Great fun. Happy for Walker, looked like he really enjoyed it

 

[Tex Danger]

Jordan Butts was solid today. Albeit against no competition found plenty of the ball (18 touches) and had some dare and run from half back. Thought he played better when Murray went off the ground, even found himself getting a handball receive in the middle of the ground as well. Looks to be building after a slow start to the year.

Thought Allen was getting the better of him especially give state of game but they had to move him back to try stop the bleeding

Definitely looked to enjoy the freedom and attacked more than ever

 

[Mostyn]

What an amazing player Walker has been for us. One of the best.

Dreading his retirement as it will leave a massive hole in an already struggling club.

Lol, what a dumb way to close your comment, Rooch.

 

[1970crow]

This is a huge problem. When there is no one playing seconds banging down the door and McHenry, Murphy, Sholl and Keays are all in your best 22.

the issue isn't what's on the list, it's what's not on the list. Our current midfield will never contend for multiple years in the top 4. We're going to finish 7th-10th this year and go into next year with the same 'make the 8 and anything can happen' strategy, so it'll be Sloane, Laird and Keays filling the midfield minutes again. There's always new and inventive excuses made for either not playing kids or shunting them to peripheral roles in favour of middling senior players. We are still meant to be rebuilding, if this is it, we're just going to be hanging around the lower part of the 8 for the next few years.

 

[Bovo]

Yeah and has gotten a bit arrogant.

The line between confidence and arrogance is often hard to distinguish. I think Nicks has told the boys to enjoy their footy. As long as the ball goes between the two bigger sticks and they remain team first focussed, I’m happy to not worry about it, but that Collingwood game still haunts me. I hope no one is getting ahead of themselves!

 

[skittlebrew]

i cannot believe we were 100 points up and still had sloane and keays getting runs in the middle.. do we think these two are gonna be there for our next flag push?

Sloane getting a run in the middle is pure lunacy

 

[1970crow]

The line between confidence and arrogance is often hard to distinguish. I think Nicks has told the boys to enjoy their footy. As long as the ball goes between the two bigger sticks and they remain team first focussed, I’m happy to not worry about it, but that Collingwood game still haunts me. I hope no one is getting ahead of themselves!

I doubt the players read anything into that, hawthorn beat them away by a similar margin a few weeks ago. Plus they know they're being beaten on the road, so there's a lot of work still to do.

 

[The Perfect Stranger]

the issue isn't what's on the list, it's what's not on the list. Our current midfield will never contend for multiple years in the top 4. We're going to finish 7th-10th this year and go into next year with the same 'make the 8 and anything can happen' strategy, so it'll be Sloane, Laird and Keays filling the midfield minutes again. There's always new and inventive excuses made for either not playing kids or shunting them to peripheral roles in favour of middling senior players. We are still meant to be rebuilding, if this is it, we're just going to be hanging around the lower part of the 8 for the next few years.

Agreed. Our defense is building nicely. Our forward line is our strength but who know what will happen when our number forward in Tex retires. Our midfield is C grade midfield with one of our top 2 about to hit his 30's. Even if they all reach their potential, this is a 7 to 12 list and no chance at a genuine 3 to 5 year premiership window.

 

[The Perfect Stranger]

Lol, what a dumb way to close your comment, Rooch.

No worries.

 

[skittlebrew]

Decent game by many

Ugly: My tyre exploding on the freeway on the way to the game so I unfortunately had to miss it and watch at home.

Offft

It was an absolute non contest so you didn't miss out on too much, except everyone getting around Tex was amazing. That was a savior from a spectator perspective.

 

[BunjiMac]

You can only beat what's put in front of you and it was great the team put west coast away properly.

Great to see Tex kick a bag on a big day for him.

However, with all due respect to west coast, you can't really make any serious judgements on that match given the level of competition.

I don't think we learnt much at all about the players or team with a game like that.

 

[cm_perfect]

some folks are also going to post tongue in cheek humour having had multis on Tex 5+, 6+, crows 100+ and Rankine 5+ and filled the game day thread with updates . And then there's the usual rainbow and lollipop brigade that climb over each other to post their petty little insults at other posters. Simply cannot help themselves.

I was wondering how long you were going to let their backslapping go.

 

[Bearded Clam]

the issue isn't what's on the list, it's what's not on the list. Our current midfield will never contend for multiple years in the top 4. We're going to finish 7th-10th this year and go into next year with the same 'make the 8 and anything can happen' strategy, so it'll be Sloane, Laird and Keays filling the midfield minutes again. There's always new and inventive excuses made for either not playing kids or shunting them to peripheral roles in favour of middling senior players. We are still meant to be rebuilding, if this is it, we're just going to be hanging around the lower part of the 8 for the next few years.

And its amazing some here go frothing off their heads over a game like last night and still cant see the major deficiencies..

Midfields win GF’s.. if you havent got a top class midfield you have no chance. Name one club in the last 10 years thats won a flag with a half decent midfield not a top class one.. try and name just one of them.

Midfielders peak between 23-29. Thats the prime period of their careers.

Currently we have a midfield that has 4 main blokes that get the most minutes;

Sloane 32
Laird 29
Keays 26
Dawson 26

Not only is it an aging one, thats closer to the end of its prime than the start, its far from top class.

Then we toss the remaining crumbs to;

Pedlar, soligo, rachele and sometimes Rankine. We do have Jones who we drafted as an inside mid but bewidleringly refuse to play him in that position even if we’re 100 points up.

Three of these lads are in their 2nd and 3rd year. Rankine and jones in their 5th.

Not only are we not giving these four or five guys enough experience in the centre.. prefering to give the bulk of that to the four blokes mentioned at the top.. We have a massive hole in that 21-26 age group.. we have no midfielders in that age group even worthy of a spot in the 22.

Berry
Shoey
Hately
Brown

Are in that age group (or close to it)… but they are barely making it in the SANFL currently.

These lads get towelled up by SANFL opposition at the moment.. how the hell are they possibly going to become top class premiership winning AFL midfielders?.. two of them are definite delists and the other two are on the brink.

That’s a massive hole in our list and its laughable that some in here think we are gonna be contending in 2-3 years from now with it.

We need to agressively trade in a couple of talented midfielders in that 21-26 year age group.. but good fxxkn luck with that.. the great majority are victorians who, if they are going to go anywhere in a potential trade, its back to Vicco and one of the 10 teams there.

 

[1970crow]

I was wondering how long you were going to let their backslapping go.

just needed enough rope

 

[skittlebrew]

And its amazing some here go frothing off their heads over a game like last night and still cant see the major deficiencies..

No, we can see the deficiencies we're just choosing to enjoy the moment and not be negative Nellies.

 

[Rotayjay]

We spanked West Coast by more than any other team - in fact, their heaviest spanking since Simpson became coach. That means something. We may be a bad away team, but demolishing a bad team at home is a good step, and that percentage boost could very well be the thing that gets us into the eight. That is a huge percentage boost from just one match.

Things are looking up for the future. Who says Tex will be cooked in 2024? He could still be a very handy player then, even against better oppo.

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

Ugly (or Hilarious?): Kane Cornes lamenting that the Coleman Medal is "skewed" this year if Walker wins it because Adelaide get West Coast twice.

lets hope he kicks another 10 in the final round to win it by 1!

 

[Samcro24]

Ugly (or Hilarious?): Kane Cornes lamenting that the Coleman Medal is "skewed" this year if Walker wins it because Adelaide get West Coast twice.

Yes I’m sure no other Coleman medalist ever had a double up vs a bottom side. He’s such a nuffie.