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Even though hes a knob, i agree with mike a little bit that just because we beat carlton doesnt mean all of a sudden we the form team in the comp and have the best forward line does it? Sainters and collingwood have beaten us quite easily and the saints forward line is way ahead of ours. None of the good teams are going to allow us to play such an open 4 v4 forward line like carlton did either.
 

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twentydollarnote said:
Even though hes a knob, i agree with mike a little bit that just because we beat carlton doesnt mean all of a sudden we the form team in the comp and have the best forward line does it? Sainters and collingwood have beaten us quite easily and the saints forward line is way ahead of ours. None of the good teams are going to allow us to play such an open 4 v4 forward line like carlton did either.
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It could also have something to do with the way we dismantled them, not just beat them
 
jenny61_99 said:
I couldn't believe how little they spoke about our game in both shows. Almost just a cursery mention and nothing more (except for Burton's mark). Ok, so don't mention us... but at least mention Carlton's effort? Just seemed strange.
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I liked how OtC spent about 5 minutes talking about Collingwood struggling a bit to get it out of their half on kick offs when our effort against Carlton kick offs was about twice as good.

I think the main problem was 90 percent of the Victorian football media was as the MCG and orgasming over Lloyd and Brown while our game was happening
 
jenny61_99 said:
I couldn't believe how little they spoke about our game in both shows. Almost just a cursery mention and nothing more (except for Burton's mark). Ok, so don't mention us... but at least mention Carlton's effort? Just seemed strange.
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I can spoke to a couple of Melb people tonight and they said they are just a bit concerned about our form

BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID people of Melb still cant believe after all these years we finally get some luck Robert Walls was saying it to we play Friday Saints And Pies belt each other up on Sunday
 
Channel nine just had the form ladder up for the last couple of rounds. Can't remember how far out they did it from, but we were on top ahead of Collingwood and the Saints and the Cats were sitting in 9th and 10th spot on that ladder.

The consensus of the team there was that we can do some real damage in September and I nearly fell off my own couch when the mini bus actually complimented us and there wasn't one veiled swipe involved. He also praised Burton for his composure on the way down on his mark, the presence of mind to put out his arm and know how he was going to land to minimise his impact.
 
Footy Classified has been totally different to One Week at a Time.

All the others are jumping on with Gary Lyon re Adelaide being a genuine contender.

Craig Whatshisname even put up a ladder showing that Adelaide has by far the best most recent form.

Showed the Burton mark and gave it the credit it deserved. Also showed running passages of play just to show how well we were playing.

Cornflakes even went as far as to suggest that we had been practicing our game in a controlled fashion while we learning it and that now our boys have been unleashed.
 
macca23 said:
Cornflakes even went as far as to suggest that we had been practicing our game in a controlled fashion while we learning it and that now our boys have been unleashed.
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As I said above Macca, I nearly fell off the couch listening to him actually say positive things about us. Excuse me while I checked and see if there are flying pigs outside my window.

When discussing games with other people, I have often contended that our more defensive style of game, where we have to chip it around etc has been dictated to by our oppositions. They don't want to get in a shoot out with us, they don't want to allow us free flowing because, well the results won't be pretty. We now have more belief in ourselves that we won't let other teams dictate these terms to us.

This even goes back a few years, there was a certain game where it was pretty much locked down for three quarters and then the opposing coach decided to try and open it up and run away with the win in the final quarter against us. One team did run away with the win and it wasn't them. Rucci asked the coach after the game about the tactic and he freely admitted that he opened up the game to try and out score us, he summed up his coaching move in four moves, "well, that was stupid!" Pretty damn frank and funny, but also telling about how opposing teams and coaches actually saw our team then. Now is similar structures and discipline to that time, but with even more run and flair and a working *gasp* forward line that has a good variety of players to try and match up on.
 
Totally agree Nikki. Our style of game is often dictated to us.

When teams flood us it always a fairly low scoring ugly game (see Melbourne, North, plenty of other games) as we refuse to send mass numbers forward while the opposition fails time and time again to get it thriough the zone, and the game gets stuck in our half for very long periods of time.

Clubs take us on, and we have the ability to punish them
 

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what we are now seeing is PLAN A, for years Craigy was criticised that there was no PLAN B. What most didn't see what that the 'crowbot' style was PLAN B, it was about making a young side accountable and built form defensive pressure whilst the forwards caught up with personnel and games. There was no doubt that Craig would have always wanted a more free flowing game, but one with the ability to choke a team down and counter punch out of defense, he just didn't have the cattle he wanted that could execute his game plan. And we run, and run and run. We remind of a basketball team, up and down the court. We don't flood, we wave. We go from 10 in our back 50 to 10 in our forward 50 in the blink of an eye, in form it's great to watch.

Now we have a big bodied pack marker, two small opportunistic goal scorers and with Bird and Hentsch two blokes that provide a bit of both. They are balanced nicely.
 
magtrev said:
Totally agree Nikki. Our style of game is often dictated to us.

When teams flood us it always a fairly low scoring ugly game (see Melbourne, North, plenty of other games) as we refuse to send mass numbers forward while the opposition fails time and time again to get it thriough the zone, and the game gets stuck in our half for very long periods of time.

Clubs take us on, and we have the ability to punish them
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Add Collingwood to that list.

Tactically (not talent wise) they are the only concern in September.

We had plenty of inside 50's that game but they rebounded off their flood time and again. Having said that we had enough scoring shots in the first half to get a decent lead...but didn't kick straight.

Then, in the 3rd quarter, unlike the other teams you mentioned, Collingwood had the foot skills and lateral moving game plan to get around the zone quickly enough to create easy shots in an open forward line.

I still believe in our current form we could directly take them on with our preferred tactics against theirs and i reckon if our conversion rate is ok that we'll still win. However, Craig must (and i'm sure he has) look very closely at the tape of that game and come up with a Plan B for coping with their strategy. It should involve quick forward movement (not revolutionary i know) with emphasis on multiple leading forwards or long, deep kicks...none of the pathetic bombs to 40-50m zone we saw Maxwell and co cut off all game. Defensively, we need to make some effort to protect the open wing better to prevent their easy transition. I know this spreads the zone a little and we need to be careful but we would have at least 2 free players to do it due to their defensive set up...one should be our loose man deeper in defence, and the other can be the loose midfielder on defensive side. These are compromises while still trying to play our game.

If either side goes predominantly man-on-man thru the middle, the scoreboard with dictate how many loose defenders are kept in either half (ie 4 Adel forwards v 6-7 Coll defenders in our half) or whether we'll man them up and end up with a congested forward line and empty defence but back us to win out. Personally, i like the compromise option first (as long as we defend the transition better) because i think our current 4-6 forward line will still prevail over their 6-8 man defence. Like most analyses, this presupposes that our mids will at least break even (which they will).

Do this and i think we'll reveal Collingwood as a good side, not a great one. They are currently overrated imo, but only the finals series will prove if i'm right. As long as we don't get sucked into the false hype of the almighty Collingwood football club. They haven't achieved much of any substance for half a century so why fear their superiority complex? If we get the chance let's get out there and smash them!

If we do prevail in September, the Collingwood and St. Kilda games will be the learning experiences we had to have.
 
TheLeftFist8 said:
If we do prevail in September, the Collingwood and St. Kilda games will be the learning experiences we had to have.
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I reckon you hit the nail on the head there TLF. If we can learn what went wrong in those two games, we will go deep into september. If we can't then we're out in week 2.
 
Peter J said:
Why does anyone care?

Seriously.....these are Victorian commentators with Victorian agenda's. They make their living in Melbourne and so of course favour Melbourne clubs.

Of course Sheahan does not rate us...does Graham Cornes rate Richmond...does Rowey rate Essendon.

If all you want is your dose of Crows, read the 'tiser, listen to 5AA. Dont expect anything from the couch, footy show or footy classified.
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In fairness to FC and One Week at a Time, they mention how they are impressed with the Crows pretty much every week. Granted they don't spend 5 whole minutes on it, but at least they mention them regularly. I think what needs to happen is for the non-vic clubs to make players more available to some of these shows (especially the Sunday footy show). When a player is a guest, a hell of a lot of time goes into analysing the game they just played in and talking about the club. This past weekend McPhee was on and there was a good 15mins of talking about the game and Essendon.
 
TheLeftFist8 said:
If we do prevail in September, the Collingwood and St. Kilda games will be the learning experiences we had to have.
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I cut the rest but I agree with your analysis of that game. We played like crap that day and Collingwood stuck to their game plan and their structures and it worked for them. After the game, my father commented that he would love to meet them again as he suspected the result will be vastly different.

In a way it reminds me of the North Melbourne game in 98, when Blighty did some playing around to get Pagan to reveal his hand prior to the finals. The scenario then was different in that we were already in the finals at that stage of that year, so I don't think Craig had that intention for that game, but I am sure he learnt from the experience. Only time will tell though.
 
TLF, I take the contrary view about us and Collingwood.

I dunno about us struggling with teams that flood. We get the time and space to construct, without too much pressure in our D50 - and then set up the zone to make it hard for the opposition to get out.

We lost the Collingwood game earlier this year more because we lost our defensive pressure, so they were able to kick through the zone. Keep up the first half pressure, and we win by 4-5 goals. Obviously the poor forward 50 entries didn't help, but that was a controllable we messed up. Execute properly, and our game plan should have the edge over Collingwood's.

I'm pretty sure Craig has a 6-4 record against Malthouse? Collingwood are known to struggle against teams that zone, like us and Hawthorn.

Now our gameplan is pretty complex, so I'm worried about teams that don't give us time to think, and obviously teams with the talent to bulldoze us through the midfield. That's the other top 3 teams - but Collingwood, not so much.

It also could be Essendon, so I am not as confident as many on here about winning this week. If anyone has the perfect gameplan to cut through our zone it would be them.
 
NikkiNoo said:
It is very reminiscent at times of hockey and seeing that Craig admires Ric Charlesworth, you could also make those links to that game style with the run and weave out of defence.
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My comparison (since we're doing comparisons) is with Arsenal in the EPL.

One thing we do better than most teams is to give the ball-carrier multiple options. This means a few of:
- short / long to leading forward
- handball left / right
- switch to left wing
- switch to right wing

By having these options already in place, we stretch out the defence, creating space for which ever option is chosen.

The other comment I'd make about our forward line being much better now - our defence generates our offence. Our defensive pressure has been much better since the Brisbane game, and our ball movement and forwards look better as a result. No doubt there are other factors, but I reckon that's the most important one.
 
mazzie said:
watch some of the old sturt and norwood games from the mid 70s:)
that is the crows running game of today :)
run and handball through the lines !
S A state games were also the same
sorry bit off topic:confused:
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Off topic,yes. But a good point. The Jack Oatey legacy lives on.
 

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