Janus
Advocatus Diaboli
- Sep 9, 2007
- 23,419
- 57,309
- AFL Club
- Port Adelaide
- Other Teams
- Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bulls
Adelaide has been “successful” so far because they hunt the ground ball as a collective.
For example, Collingwood has seven players in the top 100 of the competition for ground ball gets (Pendlebury is 101st). Port and Adelaide have five each.
But while we only have 3 players from 101-200 (Houston, Powell-Pepper, Boak), and Collingwood has two (Pendlebury and Noble), they have 9 (Sholl, Keays, Jones, Milera, Smith, Murphy, Doedee, Thilthorpe, Hinge).
9 players in the top 200 for Collingwood. 8 players in the top 200 for Port Adelaide. 11 players in the top 200 for Melbourne (Brisbane has hardly any which is why I don’t trust them to do anything in finals because winning ground ball is key in contested games).
Adelaide - 14 in the top 200.
Their entire rise is based not on skill/talent, but on effort and fitness that comes from the Burgess Surge. So when they come up against a side that is putting in the same effort but actually does have skill/talent, like the Bulldogs, they will inevitably lose. As the season progresses the effort will fall away. Then holes appear in the defence and it’s Port circa 2015-2017 all over again because suddenly no one wants to chase and people are thinking “What happen Crom?” and calling for Nicks to be sacked.
The problem being that if your team has poor kicks, you are creating more ground ball opportunities than normal. It’s fair enough if your players are taking a risky kick into the corridor for that to turn into a ground ball opportunity, but when you’re ****ing up under pressure there’s only so many times a teammate will have the desire and fitness to keep chasing down those balls.
This style of play only works if you’ve got elite ball users in the midfield like Butters, Rozee and Horne-Francis plus great kicks out of defence like Houston, Burton, Williams and Bergman - guys who will hit their targets under pressure more often than not. Adelaide has a decent forward line so they are expert at making teams pay full price when the pressure isn’t there, but there’s no ****ing way they are anywhere near winning a final let alone a flag.
For example, Collingwood has seven players in the top 100 of the competition for ground ball gets (Pendlebury is 101st). Port and Adelaide have five each.
But while we only have 3 players from 101-200 (Houston, Powell-Pepper, Boak), and Collingwood has two (Pendlebury and Noble), they have 9 (Sholl, Keays, Jones, Milera, Smith, Murphy, Doedee, Thilthorpe, Hinge).
9 players in the top 200 for Collingwood. 8 players in the top 200 for Port Adelaide. 11 players in the top 200 for Melbourne (Brisbane has hardly any which is why I don’t trust them to do anything in finals because winning ground ball is key in contested games).
Adelaide - 14 in the top 200.
Their entire rise is based not on skill/talent, but on effort and fitness that comes from the Burgess Surge. So when they come up against a side that is putting in the same effort but actually does have skill/talent, like the Bulldogs, they will inevitably lose. As the season progresses the effort will fall away. Then holes appear in the defence and it’s Port circa 2015-2017 all over again because suddenly no one wants to chase and people are thinking “What happen Crom?” and calling for Nicks to be sacked.
The problem being that if your team has poor kicks, you are creating more ground ball opportunities than normal. It’s fair enough if your players are taking a risky kick into the corridor for that to turn into a ground ball opportunity, but when you’re ****ing up under pressure there’s only so many times a teammate will have the desire and fitness to keep chasing down those balls.
This style of play only works if you’ve got elite ball users in the midfield like Butters, Rozee and Horne-Francis plus great kicks out of defence like Houston, Burton, Williams and Bergman - guys who will hit their targets under pressure more often than not. Adelaide has a decent forward line so they are expert at making teams pay full price when the pressure isn’t there, but there’s no ****ing way they are anywhere near winning a final let alone a flag.
