Preview R16: Changes vs. GWS Giants

[huludicidal]

Rubbish, do you even follow the list management process? We spent the whole trade season trying to get a key defender, then we snagged possibly the most versatile key defender ever.

Nobody with a clue about football projected Daniel Curtin as an AFL key defender. Nobody. Including Daniel Curtin. It is quite simply not where he will play, for us, or for whoever else he ends up playing for once he’s finished at our dumpster fire of a club.

RookieMe:
Despite his towering 195cm frame, Curtin’s midfield play does not generally involve him bulldozing his smaller opponents. Rather, he moves like a natural on-baller and is often used as a receiver who can gather the ball on the run and send it forward by foot. His game against Vic Metro, where he gathered 28 disposals and 10 clearances provided an insight into his potential future as a big-bodied midfielder. In fact, it's where he sees himself fitting in at AFL level.


Now, I’m not suggesting that Curtin is ready for a full time, or even part time stoppage mid role yet. Nobody is really suggesting that. But playing him as a key defender, or hidden in a back pocket where his strengths can’t be utilised is just lunacy. Relentlessly rolling him out in the SANFL playing alongside up to a dozen top-up hacks and then wondering why he doesn’t dominate is moronic.

Put him in the AFL side. Play him on a half back flank (Smith and Milera are both out, Laird is cooked beyond belief), or a wing (Jones is a joke, Sholl is not a long-term answer). Utilise his left foot. Utilise his sidestep. Give him a license to float back and be an interceptor. It’s really not hard to work out.

 

[Captain Furious]

Haha so you think he should even be on the list next year? He should not be near a AFL list next year yet will somehow find himself on the club’s due to his own selfish superannuation top-up reasons and an absolute list management f**k up that gave a 33 year old who’s shown nothing for multiple years a quite unbelievable low games trigger for an extra year.

He & the club if they were mature and actually gave a crap about the future of the club would come to a mutual agreement to terminate his time as a player at the club.

Would you walk away from a very high paying job that you loved doing and had a contract to do? Feel like you might be holding Smith to a standard you wouldn't hold yourself to. If you are some kind of altruistic saint, then good for you but let's not pretend that's the norm. If the club want to delist him and pay him out, that's up to them. Entitled because he wants to keep doing something that's been his whole life is a bit ott.

 

[MRB37]

How good is it that our dynamic forward Murph has kicked 4 goals 2 points this year - he is obviously doing the team things…

He's kicked double figures in goals once in the last 5 years. 3 of those years he had a conversion rate under 50% too.

 

[n4sir]

He's kicked double figures in goals once in the last 5 years. 3 of those years he had a conversion rate under 50% too.

It is a symptom of our coaching... Defend first. Pressure first. Score goals later. That's for a forward.

 

[Stephen2]

neon trees - Animal

here we go again
we've selected Murphy again
Giants - for our own good
I'm afraid we need to be destroyed

here we go again
you're ****in' kidding Chayce is on the wing?
another failure
how the hell does Nicks continue to survive
no I can't work it out!

oh-oh, show Nicksy the door
oh-oh, what are we waiting for?
Please fire this clown right now

 

[Firewalker]

Would you walk away from a very high paying job that you loved doing and had a contract to do? Feel like you might be holding Smith to a standard you wouldn't hold yourself to. If you are some kind of altruistic saint, then good for you but let's not pretend that's the norm. If the club want to delist him and pay him out, that's up to them. Entitled because he wants to keep doing something that's been his whole life is a bit ott.

So because he’s obviously not going to want to leave a high paying role as an AFL player he should just be allowed to continue? Under those provisions no professional well paid sportsperson would ever had made the decision to retire.

This isn’t a question of morality or putting yourself in a fantasy land of being in an AFL footballer’s shoes it’s about what should happen in high performance sports when it is a totally unique public results driven industry. You cannot just make an argument based on “YoU wOUldN’t wANT tO LEaVe iF It WAs YoU” and by trying to compare it to the choices a member in a non-professional high paying public sportsperson’s job or profession would make in choosing to leave their position.

If you are past 30 as a AFL footballer and have quite clearly been shown you’re no longer good enough for a position you once had in that team or shown you are not performing at a level that you were employed to do it is natural that there is an end date at the Sporting Organisation you are employed by.

Given everything Smith has said & done this past season of course ‘fear of the end’ has gripped him and he feels entitled to squeeze every last penny out of the club but you would hope like many others have done before him he’d hopefully have at least some sort of realisation and have some feeling for the club that employed him for 15 years. However you doubt that will be the case given this is a player who of course told the coaches they weren’t allowed to drop him for a match earlier this season because he had organised tickets and flights for his mates & family over to Perth to have a post-game shindig for his personal milestone game… yeah but he’s not entitled.

And again I made this point back when some bleeding hearts on here were carrying on about what people were saying about the commentary around Sloane - this is professional sport, these players are paid handsomely and with that comes the ability to be open for scrutiny about their professional sporting lives and the decisions they make with those professional sporting lives, you do not have to bend your opinion or be subjected to some extreme moral compass or have to put yourself in their shoes when you pass judgment on a professional sportsperson’s performance or comments they make in the media. As long as it is not threatening/abusive/expletive laden &/or dm’d to them on their personal socials you can have an opinion and in my opinion Smith has become an overly entitled, selfish player who couldn’t care less what happens to the future of the club if it doesn’t involve him and his contract is causing/is going to cause nothing but issues for this football club.

 

[GreyCrow]

Some people were mean to him on the internet

 

[Captain Furious]

So because he’s obviously not going to want to leave a high paying role as an AFL player he should just be allowed to continue? Under those provisions no professional well paid sportsperson would ever had made the decision to retire.

This isn’t a question of morality or putting yourself in a fantasy land of being in an AFL footballer’s shoes it’s about what should happen in high performance sports when it is a totally unique public results driven industry. You cannot just make an argument based on “YoU wOUldN’t wANT tO LEaVe iF It WAs YoU” and by trying to compare it to the choices a member in a non-professional high paying public sportsperson’s job or profession would make in choosing to leave their position.

If you are past 30 as a AFL footballer and have quite clearly been shown you’re no longer good enough for a position you once had in that team or shown you are not performing at a level that you were employed to do it is natural that there is an end date at the Sporting Organisation you are employed by.

Given everything Smith has said & done this past season of course ‘fear of the end’ has gripped him and he feels entitled to squeeze every last penny out of the club but you would hope like many others have done before him he’d hopefully have at least some sort of realisation and have some feeling for the club that employed him for 15 years. However you doubt that will be the case given this is a player who of course told the coaches they weren’t allowed to drop him for a match earlier this season because he had organised tickets and flights for his mates & family over to Perth to have a post-game shindig for his personal milestone game… yeah but he’s not entitled.

And again I made this point back when some bleeding hearts on here were carrying on about what people were saying about the commentary around Sloane - this is professional sport, these players are paid handsomely and with that comes the ability to be open for scrutiny about their professional sporting lives and the decisions they make with those professional sporting lives, you do not have to bend your opinion or be subjected to some extreme moral compass or have to put yourself in their shoes when you pass judgment on a professional sportsperson’s performance or comments they make in the media. As long as it is not threatening/abusive/expletive laden &/or dm’d to them on their personal socials you can have an opinion and in my opinion Smith has become an overly entitled, selfish player who couldn’t care less what happens to the future of the club if it doesn’t involve him and his contract is causing/is going to cause nothing but issues for this football club.

Sure but that last bit might be your opinion but it's an opinion you made up in your head about what someone you've never met is thinking. You can have an opinion but if it's not an earned one, as in based on something factual, then I don't think you can expect anyone to give it credence.

It seems he has a contract trigger for next year and while contracts can be broken with stipulations we can't just decide not to honor them, in the same way Rankine can't just decide he's playing for Collingwood next year. If we want to pay that out and delist him, then fine. How is that a major issue for the future of the club? We have plenty of money and cap space next year.

Funnily I think he played his best game for the year just before he was dropped and he's hardly on his own with having a bad season. There's still a few guys I'd play him in front of, regardless of the future of the club as they're guys who I can't see having a future with us. But also think it's fine he's playing SANFL. Either way, making out Smith's playing future really matters for the future of the club, is absurd.

 

[George Kramer]

It is a symptom of our coaching... Defend first. Pressure first. Score goals later. That's for a forward.

Worse than that, he doesn’t do that in our forward line, he’s supposed to help us win contested ball further up the ground, it’s why we continue to struggle against intercept defenders as we are out numbered.

Our coach is a genius.

 

[CrowBloke]

Booing Nicks ain't going to achieve a heck of a lot

I agree.
The Club Admin will dismiss it anyway as boorish, which it is

The only thing that could shake things up before the end of the season is not showing up.

This! and not just tonight. Low attendance tonight could be explained away by the cold and wet.
It has to be a sustained process of boycotting Home games until real changes are made.
Hitting the Club and the AFL in the hip pocket is the only thing that will produce effective changes.

The AFC and AFL are not benevolent societies. They are Businesses which exist to make as much money as they can. Slow down the gravy train and watch them sit up.

AFL to AFC: "DON'T FORGET THE GRAVY!"

 

[CrowBloke]

Taylor will debut this year though, unless he if someone gets injured.

That's the only thing that produces a debut according to Nicks.

 

[CrowBloke]

You people are worse than Port fans.

How to antagonise your peers (above) .

Same BucketsNj, same .

 

[CrowBloke]

Cumming, Perryman & O’Callaghan - all players that GWS seem to be well aware of the Crows were/are trying to offer big contracts too to leave them.

WOW, that is elite trolling!

 

[Captain Furious]

How to antagonise your peers (above) .

Same BucketsNj, same .

You can see the point though - for years Crows fans have ridiculed Port for having fairweather, fickle, boorish and divisive supporters. Yet here we are.

I, for one, can't get my head around wanting us to lose, I don't think I could do that. But people support in their own ways I guess.

 

[CrowBloke]

How good is it that our dynamic forward Murph has kicked 4 goals 2 points this year - he is obviously doing the team things…

Showing Leadership by trying hard .

 

[CrowBloke]

You can see the point though - for years Crows fans have ridiculed Port for having fairweather, fickle, boorish and divisive supporters. Yet here we are.

I am one of the posters "worse than a Port fan", according to him.
You can cop that if you like (he included you, too; all of us) but I ain't gonna.

I, for one, can't get my head around wanting us to lose, I don't think I could do that. But people support in their own ways I guess.

I hated losing as an individual player, but sometimes I had to concede (eg in Squash) that I had been beaten by a better player. Over a 3-year period, I never beat one Team's #1. He beat me 3-0 twice, then 3-0 and
3-1, then 3-1 and 3-2. Close, but no cigar. He was just too good, every time, but he helped me lift my game.

I hated losing when part of a team, too, but the sentiment is the same eg I can see why Collingwood have beaten us so closely, so often. They are better than us and proven Masters @ winning tight games.

I hate when the Crows lose, but consider the Richmond loss to be our worst so far. On that day, we were not beaten by a better team but by a team with a plan that they executed. I'm no AFL Coach but I could see what they were doing. If I can see it, Nicks could see it, but he selected badly then sat and watched the train wreck of his own making.
However, in our current situation, because of the Draft we stand to gain more by finishing as low as possible (Finals are out, we need a dynamic mid, or two). If we lose on the way to that position, we might still get AFL games into kids that need them and become a better side in the process.

 

[kirky]

Given everything Smith has said & done this past season of course ‘fear of the end’ has gripped him and he feels entitled to squeeze every last penny out of the club but you would hope like many others have done before him he’d hopefully have at least some sort of realisation and have some feeling for the club that employed him for 15 years. However you doubt that will be the case given this is a player who of course told the coaches they weren’t allowed to drop him for a match earlier this season because he had organised tickets and flights for his mates & family over to Perth to have a post-game shindig for his personal milestone game… yeah but he’s not entitled.

Say what. Is this accurate?

 

[CrowBloke]

Put him in the AFL side. Play him on a half back flank (Smith and Milera are both out, Laird is cooked beyond belief), or a wing (Jones is a joke, Sholl is not a long-term answer). Utilise his left foot. Utilise his sidestep. Give him a license to float back and be an interceptor. It’s really not hard to work out.

This!
Excellent post.
Described the situation, explained why it was not working, then suggested a potentially effective solution.
Respect .

 

[kirky]

Sure but that last bit might be your opinion but it's an opinion you made up in your head about what someone you've never met is thinking. You can have an opinion but if it's not an earned one, as in based on something factual, then I don't think you can expect anyone to give it credence.

It seems he has a contract trigger for next year and while contracts can be broken with stipulations we can't just decide not to honor them, in the same way Rankine can't just decide he's playing for Collingwood next year. If we want to pay that out and delist him, then fine. How is that a major issue for the future of the club? We have plenty of money and cap space next year.

Funnily I think he played his best game for the year just before he was dropped and he's hardly on his own with having a bad season. There's still a few guys I'd play him in front of, regardless of the future of the club as they're guys who I can't see having a future with us. But also think it's fine he's playing SANFL. Either way, making out Smith's playing future really matters for the future of the club, is absurd.

Ok, lets say given the contract trigger has been reached.

You then have the balls to say “yes, you do have a contract next year but you will be playing in the two’s for the whole season unless we have a massive injury list”.

And sorry which game was that? The Richmond one? The one where he literally wouldn’t bend down and pick up the ball.

 

[CrowBloke]

Captain Furious and Firewalker, I found a really interesting article about player ages, especially:
"It turns out that, on average, players hit their peak output the year they turn 27 and more or less hold it it until age 30 or 31.
It also seems that old players don’t get much worse. The 31, 32, 33 and 34+ cohorts don’t drop off very much, with the average 33 year old player still producing more than a typical 25-year-old."
(Tumblr I can send you the whole article but if I post the URL it just copies the whole thing, pages of it)

Smith's age is not the problem. It's the poor, low-impact output that he's been producing.
I can see why he'd wanna play on, just like Sloane and others before them, but it's the Club who has to make the call --- is his time up?
Most of us think so; just not Smith.

 

[kirky]

How good is it that our dynamic forward Murph has kicked 4 goals 2 points this year - he is obviously doing the team things…

He is like Petrenko but we eventually decided he wasn’t worth it so we cut him.

Time to do the same thing with Murphy.

 

[George Kramer]

You can see the point though - for years Crows fans have ridiculed Port for having fairweather, fickle, boorish and divisive supporters. Yet here we are.

I, for one, can't get my head around wanting us to lose, I don't think I could do that. But people support in their own ways I guess.

If losing helps you win in the long run you still wouldn’t want to lose some games?

If we win tonight, win a couple more it will take the pressure off the club to make tough decisions. We will go into 2025 with the same shit coach and waste another year.

If we lose every game for the rest of the year they will have to act. Surely you can get that?

Think of it this way, let’s say Robert Shaw didn’t go as badly, we won enough games to keep him in his job but he was not a premiership coach, we just meandered about. We wouldn’t have Blight, we wouldn’t have our 2 flags. Would you prefer Robert Shaw won some more games?

 

[Captain Furious]

I am one of the posters "worse than a Port fan", according to him.
You can cop that if you like (he included you, too; all of us) but I ain't gonna.

I hated losing as an individual player, but sometimes I had to concede (eg in Squash) that I had been beaten by a better player. Over a 3-year period, I never beat one Team's #1. He beat me 3-0 twice, then 3-0 and
3-1, then 3-1 and 3-2. Close, but no cigar. He was just too good, every time, but he helped me lift my game.

I hated losing when part of a team, too, but the sentiment is the same eg I can see why Collingwood have beaten us so closely, so often. They are better than us and proven Masters @ winning tight games.

I hate when the Crows lose, but consider the Richmond loss to be our worst so far. On that day, we were not beaten by a better team but by a team with a plan that they executed. I'm no AFL Coach but I could see what they were doing. If I can see it, Nicks could see it, but he selected badly then sat and watched the train wreck of his own making.
However, in our current situation, because of the Draft we stand to gain more by finishing as low as possible (Finals are out, we need a dynamic mid, or two). If we lose on the way to that position, we might still get AFL games into kids that need them and become a better side in the process.

I get the draft pick thing but that’s not why I think a lot of folks on here are wanting us to lose. I also think learning how to win, especially close games, is more valuable than moving a spot or two up the draft board. As history tells us repeatedly, being higher up in the draft gives you more options, not necessarily the better player.

 

[Captain Furious]

If losing helps you win in the long run you still wouldn’t want to lose some games?

If we win tonight, win a couple more it will take the pressure off the club to make tough decisions. We will go into 2025 with the same shit coach and waste another year.

If we lose every game for the rest of the year they will have to act. Surely you can get that?

Think of it this way, let’s say Robert Shaw didn’t go as badly, we won enough games to keep him in his job but he was not a premiership coach, we just meandered about. We wouldn’t have Blight, we wouldn’t have our 2 flags. Would you prefer Robert Shaw won some more games?

Looking back at history and wanting a different outcome is not the same as watching my team and wanting them to win. It does however, have exactly the same effect on the result; none at all. We are but observers.

 

[Firewalker]

Say what. Is this accurate?

Yes, way before the season began Smith organised for a substantial group of his friends and family to all go to Perth to be involved in a celebration for his 250th game which involved booking/organising flights, game tickets all in the ‘members area’ at Optus Stadium and a private function at a bar in Perth after the game was organised where teammates and coaches also attended.