Review R19: The Good, Bad and Ugly vs. Essendon

[davos44]

Good:
Our 2nd half of the year has been excellent, pity the first half was 13 rounds long instead of 9/10
Some of the stuff in the 2nd quarter was elite, especially handballing out of traffic
Fogartys best game this year, Life without Tex will be just fine
Keays was excellent of course, huge performance
Berry, Dowling and Taylor around clearance and all 3 kicked goals
Michalanneys speed
Rankine will adore Thilthorpe, he gets to the footy and will only get more comfortable.
Killing Essendons season

Bad:
Smith is done, pinpoints opposition targets.
Our SANFL team is going to be murdered when Jones, Curtin and Ryan come into the side.
Murray's injury, fingers crossed

Ugly:
Essendon being a protected species when it comes to HTB, how long did they all get? Also 6 goals from free kicks.
The diving, flopping and arm flailing from Essendon players was disgraceful and they deserved to lose

 

[CrowBloke]

Apologies if it's all been said but I'm 11 pages behind; didn't open laptop last night because of Microsoft glitch.
A most unexpected and thrilling win, but my old heart was jumpin' .

Eeeexcellent:
--- Keays BOG, his best game. 12 goals in last 4 games, with his relentless efforts having serious game impact. Credit where due, throwing him into the midfield in the last to exploit his elite fitness was a masterstroke.
Keays and Fog really stood up for us all game, especially in the last 1/4.
--- a win-from-behind, AT LAST!! Three-from-four after the Bye.
--- that flopper Draper hitting the post from 25-30m out

Good: The Burgess Fitness Effect --- with Murray and Butts out in the third, Essendon capitalised and I thought they'd run away with it but the Crows steadied.
--- Michalanney, all ready elite; scary to think how much improvement he has in him.
--- Hinge, cool head, very effective.

Bad:
--- Essendon choked from 15 points up with under 7 minutes left, wasting 3 or 4 chances to win; they can gagf.
--- I know he kicked the game-winner with 3 goals total but, gee, Rachele is often soft and goes missing for long periods.
--- Murphy, still, and Smith.

Worrying:
--- another slow start; I think Fogarty (?) after the game said the instruction was to start defensively, typical Nicks, but look what they can do when allowed to run and overlap!
--- injuries to Murray, Butts, with Dawson out for one (concussion)
--- potential suspension for Keays (CC coped three for a worse tackle which was then thrown out, but Keays is a Crow)

Amusing:
--- Smith 'thanking' Laird post-game for the "hospital handball" (his words) which got him clobbered early in the game.

 

[CrowBloke]

Max's hit on Gresham was a beauty
Legal and hard

Funny thing: Max is slightly built and looks like butter wouldn't melt etc, but he has a ferocious competitive streak and inner mongrel, which I love.

 

[Crow_68]

Murphy only 7 x pressure acts in 113 minutes of game time - thought that was his one wood?

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Murphy only 7 x pressure acts in 113 minutes of game time - thought that was his one wood?

I thought he put team mates under pressure a lot more often than that

 

[glengowan]

Good:

• A well deserved close win in a game we usually would’ve lost. To fight back from being behind for the third time in the game, when the players were spent and Essendon had everything to play for was great to see.
• Keays was brilliant. Reward for effort.
• Rachele, again, reward for effort. He’s been head down, bum up since he shaved his head. He deserved the moment in the spotlight. It was a classy finish and hopefully a taste of what’s to come.
• Fogarty. The standout along with Keays. Is becoming a seriously good key forward.
• All the youngsters. All have shown they belong and have added some purpose for 2024.
• Nicks and the coaching team. They deserved that win. Have changed things up under huge pressure and there is again daylight at the end of the tunnel.

Bad:
- Murray going off with his knee. Really hoping it’s not an ACL. Same with Butts injury to his foot, again.

Ugly:
- The umpiring and general stench coming out of AFL headquarters in Melbourne.

 

[kirky]

No Murray, no Butts, no Dawson, sheesh what a win against a side playing for top 4.

Please.

It was only Essendon.

 

[Drakescoffeecake]

Good:
Keays. Never want to hear the moaners complain about him again. Gives everything he has to this club.
Fog. Huge - it's clear that he is the one.
Hinge - good lord we can't afford to lose him. What a boot.
Dowling/Taylor. A disgrace it took so long to play these guys. Both have poise and class.
Berry. Elite at getting out of tight spots. Got to find a spot for him permanently.
Dawson - just classy - will be missed next week
Laird did some nice things in close
Thilthorpe getting through. Not sighted much but building.

Bad:
Smith - the game has very clearly gone past him and it's time to go.
Himmelberg- offers nothing too often. The experiment is over. Let him go be with his brother.
Sholl. He's been great recently but found out a tad this game. He has a 13 year old body and gets shoved off the ball accordingly
Rachelle's soft efforts throughout the game. Rapt for him to kick the winning goal but these soft plays are happening a bit too much
Injuries to Muz Butts Dawson

Ugly:
Umpiring was pathetic again. The HTB interpretation was different depending on what guernsey you were wearing.
Draper. His diving and flopping was cringeworthy. Should be suspended. Hitting the post from right in front was costly too - shame. Flog.

 

[CrowBloke]

good:
the fight shown and desire to play out the season
impact of the kids

This, especially. I hope Nicks learned something from that.

 

[Crowbotoratory]

GOOD: being a long suffering Melb based fan, seeing the Carlton and Essendon wins are some sweet justice.

 

[CrowBloke]

Did Scott have any tears at the presser?

Nah, just that Scott resting-sourpuss face after a loss.

 

[CrowBloke]

RoB cost us a three goal turn around and momentum

Gotta say, I agree. If he kicked that, might have got us going again. Momentum killer.
Essendon took off after that miss.

 

[cwoodgal]

Ripper game! Well done on payback! You guys have some good young talent coming through and Keays was amazing. Enjoy the win!

On SM-S928B using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[CrowBloke]

Nick’s deserves credit for that game surely!

One of our blokes said post-game that Nicks (no apostrophe) sent them out to be defensive, no surprise, hence the 3-goals-behind start.
My guess is Dawson and maybe Keays (real Leaders) and a couple others said "'Stuff this bullshit" and took the game on.
Later, Nicks did not "shuffle" the backline around while Eesendon kicked that run of 7 goals in the third.

To be fair, Keays was moved into the midfield for the 4th quarter (that's a tick to Nicks) and he and Fog lifted the whole team.
+

Taylor - 3 centre clearances (equal 1st for us with Dawson and Laird, equal 2nd highest for the game) and 1 stoppage clearance
Dowling - 5 stoppage clearances (highest for the game)

6 weeks ago Nicks was downplaying these guys getting a shot.

Yeah, good point.
Don't forget also that Nicks declared Smith (dud last night) had a big future .

 

[cleanhands]

Good:
Keays. Never want to hear the moaners complain about him again. Gives everything he has to this club.
Fog. Huge - it's clear that he is the one.
Hinge - good lord we can't afford to lose him. What a boot.
Dowling/Taylor. A disgrace it took so long to play these guys. Both have poise and class.
Berry. Elite at getting out of tight spots. Got to find a spot for him permanently.
Dawson - just classy - will be missed next week
Laird did some nice things in close
Thilthorpe getting through. Not sighted much but building.

Bad:
Smith - the game has very clearly gone past him and it's time to go.
Himmelberg- offers nothing too often. The experiment is over. Let him go be with his brother.
Sholl. He's been great recently but found out a tad this game. He has a 13 year old body and gets shoved off the ball accordingly
Rachelle's soft efforts throughout the game. Rapt for him to kick the winning goal but these soft plays are happening a bit too much
Injuries to Muz Butts Dawson

Ugly:
Umpiring was pathetic again. The HTB interpretation was different depending on what guernsey you were wearing.
Draper. His diving and flopping was cringeworthy. Should be suspended. Hitting the post from right in front was costly too - shame. Flog.

Scholl I can forgive he has credits in the bank this year, we didn’t get it right with their tall wings, Murphy for Curtin would have given more flexibility, but hey they’ll play Murphy no matter what

 

[croweater 41]

A couple of things I picked up on at the game. A general thought not to rag on anyone in particular:

Made some strange decisions to bring the ball back through the middle to blokes under pressure rather than other options. Easy to see from higher up behind the goals I know.

Umpiring. Just consistency would be good. At least last week the deliberate was bad but at least was consistent.

Not realising Murray and Butts were off for quite a lot longer than I should have probably gives credit to the backs that were left out there.

8 goals in a row. What the **** is that. Sometimes we play such sexy football and it sucks me in again and then I come back to earth with a thud.

Fog, Keays, Dowling, Nank, Hinge, Max, Dawson all played well throughout.

Rash as mentioned soft sometimes but also clean as **** when he wants to be and needs to be

 

[I Lost My Keays]

It was a great scene looking at the young players gather around Rachele such as Dowling, Taylor and Bond when the siren went

 

[cleanhands]

It was a great scene looking at the young players gather around Rachele such as Dowling, Taylor and Bond when the siren went

I enjoy the closeness of our young group

 

[CrowBloke]

Waiting for the Cooney whinge sook to come will be delicious tears

It came, all right.
Cooney was filthy, salty, gave the Crows no credit at all.

 

[Greenfinger]

It was a great scene looking at the young players gather around Rachele such as Dowling, Taylor and Bond when the siren went

Feels like they are really bonded as a group. I don’t think we’ve had that to this level before.

 

[ams4crows]

Uh what?

We've been well over weighted in prime time vs what our performances this year deserved.

Not nationally televised games almost every Saturday night game we've had we've been the fox only game and they played a different one instead.

 

[CrowBloke]

The commentators were f*ckwits as well.

ARE.

They are ****wits.

 

[footy4ever]

Please.

It was only Essendon.

Ok. It was a shit win against a bottom 4 team.

 

[moogerfooger]

Footy Gods to Draper - go **** yourself

 

[cleanhands]

Feels like they are really bonded as a group. I don’t think we’ve had that to this level before.

Certainly needs to be nurtured