R4 - Port Adelaide vs Brisbane & St Kilda vs Adelaide

Port should lock away a decent win this week you would think. Brisbane have lost Rich for the season with a knee and coming off a flogging at the hands of their little siblings. Port with some injury concerns also, but too their midfield and the home deck should get them over the line comfortably.

For Adelaide, an absolute must win game this week against St Kilda. Form and confidence are at an all time low with 2014 seeming to be a continuance of the many problems that plagued their 2013 season.

Fire away on your thoughts for this weeks games.

Monfries will be a certain out, but will be interesting to see how Wingard and Schultz pull up. I know someone who shared the flight home with them who said that the former was on crutches and Schultz was hobbling badly. The clubs work wonders with recovery these days, so they may well be right by the weekend, who knows? Brisbane might have a few inclusions, so whilst Port really should win, they wouldn't want to take the Lions lightly. In the other game, well who knows? If the Crows can keep Riewoldt from causing much scoreboard damage, it's hard to see the Saints kicking a big score. However, there's nothing Adelaide has shown thus far to give any confidence toward them kicking a reasonable score either. Saints play lockdown pretty well at Etihad, but the Crows usually hit targets better there too, so I might take a punt and select the Crows to notch their first win of the season.

I think it was interesting that Adelaide 'won' a lot of the key statistical areas last Saturday.

I definitely felt that at times individuals looked sharp, and for periods so did the whole team. You could say the same for every game this year, and that's why I don't believe their current problems are because of fitness.

I think it's more about the team set ups and game plan personally, in particular the mis-firing forward line. Too often possession is gifted back to the opposition either on the half forward line, or by Adelaide failing to finish in front of goal. This is then compounded by the opposition being allowed to 'reload' far too easily and score cheap easy goals on the rebound.

If Adelaide can:
1. Find a way to get quality possessions closer to goal;
2. Finish properly in front of goal;
3. In the case that they don't do either, set up better to limit the damage on the rebound;

Then they may be able to engineer the form reversal they need.

Apart from this, they just need to have a win to get the players up and about and instill some confidence back into the side.

I think your assessments are spot on Ginger. I think you recently pointed out the lack of reward for effort and how much harder the Crows appear to be working for a goal than their opponents. This has been the case in all 3 games, and they have had to play catch up football in all of them, which is severely taxing.

Agree GN. As the media have said, turnovers are killing them and as a lot seem to happen across half back and the midfield due to their chipping game then the turnovers often lead to easy shots on goal for the opposition.

I thought the Crows might go 0 -3 in the first three rounds given who they were playing but I never thought tney woullget blown away like they have. This is a must win game for them. Lose and finals become difficult as there will be a logjam in the 5 to 10 positions and percentage is woeful ATM.

Yes I'm in the same boat as you UH - I'm not really fussed about the fact that they have lost all 3 games, I half expected that to happen. It's the margins that are really worrying for mine.

2,3,4 goals, fine. 10??? Urgh.

Port easily & Adelaide in a close one

Monfries to miss 4-6 and Wingard unlikely to be risked this week. Two important "outs" for Port. I still expect our midfield to give our forwards enough opportunity to produce a winning score.

Port to get up and Crows to lose in two very close encounters.

Booney wrote:Monfries to miss 4-6 and Wingard unlikely to be risked this week. Two important "outs" for Port. I still expect our midfield to give our forwards enough opportunity to produce a winning score.

I heard 3-4 for Gus and Chad to miss this week. Stand corrected though.

Bad tear for Gus, will be three weeks before he trains.

Finally some good news on the Adelaide injury front - Tom Lynch will make his return this weekend. The club is yet to work out whether that will be in the SANFL or AFL sides yet.

We could certainly use his workrate across our half forward line at the moment, could be worth rolling the dice and rushing him in....

Adelaide unchanged with all 3 emergencies named in the SANFL side. But Mitch Grigg also named in the SANFL? Ok?

Grigg was one of the few that played quite well last week, I'd be disappointed if he got dropped.

Port easily and Adelaide not quite so easily

Well I was stuck at a 5 year old's birthday party yesterday afternoon so haven't much of the game yet (will watch the tape back tonight), but Monday morning's are so much better after a win, and a big one at that!   

At the start of the season I would have expected this result, but after the first 3 rounds I was nervous and thought we might actually struggle against the Saints. They have been playing solid footy, better than expected, and we had been ordinary until yesterday.

As I've said all season there have been individuals that have looked sharp, but the team stuff hasn't been working so no one has really able to get a roll on. Mackay, Jenkins, Podsiadly all come to mind and all finally came up with great games yesterday.

I only caught the third quarter basically, but I have to say I liked what I saw of young Matt Crouch. Looked very much at home diving into the packs, loved his work mining the ball out and dishing to the outside midfielders, exactly what he was recruited for.

Most importantly there was no injuries yesterday. Let's hope things stabilise a bit and we can filter some of these injured blokes back into lineup.

Much more confident about making the most of this run into the bye now. Chalk up a few more wins, get a few blokes back from injury, get the big Texas back in there after the bye and make a strong run home! Here's hoping!

Well you had a forward line that was productive and less turnovers.
I think Jenkins will be good when he gets a few games under his belt.