R9 - GC v Adelaide & Port v WC

After 2 months solid of tough contests, Adelaide heads up to the Gold Coast to hopefully get some sun and find some form again.

Port returns home after snatching defeat from the jaws of victory against the Blues to host a WC who are lions at home and leppers away.

Post away.

I'd expect a response from Port this week, but I'd also expect one from West Coast given their away form .. Think the Eagles should be too good, by say 4 goals.

Adelaide should score well up North, and expect them to win comfortably.

As we all know though, every side is capable on their day, so neither of those predictions are guaranteed.

Adelaide need to respond to the pathetic showings they've had in the past couple of weeks, and turn up to the Gold Coast breathing fire. While they need to respect the Suns (something they did not do to Freo, and it nearly cost them dearly), they then need to tear them apart.

Anything less than a 10 goal win should be treated as unacceptable for the Crows.

Gold Coast v Adelaide –

Bad to worse was three weeks ago, what happens when you go from worse to worserer? ( My column, I’ll make up words if I want to ) Might be the sunshine state but it aint shining on either side up there. Two weeks in a row Adelaide give up loads of I50’s, have few themselves, stay in the contest. Good signs, or bad?

Another lamentable loss for the Suns, this time to the Giants who simply dismantled the Suns from the get go. The Suns, under Retired Eade still paly man on man football, oh no, don’t buy into this zone rubbish that these young coaches have rolled out for the last 10 years, it’s man-on-man and we’ll work through it. Bap bow...( Family Fued buzzer ). The heat must be on Eade, it has to be, clearly they’re down on personnel but so are many sides and the others aren’t rolling over belly up. Big test now as there’s just pride on the line and they don’t show much of it.

How have Adelaide been so close in the last two weeks? Against the Dogs they lost the I50 count 68-37...-31. Against the Cats, 61-44. -17. How then were they in both games with less than a few minutes to play? Well, other than Rory Sloane in the Cats game and Jenkins in the Dogs game it’s only been Henderson and Lynch who have fronted up both weeks, yet they still hang in there. Good signs hanging in, bad signs when they bleed so hard down back. Fast midfields have left them wanting and they might need to inject some pace (not Essendon “pace”) into the side to take the step from top 8 to top 4. Forward line still the key to their success.

Got a feeling this won’t be pretty, Adelaide on the back of two losses will be keen to atone and the Suns offer no resistance. Adelaide 50+.

Port Adelaide v West Coast –

Not sure where to start with this one, 17 points up with 3 minutes to go and just stopped, simply stopped. Lack of composure from a side with some strong leaders a real worry. Don’t go to the cinemas for Eddie the Eagle, if you want downhill skiers just visit Perth and watch the Eagles at home. The Saints no match.

While the last 5 minutes was a train wreck to watch I’ll highlight the first half of the match as to where Port lost it. 8.9 at half time to 7.4. Only 6 more scoring shots but at least 4 of them were sitters, two of them went the length of the field after the behind came back in and instead of being 5 or 6 goals up at half time it was 11 points. The game wasn’t won then, it could have been. Port couldn’t break out of the Bolton holt’em zone and it meant the forward line had to break it’s structure and all too often Port streamed forward with the only people in front of them the pie eaters in row A. Trengove will be real tired soon, Wines and Hartlett got in amongst it some more, the forward lacked spark though and the midfield lacked composure. Too often Port players were simply caught stone cold, reaks of lack of talk and team work. Again.

All aboard at home indeed. I gave the Saints a rough, very rough chance last week and that lasted less than 30 minutes as the Eagles opened up an onslaught not many sides would be able to stop. 9 goals at ¼ time with Kennedy having 5 in the bag. They simply ran riot over the Saints and players all over the ground were finding space and time to deliver to the hungry hungry hippos up front. Le CRas with 6, JK with 5, Hutchings and Darling a couple then the midfielders chimed in. Can they do it away from home?

Clearly two sides in a different space, the Eagles get their first gettable opponent away from home for the year and if Carltons zone is too much for Port then the Eagles web on the relatively narrow Adelaide Oval will be too. Eagles by 26 points.

It's funny that when I mentioned the Crows leaky defence a few weeks ago (after the Hawthorn loss) elsewhere, I was accused of kicking the team while they were down.

Now more and more people are finally waking up to how deplorable our defence has been all season.

We've known it's the case all year, I've mentioned it plenty of times, as has Ginge. Fortunately your forward line compensates for it in most cases.

The other areas was midfield leg speed, as noted above, it's left wanting by the top sides.

Brucetiki wrote:It's funny that when I mentioned the Crows leaky defence a few weeks ago (after the Hawthorn loss) elsewhere, I was accused of kicking the team while they were down.

Now more and more people are finally waking up to how deplorable our defence has been all season.

I actually don't think our defensive unit has been deplorable at all, in fact I think they have performed very well over the first 8 weeks and kept us in games we shouldn't have been in. Hartigan has improved significantly, Laird was fantastic before his injury, Brown has also been fantastic. Talia & Lever have been serviceable, not poor by any means.

Our problem is in the midfield, and the lack of 'team defence' and two way running that is just allowing too many inside 50's. The reason for the 'leakiness' is sheer weight of numbers, not poor performance of the defensive unit. I think they've limited the damage very well.

I must say I'm quite surprised at how much you're teeing off on Adelaide at the moment Brucetiki. The way your talking makes it sounds like they've been getting flogged every second week. Personally I think they've shown plenty over this first 8 weeks, and far more than most 'experts' and fans expected them too. I saw plenty of pundits and Crows fans predicting a potential 0-8 start.

For me the season start could easily have been better (by a kick or two, not much), but it so easily could've been worse. We've played all of the contenders bar GWS, we haven't disgraced ourselves, and we've learned plenty about the areas of improvement needed over the next couple of months to ensure we're in a good place come September - and we only need to find 10% maybe, a margin that should be easy to find given that several of our best are not playing at their best at the moment.

I'm very confident with the way Adelaide are heading, the way they are playing, and the way they are being coached. IMO from here we'll make finals - where at worst we'll be a nuisance side that others will want to avoid, and at best we may well have a shot at it. Really looking forward to the rest of the season from here.

Will Adelaide have enough gas in the tank to find 10% in the last 6 weeks of the year though?

Who knows?

Hopefully they've found the 10% by then and can treat the last 6 weeks as a dress rehearsal for September.

For me over the next few weeks it's all about getting that midfield combination/balance right. Plenty of ways to make that happen as well, with Brad Crouch capable of significant improvement, and 3 or 4 others knocking on the door in the SANFL.

As much as he's one of my favourites and I hate to say it, I actually think Richard Douglas might be in trouble this week. Would not be surprised if Lyons comes in for him. Thompson is down but has enough credits in the bank still.

Brad Crouch presents a real dilemma as he is miles above SANFL standard, but hasn't been able to reproduce that form at AFL level yet. For mine I'd persist with him. He could be the difference come September, and as such needs as many minutes in that midfield as possible.

B Crouch is coming from a long way back. We all know how important it is not only to complete a preseason in full, but for the top flight midfielders the continuity of their form relies on at least 2 or 3 full preseasons under the belt and consistent training loads. Crouch has not had either at any time. I think he's likely to be in and out this year and "managed", which ultimately means he'll not ever really be up to speed this year. He can't be, with no football last year and an interrupted start to this year you can see he's off the pace. At SANFL level his smarts and natural ability will see him look a class above, at AFL level the lack of miles in the legs will see him paddling from time to time.

Yes that is very true. Will be a challenge for Adelaide to manage the long term goals of his development/improvement while also trying to give the team the best chance at favourable results for the rest of 2016.

In retrospect I don't think it was a good idea for them to bring him in against the potential top 4 units of the Dogs and the Cats. They perhaps should've kept him in the SANFL until this week and eased him in against GC.

Booney wrote:B Crouch is coming from a long way back. We all know how important it is not only to complete a preseason in full, but for the top flight midfielders the continuity of their form relies on at least 2 or 3 full preseasons under the belt and consistent training loads. Crouch has not had either at any time. I think he's likely to be in and out this year and "managed", which ultimately means he'll not ever really be up to speed this year. He can't be, with no football last year and an interrupted start to this year you can see he's off the pace. At SANFL level his smarts and natural ability will see him look a class above, at AFL level the lack of miles in the legs will see him paddling from time to time.

Very well put Booney. describes the situation perfectly.

Troy Pannell has been appointed to the Gold Coast v Adelaide game. Could be an interesting reaction from Crows supporters.

Gingernuts wrote:

Brucetiki wrote:It's funny that when I mentioned the Crows leaky defence a few weeks ago (after the Hawthorn loss) elsewhere, I was accused of kicking the team while they were down.

Now more and more people are finally waking up to how deplorable our defence has been all season.

I actually don't think our defensive unit has been deplorable at all, in fact I think they have performed very well over the first 8 weeks and kept us in games we shouldn't have been in. Hartigan has improved significantly, Laird was fantastic before his injury, Brown has also been fantastic. Talia & Lever have been serviceable, not poor by any means.

Our problem is in the midfield, and the lack of 'team defence' and two way running that is just allowing too many inside 50's. The reason for the 'leakiness' is sheer weight of numbers, not poor performance of the defensive unit. I think they've limited the damage very well.

I must say I'm quite surprised at how much you're teeing off on Adelaide at the moment Brucetiki. The way your talking makes it sounds like they've been getting flogged every second week. Personally I think they've shown plenty over this first 8 weeks, and far more than most 'experts' and fans expected them too. I saw plenty of pundits and Crows fans predicting a potential 0-8 start.

For me the season start could easily have been better (by a kick or two, not much), but it so easily could've been worse. We've played all of the contenders bar GWS, we haven't disgraced ourselves, and we've learned plenty about the areas of improvement needed over the next couple of months to ensure we're in a good place come September - and we only need to find 10% maybe, a margin that should be easy to find given that several of our best are not playing at their best at the moment.

I'm very confident with the way Adelaide are heading, the way they are playing, and the way they are being coached. IMO from here we'll make finals - where at worst we'll be a nuisance side that others will want to avoid, and at best we may well have a shot at it. Really looking forward to the rest of the season from here.

Ok, deplorable may be too strong a word, but conceding nearly 100 points per game is not elite and they need to tighten up considerably and be more composed under pressure, otherwise we won't hit anywhere near the pointy end of the season (as in top 4).

I also agree that our season could've been much worse given the draw we had, and 4-4 is still respectable, but we're also 1-3 in the last 4 weeks (and that win was a win against Freo where, frankly, had it been against any other side, we would've lost that game). I guess I'm frustrated that it was a lack of discipline against North and a lack of composure against Hawthorn that resulted in us losing the first two games. Then there was last week's effort against Geelong, where we were non-competitive for pretty much the entire game (despite what the scoreboard said - and that was more a reflection on Geelong than us).

I was hoping we'd go up to the Gold Coast and play ourselves into some decent form ready for GWS, but we've just picked van Berlo in the side, so it's clear the club is happy for a pedestrian, second gear effort on Saturday.

Yea I'm really not sure why they've picked Van Berlo. Surely they could've gone with Grigg or Ellis-Yolmen. Grigg in particular given he is pretty good by foot.

Van Berlo is the last of Craig's Crowbots. A fantastic athlete, but cannot kick a footy.

We'll see what happens on Saturday I suppose.

One of the Crows coaches said "ven Berlo is versatile and can play lots of roles", anyone else hear that and if so, who said it?

Odd selection indeed, will he even be on the list next year?

Feeling a bit flat about our work at the selection table actually.

So many young players in top form and desperate for a crack and we pick Van Berlo.

I mean, I'm sure he's a great bloke, the players clearly love him, and he's been a fantastic servant to the club - but he's done surely.

A couple of questionable ones now. B Crouch coming in, clearly they'd change that with time over and now VB's selection.

Almost as odd as choosing VB at the bottle shop.

The decision makes me want to drink VB

Brucetiki wrote:The decision makes me want to drink VB

Now now, that's a bit extreme!

Brucetiki wrote:The decision makes me want to drink VB

Nothing would want to make me VB - I'd rather be a teetotaller.

Well the Adelaide game was a bit of a yawn fest, as expected.

Some players who had been off a bit showed some good form, but other than that I'm not sure you can take much out of it except a bit of a confidence build after a tough first 8 weeks.

Still some concerning turnovers IMO, hopefully Laird is back in this week to help tidy up our work coming out of half back. I'm thinking it might be time to give Lever a rest and bring in Otten as well. Otten has experience, form, and a bigger body. Time to get him in I reckon. Hopefully Brown pulls up okay from his rolled ankle too, we'll need him this week.

Van Berlo did enough, but didn't really show anything that justified his selection over Grigg/Ellis-Yolmen.