Adelaide

Great stuff so far! Keep it going lads!!!

Gazz wrote:Great stuff so far! Keep it going lads!!!

I'm getting pretty pumped with what I've seen so far - will easily win sat night (heard it here first) and trying to keep a lid on my expectations for the year!

Matt Rendell forced to resign - click

He had to go - to make those comments were nothing short of disgraceful, and the club will be better off without people like Rendell.

and here I was thinking 2012 would be a year without controversy.

When isn't there a year without one in the AFL?

Disappointed, surprised, shocked. Not the sort of thing I would have imagined was possible to come out of Crow-land. Hope it doesn't distract the club too much from tonight's goal of winning yet another game; to take as much winning form as possible into the first game of the season proper in a couple of weeks time.

MightyEagles wrote:When isn't there a year without one in the AFL?

Good point; but from my very vague memories, I don't think the Crows are involved in scandals as much as some other clubs. "Scandal" isn't a word I normally associate with this great club - I don't view Vince's boxers incident, for example, as a "scandal" personally; although to others it might be.

I have to say, Adelaide has been in the media a fair bit over the last few years for all the wrong reasons.

- Goodwin gambling
- Bock Assault
- Johncock driving discretions
- Thompson driving discretions
- Armstrong drink driving
- Vince varied discretions
- Several player defections to Gold Coast, GWS and other clubs
- Poor form
- Coach resignation
- Recruiter racism

These are just the few I could think of off the top of my head. All of the above has happened in Triggs time.

Personally I think it's time for Trigg to go and someone fresh to come in at the top. I'm not saying all of the above are his fault, but I think we've got a fresh approach on the field, and it's time that spread to the administration also IMO.

Gingernuts wrote:
These are just the few I could think of off the top of my head. All of the above has happened in Triggs time.

Personally I think it's time for Trigg to go and someone fresh to come in at the top. I'm not saying all of the above are his fault, but I think we've got a fresh approach on the field, and it's time that spread to the administration also IMO.

Agree 100% of this. To use a term Trigg used to describe Adelaide supporters, he has been 'pathetic' and he has ran this great club into the ground the past few seasons. He's called supporters pathetic, kept his rose coloured glasses on with Neil Craig, and put him on staff when any other CEO probably would have sacked him, badly handled the Bernie Vince situation, and made the club culture so poor good players have been leaving in droves.

He is a pathetic CEO and the sooner he goes the better.

Brucetiki wrote:

Gingernuts wrote:
These are just the few I could think of off the top of my head. All of the above has happened in Triggs time.

Personally I think it's time for Trigg to go and someone fresh to come in at the top. I'm not saying all of the above are his fault, but I think we've got a fresh approach on the field, and it's time that spread to the administration also IMO.

Agree 100% of this. To use a term Trigg used to describe Adelaide supporters, he has been 'pathetic' and he has ran this great club into the ground the past few seasons. He's called supporters pathetic, kept his rose coloured glasses on with Neil Craig, and put him on staff when any other CEO probably would have sacked him, badly handled the Bernie Vince situation, and made the club culture so poor good players have been leaving in droves.

He is a pathetic CEO and the sooner he goes the better.

Amen to that. Maybe it would spell the end of the "jobs for the boys" network down at Crowland. Not before time.

As for Rendell, what an incredibly stupid thing to say. Seriously, they need to keep footy people away from microphones.

Trigg has become a completely reactive. Sick and tired of unexpected press conferences being called and him rolling out his best stern face after another scandal/discretion/defection.

Time for someone proactive to take over.

Trigg would have done well to follow the lead of John Reid and move on to other opportunities at the top of his career rather than hanging on as Trigg clearly is and it becoming blatently obvious that he is the weak link in the chain. Triggs mishandling of the situation with Neil Craig should have made his position untenable IMO.

Think Neil Balme is the man for the job, time to come home Neil!

I've watched Brad Crouch closely in the two West trials he's played and I'm very impressed.

For such a young player he's excellent in close and has really quick hands. He'll obviously keep improving and Adelaide will have a terrific player next year.

Yea, I'm very excited about Crouch. His addition to a midfield of Dangerfield, Sloane, Thompson and co will make for a mean on ball unit next year. Think we've got a good few years coming up!

Rutten apparently landed awkwardly at training today. Not ruled out as yet but doesn't sound promising.

Our defence is going to be our main worry this year I think.

Nearly here!!!

R1 v Gold Coast

Team:
FF Taylor Walker Kurt Tippett Jason Porplyzia
HF Bernie Vince Tom Lynch Rory Sloane
C David Mackay Patrick Dangerfield Ricky Henderson
HB Brent Reilly Andy Otten Graham Johncock
FB Michael Doughty Ben Rutten Daniel Talia

Ruck
Sam Jacobs
Scott Thompson
Nathan van Berlo

Bench
Jared Petrenko
Richard Douglas
Brodie Smith
Ian Callinan

Rock solid line up. Very excited to see what they can do. Hopefully we can get through this round 1 with a few less injuries than last year!

Pretty happy with the game yesterday. The two things that stood out the most for me:

1. Their attack on the footy and general endeavour and enthusiasm is streets above what it was last year.

2. Disposal/goal kicking still has a bit of a way to go. Could've been 100+ if they tidied that up. It will come though.

Nice to start the year with a victory, but it's a long season as we found out last year!

Might have a go at doing a bit of a preview for the Adelaide v Western Bulldogs match.

Adelaide come into this week's match against the Western Bulldogs coming off a workmanlike 69 point win over the Gold Coast while the Bulldogs suffered a poor 49 point loss against West Coast.

Adelaide's pre-season has been well documented and celebrated with a NAB Cup win, and they continued that form in the opening round against the Suns. This week, however, brings a tougher challenge. While the Western Bulldogs aren't expected to do much this year, and were quite ordinary agains the Eagles, Adelaide will not want to underestimate them.

The line ups:

Adelaide
B: Rutten, Talia, Doughty
HB: Johncock, Otten, Smith
C: van Berlo, Dangerfield, Vince
HF: Petrenko, Douglas, Sloane
F: Tippett, Porplyzia, Walker
R: Jacobs, Thompson, Reilly
Int: Callinan, Henderson, Lynch, Mackay

Western Bulldogs
B: Murphy Lake Addison
HB: Hargrave Markovic Wood
C: Cross Boyd Griffen
HF: Dalhaus Jones Cooney
F: Higgins Minson Giansiracusa
R: Roughead Liberatore Picken
Int: Grant, Djerrkura, Smith, Dickson

This week's umpires:
Justin Schmitt (17), Sam Hay (20), Jordan Bannister (33). Emergency: Craig Fleer (2)

* Yes that former Essendon/Carlton player Jordan Bannister umpiring.

This will be a good test for Adelaide. Are they a side genuinely on the improve, or have they been lucky with a few undermanned sides in the NAB Cup and an expected easy win over Gold Coast? This should be a great game, and I expect Adelaide to pass this test and win comfortably.

Adelaide by 34 points.

The Hawthorn game is a real litmus test to see where the Crows are REALLY at in their new era. Last week, we were tested against an ordinary Western Bulldogs, and just passed the test. This week, we face a very tough Hawthorn side who have had mixed results in two incredibly tough matches.

Interestingly, the Crows go in with a 2-0 record while Hawthorn go in with a 1-1 record. Forget about this, as both sides have had two different paths in the opening two rounds.

Hawthorn will respond to today's loss in one of two ways.

1. They will be absolutely filthy with the loss and go storming into this match ready to make amends. This makes the Crows vulnerable to a big loss if they don't see this coming.

2. The big build up to their past two matches take their toll and they come into this game against a side that won't have a big media song and dance about the lead-in to the match a little off their game. If this happens, and Adelaide are aware of it, then they are a strong chance of pinching this game.

Adelaide will have to be prepared for any circumstance the Hawks throw at them. The Crows are capable of beating Hawthorn, evidenced in their round 1 win last year. It's a matter of how well Hawthorn respond to today's loss and how well Adelaide prepare for the Hawks respond to the loss.

It will be an entertaining match.

The 3rd quarter fade out concerns me. IMO the Bulldogs are not a top 8 side and we only just managed to scrape over the line against them. That said, last year’s Crows would most likely have lost that game, so the fight back for victory is very encouraging.

We are most in trouble when the opposition put numbers behind the ball it seems. The long bomb into the forward line is negated by sheer numbers and then when they run it out our weak backline cops it on the rebound. If teams are willing to engage in a shootout then we’ll do okay, but if they engage in negative flooding tactics then I think we will struggle, particularly if the opposition has a reasonable midfield to hurt us on the rebound.

There is a lot of talk already about this week’s game being the ultimate test. Whilst we are on the improve, I think we’ll most likely fail this weekend’s test comfortably.

I’m expecting a losing margin of around 45 -50 points. This might sound a bit negative, but if we lose by anything under 5 goals I’ll be relatively happy.

The Hawthorn v Geelong game was terrific to watch, hard and tough.

Who will replace Douglas in the line up? Could be any one of:

Jaensch
Martin
Kerridge

The Addie is even touting Symes today. I think that would be unlikely.

I would like to see Martin get another go. I remember him dominating a game against the Saints late in 2010 but the boy from Meningie has been plagued by injury and poor form ever since.

Seems to be a level above SANFL though.

I think Sando will go like for like and go for Wright.

Martin butchers the ball a bit too much for my liking.

He may also look at playing Shaw to strengthen up our defence, as they will probably have Buddy, Roughead, Hale and Gunston down there at some stage.