Analysis Adelaide against the top teams

[AmericanCrow]

Actually, we lost to Hawthorn and Sydney in finals in 2012 too.

So its 4-24.

Damn..knew it was rough but yikes that is Cleveland Brownsesque versus the division. Say it ain't so!

 

[azza77]

We can't beat a top team because our midfield as a unit, is ****ing deplorable. Sure we may have some individual stars, but as a unit we are rarely on song.

- We never seem to have anyone on the defensive side of the contest, it's see ball get ball.
- We can't spread
- We still can't tackle properly (has improved though)
- we can't run 2 ways
- we can't ****ing kick.

The battle is won in the midfield IMO, plain and simple. Occasionally we have the individual brilliance of some of our stars who put the team on their shoulders and the lesser teams are not a good enough 'unit' to overcome our top end players dragging us over the line. But when going up against the big boys, we fall to pieces through the midfield every god damn ****ing time. The good teams have 8-10 players rotating through who all know exactly what they're doing and execute it to plan. We have danger, or sometimes it's Sloane, or Douglas, or Thommo.

When all of them fire however, we look like a damn good football team. Go watch our round 1 fixture vs North and look at the movement and cohesion of our midfield, it's a sight for sore eyes. But it is a rare sight if anything. I sometimes sit back and just watch in awe at the Hawks players just rolling through the midfield in waves, they always have players in the right spot and are set up so well. Tigers and Sydney too. Yes they are also much better users of the ball and probably better decision makers too, but even when they muff a kick, they are always set up so well and their pressure is manic in their attempt to win the ball back.

Our midfield is our biggest weakness. Our defence is young and actually holds up quite well 1v1 for such an inexperienced unit. Our forwards are also decent at making something happen when they are on the end of "good" entries. However we don't apply enough pressure and allow entries into our defence under little to no pressure, and going the other way we dish up a steaming pile of shit on a golden platter to the likes of Betts, Tex and JJ way too often.

I'm somewhat comfortable in saying that the intent is there from our players (bar hendo), but the cohesion is not. We play dumb football, and so much of our good work is too often in vein.

 

[Crows4Eva]

Young team with not enough experience and a lack of genuine pace through the middle are two massive factors holding us back.

I also think the players are psychologically exhausted after the last month. We were finally seeing some real progress under Walsh and Fagen but we've regressed since Walshy's death which isn't a huge surprise.

Hopfully Fagen and co can get everyone back on track, unfortuntely it probably won't happen properly until the preseason when the spotlight isn't on football so much and we aren't having to prepare for a match every week.

 

[Mike Smyth]

4 from 24. Mediocre club is being nice. We're an average club who finishes mid table so never gets the elite talent. The Glenelg if the AFL.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Not enough experience now, not enough experience five years ago

 

[Mattrox]

Not enough experience now, not enough experience five years ago

Injury list as long as the Nile.

 

[Bovo]

Our midfield is our biggest weakness. Our defence is young and actually holds up quite well 1v1 for such an inexperienced unit. Our forwards are also decent at making something happen when they are on the end of "good" entries. However we don't apply enough pressure and allow entries into our defence under little to no pressure, and going the other way we dish up a steaming pile of shit on a golden platter to the likes of Betts, Tex and JJ way too often.

Interesting. Our midfield is probably not the best balance however I think our backline is probably the real issue.

In a 1 on 1 they are going to win and lose their share of the ball, however since Jaensch has been injured our run out of defence has been quite staggered. Sometimes we execute it well but often we hesitate and allow the opposition to zone up.

Our mids definitely need to be the link that assists the defence, but if you want to move the ball quickly up the field....the last thing you want is our midfield down our half of the ground. If the mid comes down, the forward line comes down.....and then there is nobody to kick to in the forward line.

Imagine two evenly sided mids going head to head in the middle. There is no way you are going to win 100% of the clearances. The ball is going to end up in our defence. We need to defend, rebound quickly and catch the opposition midfield out of position. We need rebounding defenders to do this.

Our backline wins the ball and waits. They kick it left.....they kick it right....they take too long and the run is often too little too late.

 

[Smoooothy]

Injury list as long as the Nile.

but it isn't

 

[Mattrox]

but it isn't

In 2010?

 

[Smoooothy]

In 2010?

ok, fair call

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

In 2010?

Which would mean that we're even MORE experienced now because back then kids were getting extra games as a result of these injuries.

Inexperienced 2010
Inexperienced 2011
Inexperienced 2012
Inexperienced 2013
Inexperienced 2014
Inexperienced 2015

 

[skoobydoo]

And yet our tackling against the Pear was super solid. Best I can remember for years.

 

[skoobydoo]

We can't beat a top team because our midfield as a unit, is ****ing deplorable. Sure we may have some individual stars, but as a unit we are rarely on song.

- We never seem to have anyone on the defensive side of the contest, it's see ball get ball.
- We can't spread
- We still can't tackle properly (has improved though)
- we can't run 2 ways
- we can't ****ing kick.

The battle is won in the midfield IMO, plain and simple. Occasionally we have the individual brilliance of some of our stars who put the team on their shoulders and the lesser teams are not a good enough 'unit' to overcome our top end players dragging us over the line. But when going up against the big boys, we fall to pieces through the midfield every god damn ****ing time. The good teams have 8-10 players rotating through who all know exactly what they're doing and execute it to plan. We have danger, or sometimes it's Sloane, or Douglas, or Thommo.

When all of them fire however, we look like a damn good football team. Go watch our round 1 fixture vs North and look at the movement and cohesion of our midfield, it's a sight for sore eyes. But it is a rare sight if anything. I sometimes sit back and just watch in awe at the Hawks players just rolling through the midfield in waves, they always have players in the right spot and are set up so well. Tigers and Sydney too. Yes they are also much better users of the ball and probably better decision makers too, but even when they muff a kick, they are always set up so well and their pressure is manic in their attempt to win the ball back.

Our midfield is our biggest weakness. Our defence is young and actually holds up quite well 1v1 for such an inexperienced unit. Our forwards are also decent at making something happen when they are on the end of "good" entries. However we don't apply enough pressure and allow entries into our defence under little to no pressure, and going the other way we dish up a steaming pile of shit on a golden platter to the likes of Betts, Tex and JJ way too often.

I'm somewhat comfortable in saying that the intent is there from our players (bar hendo), but the cohesion is not. We play dumb football, and so much of our good work is too often in vein.

I haven't checked out replay but I remember coming away from the 1st quarter against Sydney thinking our centre setup was just so one-sided and static. I felt they were all steadfastly waiting for Jacobs to initiate something.

 

[rezagun]

Hard to beat top sides when you go into every game carrying a number of 'non-statistical' players

This.

 

[Rotayjay]

Kudos to OutOfTownCrow for spelling it out methodically. Just a few short years ago, we would actually upset top-4 sides with some regularity (for example, beating Geelong in 2010, Sydney in 2012, and Geelong in 2013).

Yet in more recent times, we have won against teams that were highly-ranked at the time but went on to finish outside the top 4. That means those teams were not such big scalps after all. For example, the Pear were at the top of the ladder in June 2014 when we beat them, but they weren't *that* good because they finished 5th. It was a fantastic win, but when placed in context it's not that impressive.

If I recall correctly, the last time the Crows beat a side which actually finished in the top 4 was in July 2013 when they defeated Geelong at Footy Park.

I believe this goes to show that our list is simply not classy enough at the moment.

 

[Bonkers000]

Kudos to OutOfTownCrow for spelling it out methodically. Just a few short years ago, we would actually upset top-4 sides with some regularity (for example, beating Geelong in 2010, Sydney in 2012, and Geelong in 2013).

Yet in more recent times, we have won against teams that were highly-ranked at the time but went on to finish outside the top 4. That means those teams were not such big scalps after all. For example, the Pear were at the top of the ladder in June 2014 when we beat them, but they weren't *that* good because they finished 5th. It was a fantastic win, but when placed in context it's not that impressive.

If I recall correctly, the last time the Crows beat a side which actually finished in the top 4 was in July 2013 when they defeated Geelong at Footy Park.

I believe this goes to show that our list is simply not classy enough at the moment.

another problem you pointed out is that we "upset" these teams. We need to be good enough to go into these as the favorite and show the rest of the competition why. Particually when it's our home game.

 

[baldandbroke]

It got me interested as to where we sit compared to other teams ... so here are the league stats against top 4 teams for the last 5 and a bit seasons:


* The YELLOW shows the top 4 teams for that year.

In order from best win percentage to worst:

1 Hawthorn
2 Geelong
3 Collingwood
4 Sydney
5 Richmond
6 St Kilda
7 North Melbourne
8 Essendon
9 Fremantle
10 Adelaide
11 West Coast
12 Port
13 Brisbane
14 Carlton
15 Western Bulldogs
16 GWS Giants
17 Gold Coast
18 Melbourne

In order from most games played against the top 4 to least:

34 Port
33 Essendon
30 Geelong
30 North Melbourne
30 Sydney
29 Carlton
29 Hawthorn
28 Brisbane
28 Melbourne
28 Richmond
28 West Coast
27 Adelaide
27 Collingwood
27 Fremantle
27 St Kilda
27 Western Bulldogs
24 Gold Coast <played 1 fewer seasons>
20 GWS Giants <played 2 fewer seasons>

(note - when you are one of the top 4 teams this number would drop - as you cannot play yourself !)

PS - I found another win for us in 2013 while doing this - have edited the previous post

 

[Crow_Magnon]

And yet our tackling against the Pear was super solid. Best I can remember for years.

Yeah, but the Pears are not top 4 material either, their year almost mirrors us in 2013 after our Prelim in 2012. I don't think they're exactly bristling with muscle-men either, so our tackles are more likely to stick.....

 

[Mattrox]

Which would mean that we're even MORE experienced now because back then kids were getting extra games as a result of these injuries.

Inexperienced 2010
Inexperienced 2011
Inexperienced 2012
Inexperienced 2013
Inexperienced 2014
Inexperienced 2015

Kids (under 21) like Petrenko, Armstrong, Cook.

Those who remain with us like Walker, Sloane, Dangerfield are our top tier.

Mackay turned 22 that year and Dougy was 23.....

Oh Sellar was played as well as Will Young, Phil Davis, Matthew Jaensch, Chis Schmidt and Jack Gunston.


As I go through games there were regularly 6 or more 21yo or under played

A good majority spuds. Those still with us are mostly quality players, with Mackay the only middling player. With the notable loss of Davis and Gunston.


We were blooding kids (injuires may have forced it) in the 1st 10 rounds.... we won 2 games. The following year Craig is sacked midst a sea of fans baying for blood because of a disastrous start to 2010 and a shocker in 2011.

And people wonder why some coaches avoid kids........

It just so happens we had a lot of spud kids on the list.

You argument sounds nice, but when we go back and look at all the "kids" back then, we have turned over the vast majority in 5 years......

The result is still a young list with new kids.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Maybe 6 <21 isn't enough when rebuilding after the loss of all our experienced stars, because not every young player works out.

It's almost as though we thought we were contending so were going all out to win games, thinking that the kids would get games when they were ready.

Rinse and repeat in 2011.

Rinse and repeat in 2012.

Rinse and repeat in 2013.

Rinse and repeat in 2014.

2015? Felt a bit different for a while but familiarity is creeping back in.

 

[azza77]

Interesting. Our midfield is probably not the best balance however I think our backline is probably the real issue.

In a 1 on 1 they are going to win and lose their share of the ball, however since Jaensch has been injured our run out of defence has been quite staggered. Sometimes we execute it well but often we hesitate and allow the opposition to zone up.

Our mids definitely need to be the link that assists the defence, but if you want to move the ball quickly up the field....the last thing you want is our midfield down our half of the ground. If the mid comes down, the forward line comes down.....and then there is nobody to kick to in the forward line.

Imagine two evenly sided mids going head to head in the middle. There is no way you are going to win 100% of the clearances. The ball is going to end up in our defence. We need to defend, rebound quickly and catch the opposition midfield out of position. We need rebounding defenders to do this.

Our backline wins the ball and waits. They kick it left.....they kick it right....they take too long and the run is often too little too late.

I agree with the first bolded part. Our transition play from defence just looks awkward and very forced. There's no flow or rhythm to the way we play. This could very much be attribute to our kicking, or lack there of from the backline, with really only Lairdy holding up his end of the bargain. However, I think it's again down to our midfield spread, and then when we break the first line of the midfield, we can't do anything with it still.

How many times do you see us get the ball out of our 50 and into the middle of the ground behind the center square, but then we stagnate. There's no run, there's no carry, there's no one to kick to apart from occasionally Lynch and Tex leading out of the 50, which again forces us to take on the difficult kick into a crowded middle where we have to back our forwards to actually take the mark too.

In regards to the second bit, yeah we wont win 100% of clearances, but Im not expecting us too either. I think you may have missed my point a little. It's not about just the clearances, we actually stack as well as a clearance midfield compared to the rest of the AFL. Its everything that our midfield does AFTER the clearance that we fail at, literally EVERYTHING. Defensive positioning mainly, where to run and when, kicking, tackling pressure, perceived pressure. You name it, we suck at it.

 

[Mattrox]

Kudos to OutOfTownCrow for spelling it out methodically. Just a few short years ago, we would actually upset top-4 sides with some regularity (for example, beating Geelong in 2010, Sydney in 2012, and Geelong in 2013).

Yet in more recent times, we have won against teams that were highly-ranked at the time but went on to finish outside the top 4. That means those teams were not such big scalps after all. For example, the Pear were at the top of the ladder in June 2014 when we beat them, but they weren't *that* good because they finished 5th. It was a fantastic win, but when placed in context it's not that impressive.

If I recall correctly, the last time the Crows beat a side which actually finished in the top 4 was in July 2013 when they defeated Geelong at Footy Park.

I believe this goes to show that our list is simply not classy enough at the moment.

In 2012 beating a top 4 side was not an upset. We were top 4 so it should have happened.

In 2010 we started 6-0 and had 2 wins by round 10, we beat Geelong in round 16 with what appears to be a full strength side. No Sellar, Armstrong or Cook etc. We finished the 2nd half of the year off 7 -4. I reckon injuries were the cause of our weaker performances, but that might be my selective memory.

After we lost Tippett for nothing and had draft sanctions we were not able to refresh our list, plus Walker's knew in 2013. On top of that Doughty retired and then Johncock. We are lucky Rutten made it through 2014, sort of....

The last 2 years we have not had a top 4 list so we will be pushing shit up a hill to beat them. However, we vastly under performed in 2014. The inconsistency and losing games we had no business losing hurt us badly.

If we play our best football consistently we should be a top six finisher. Last year we were all over the shop, this year we have been forced to eat the biggest shit sandwhich after looking like we are getting a system together.

Knowing we are currently not a top 4 contender, it would be nice to play well and pinch a game from a top 4 side, but it's unrealistic as an expectation. We played well against Freo and Hawthorn this year, but they showed us that we are just a rung under them.

I'm with King Elvis, 2 or 3 key recruits, plus development from the promising youngsters and we will move in the right direction with the right coach next year.

Remember, we were cruelled with injury in the 1st half of this year and we gave a relatively good account of ourselves.

Not winning vs top 4 sides becomes a problem if we beat EVERYBODY else and finish near the top......

 

[Mike Smyth]

So how do we rectify the problem, apart from bottoming out, which may happen eventually anyway? Especially if our current midfield losses Thompson and Dangerfield.

 

[baldandbroke]

So how do we rectify the problem, apart from bottoming out, which may happen eventually anyway? Especially if our current midfield losses Thompson and Dangerfield.

You shake up the organisation - get a new CEO - at least one new board member who understands what it takes to be successful in the AFL - a new coach - new assistants - use trade / FA / drafts to your advantage - don't do anything that will cost you draft picks ...

Then you need a bit of luck with injuries, a lot of hard work and sacrifice, and some patience.

We are on our way - we just hit a major bump with Walshy's passing - our fortunes will not change over-night, they will take a long term effort.

Look at the Hawks:

Year - Position / Played / Won / Drawn / Lost
2001 - 4 / 22 / 13 / 9
2002 - 10 / 22 / 11 / 11
2003 - 9 / 22 / 12 / 10
2004 - 15 / 22 / 4 / 18
2005 - 14 / 22 / 5 / 17
2006 - 11 / 22 / 9 / 13
2007 - 6 / 22 / 13 / 9
2008 - Premiers / 22 / 17 / 5
2009 - 9 / 22 / 9v13
2010 - 7 / 22 / 12 / 1 / 9
2011 - 3 / 22 / 18 / 4
2012 - Grand Finalist / 22 / 17 / 5
2013 - Premiers / 22 / 19 / 3
2014 - Premiers / 22 / 17 / 5

 

[Jack is Back]

Maybe 6 <21 isn't enough when rebuilding after the loss of all our experienced stars, because not every young player works out.

It's almost as though we thought we were contending so were going all out to win games, thinking that the kids would get games when they were ready.

Rinse and repeat in 2011.

Rinse and repeat in 2012.

Rinse and repeat in 2013.

Rinse and repeat in 2014.

2015? Felt a bit different for a while but familiarity is creeping back in.

From the time Blighty departed we have been below average in the AFL for playing the KIDS.

Ayres always thought we were on the cusp of winning the flag (Carey + Ronnie = Premiership). To be fair, we played finals 8 times in 9 years between 2001 and 2009. We played relatively few KIDS in 2005 and 2006 under Neil Craig which was consistent with challenging for the flag. With the benefit of hindsight, more KIDS and less finals from 2007-2009 would have served us better.

The steady retirement of high quality, older players resulted in a rise in the games to KIDS in 2010 and 2011 along with a fall down the ladder. In some ways the 2012 Prelim was where we lost the plot. We had an amazing first half to the season but our performances were very average in the second half of the year with the exception of the 2012 Prelim. Sando was infected with Ayres disease and we usually played mature journeymen over KIDS throughout 2013 and 2014.

The brief summer of Phil saw a move towards more KIDS and I expected this to increase not decrease. Campo is in an ideal position to play the KIDS (read my lips Campo "YOU WILL NOT BE THE SENIOR COACH NEXT YEAR") but we seem to be going in the other direction. Apparently Matty Crouch, CEY, Griggs, Lyons etc can only overcome their deficiencies in the twos but vB, Wright and Mackay are too old to change bad habits so we will keep playing them.