Preview Round 13 Port vs Pussies, Adelaide Oval, Thursday June 10 7.10pm

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VS
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Thursday June 10, 7.10 pm
Adelaide Oval (probably)

Should be a cracking game, both teams at 8/3 going into the bye rounds and sitting at 5th and 4th respectively. Recent form for both teams involve wasting an afternoon trying to conquer Mt Collingwood, with similar results. Geelong are on a 4 game winning streak, with their last loss to Sydney, and they have also lost to Adelaide and Melbourne. However, they have solid results against the better teams, with demolitions of the Eagles and Tigers on their resume.

Geelong are expecting several changes to their most recent team, with Dangerfield, Duncan, Guthrie, Miers, O'Connor and Blicavs headlining their potential inclusions after overcoming injuries. It would be a massive slab of changes, and maybe they will also look to their R14 game against the Bulldogs to stagger the inclusions. In fact, they have a terrifying month ahead, with us, Bulldogs and Brisbane on their immediate agenda, so if we can win it might be the impetus for us to stake our claim on the top 4 spot that we are contesting.

For us, it seems like the cavalry is still over the hill. Butters is expected to return to running this week, and Duursma is on the track already; Lycett will serve out his suspension in this game and Clurey is still eating through a straw. Fantasia had minor surgery this morning and will miss against Geelong, so perhaps Woodcock or Bergman will replace him, and we know that Hartlett will be considered for an instant return. Burton is being managed, but has started every game this year, much to the surprise of all!

Geelong play a similar style to Collingwood, except with better players - they like to play a measured, careful game but have the capacity to explode to their big forwards Cameron and Hawkins, who make the likes of Rohan, Close and Higgins dangerous. McKenzie played Tomahawk expertly in the Qualifying Final last year, pushing him wide and playing him tight. We have countered their recruitment of Cameron with the inclusion of Aliir, which shapes as a great contest, and Burton, DBJ, Bonner and Jonas will be our other defenders.

In our attacking half, Dixon showed signs of improvement against the Dockers, and Marshall and Georgiades have been reliable sidekicks (if slightly inconsistent). The small forward stocks are being tested, but we still have Robbie Gray, Motlop, Rozee and SPP down there, so there is plenty of offensive threats for the Cats to worry about. Their defence is undersized, with Henderson the biggest and likely to ge the task on Charlie(unless Blicavs plays back). Stewart, Tuohy, Kolodjashjnij and Henry are all similar types - they will probably send Henry and Kolo to Marshall and Georgi, and Stewart to Gray.

However, it is in the midfield that this game will be decided. We know that, in the short-circuits against the Eagles, Lions and Dogs, our midfield was beaten badly early, and the team is fully aware of this and should be on guard against similar lapses. Ladhams will be up against Ratugolea, or possibly Stanley, and Pistol Pete has been in fairly good form; however, he is an inexperienced player still who still strives for consistency. At his best, he will lose or break even on hitouts but provide a level of ground level skills that few ruckmen possess. Wines and Boak are carrying the can for the midfielders, and both have been superb throughout this season, but they will encounter a strong Cats midfield of Selwood, Dangerfield, Guthrie, Parfitt and Isaac Smith. The likes of Drew, SPP, Houston and Amon will need to pay due diligence to the defensive aspects of their games to prevent quick ball movement to the Geelong forwards, and also be prepared to spread hard when it goes our way to prevent Geelong from setting their zones up.

Geelong are notoriously slow to restart after a bye, and playing in Adelaide has been kryptonite for them lately, losing their past 2 games here. They also have to deal with their statewide lockdown, whereas we have fairly full freedoms at this stage. As long as we can hang tough early, we have shown that we are a good team, building towards finals and reasonably settled.

I tip the Ports, by 10 points. Lots of cobras.

 

EskimoPAFC

The Comebacks & Family Man
Dec 17, 2017
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We seemed to actually learn something with our start against the Dockers.

Reckon this one comes down to the Cats supplement system though. If they come out at full strength we probably can't match them with all of our outs, but if they come out groggy as they usually do after the bye we might snatch it. Somehow I feel like the latter is the more reliable expectation - they barely win after the bye in H&A (I'm not including those wins in the covid madness season). In a sport where sides are close having your players basically playing hungover makes it difficult to win against any side outside of the bottom 4, and to compete over 4 quarters.

So Ports by 20 on the back of the Cats falling off late and I hope we don't get overconfident on the back of it.
 
Oct 12, 2007
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I think we will lose this one comfortably but it won't tell us much about our season.

Our real test comes later in the year once we get a few back.

I dont expect us to be beating top 4 teams until then.

Til then we just need to keep beating the teams below us to keep our top 4 chances alive.

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The two moments I remember most vividly from the final are Duursma running back with the flight of the footy against Blicavs and Butters getting crunched in the forward 50 and still getting the handball off to set up a goal.

We miss these two more than we know.
 
Im not as anxious about playing Geelong as I used to be. We seem to match up well against them recently but with our injuries this could be one we drop.

Port by 17pts
 

Willsy10

Norm Smith Medallist
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Geelong's form hasn't been that much better than ours, their last 3 weeks have been nothing special, they're definitely beatable.

At home i think we should win this, we actually seem to be getting back to being a very hard team to beat at home. Only the dogs have got us in a close one that came down to the last couple minutes, where they kicked 2 goals late to seal it. It could've been a different story if Clurey hadn't have got injured.

I'm tipping Port in a close one by 14 points.
 
I can't see port turning its form around in such a short time. with Butters, duurs, fantasia, lycett all likely outs and too many out of form.

I feel we have to wait until August before we understand if we are good enough to beat top 4 sides............unless we sack Ken this fortnight.
 

backtozero

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Jul 26, 2020
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Depends which Port turns up - the one that played Geelong in the minor round last year or the one that played them in the QF.
Being basically an 8 point game, we can't afford to take it easy for this one.
 
Geelong's form hasn't been that much better than ours, their last 3 weeks have been nothing special, they're definitely beatable.

They've been worse. But like us, keep winning.

Their game against Collingwood was hands down the worst game of football in the last 20 years. And Collingwood weren't alone in contributing to that.
 

Adz2332

Brownlow Medallist
Sep 9, 2010
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We need to win this one no matter what.
Win and we look like even without a full strength side we can finish top 4. loose and we start to loose touch of the top 4 and the important ins might come to late to really matter
 

Willsy10

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 3, 2014
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I wouldn't mind being enlightened on why so many are predicting we are no chance at home of beating Geelong? And that we are so out of form we couldn't possibly turn it around in time? There is literally only percentage separating us and Geelong and recent form going into this match is similar.

I'm a bit confused by the negativity.

I think because it is at home we will start favourites. We've knocked them off the last two times at home.

The other thing to consider is Geelong have historically been terrible and have lost after the bye, it's literally happened every time in recent memory.
 

EskimoPAFC

The Comebacks & Family Man
Dec 17, 2017
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I wouldn't mind being enlightened on why so many are predicting we are no chance at home of beating Geelong? And that we are so out of form we couldn't possibly turn it around in time? There is literally only percentage separating us and Geelong and recent form going into this match is similar.

I'm a bit confused by the negativity.

I think because it is at home we will start favourites. We've knocked them off the last two times at home.

The other thing to consider is Geelong have historically been terrible and have lost after the bye, it's literally happened every time in recent memory.

Meh top 4 side and the best h&a team of the last decade and we have about a third of our best 22 out or clearly not 100%. I can understand the negativity even though I agree with you due to the last statement.
 
The players decide to just turn off completely for whatever reason, and for large periods as well. People externally are getting on the clubs case that we are the biggest downhill skiers in the AFL. We need big scalps. We need to bring the effort consistently against good sides to be a chance of making top 4.
 
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