Preview Preliminary Final v Fremantle at Adelaide Oval

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Cannot afford to make any mistakes next week. The umpires will be on Melbourne's side. No one wants to see the Crows win. They all want Daisy to have her fairytale ending.
I'm just waiting for the decision to move the GF to the MCG because - tradition....
 

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Now, I don't know if this is the right place to say this but as a club, we need to make sure Ben Keays and Ebony Marinoff do not hook up
 
How much of a luxury is it for us to be able to slot Randall in at this stage of the season. She looks pretty much back to her athletic best, but she has the luxury to just plug gaps wherever we feel like putting her. She's pretty much guaranteed to lay a few crunching tackles, a few big bumps, take a few intercept marks, and just generally make the opponent hurt throughout the match.

I really hope she reprises her matchup with Tayla Harris next week. Third time in a grand final, for three different clubs!
 
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How much of a luxury is it for us to be able to slot Randall in at this stage of the season. She looks pretty much back to her athletic best, but she has the luxury to just plug gaps wherever we feel like putting her. She's pretty much guaranteed to lay a few crunching tackles, a few big bumps, take a few intercept marks, and just generally make the opponent hurt throughout the match.

I really hope she reprises her matchup with Tayla Harris next week. Third time in a grand final, for three different clubs!
Harris losing three grand finals at three different clubs would be quite something
 
Great win. Agree with other posters, we will be savaged by the umpires next week as the Daisy Pearce premiership fairytale is rolled out.
 
Amer posting, there's a blast from the past!

But I agree. Yes, we've had exclusive access to SA talent, but as you say, it's not like we've been scooping up an Ebony Marinoff in each draft. Most of the time the good players in each draft come in the third or fourth round, which means even if Port was in the comp, we'd still have access to those players.

I see people complaining that we have also access to NT talent, which isn't even true anymore. We have exactly three players left on our list from the NT drafts, admittedly handy ones (Foley, Thompson, Ponter) but still. One of them wasn't even available this year. The NT connection was crucial in 2017, but in 2022 it's barely a footnote.

Our real strength has been keeping a core group of players together for a long period of time. That's really it. Still having Marinoff, Hatchard, Allan, Randall, Phillips, Thompson and Mules from the inaugural squad still playing together is a massive boon, not to mention long-term stalwarts like Jones, Rajcic, Ponter, etc. Throw Foley in once she returns from injury and that's half the side. From there, it's just about developing players to fill roles.

You mentioned Teah Charlton. In her draft year there was talk that she could be close to the #1 selection in an open draft. Not to denegrate her, but she's no Prespaskis. What she is is a handy player who was able to fill the role vacated by Sophie Li. Someone like Biddell who was the final draft pick in her draft class and has been able to cover for the retirement of Courtney Cramey. Ashleigh Woodland, rescued off the scrap-pile and recruited with our final selection to cover the departure of Chloe Scheer. I could go on and on. All role players, most of them lowly-rated in the draft.

Has it been handy having had "sole" access to SA players in the draft (although plenty still seem to have ended up interstate), yes. Of course. But I don't think the introduction of Port will prevent us from being able to find those role players in the draft. The key thing is to ensure that core group of stars sticks around, namely Marinoff, Hatchard, Allan, Randall, Woodland, at least one of Gould/McKinnon.
 
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Another classic example of Crows ingenuity was the drafting of Jess Foley. A 35 year old basketball player who had only taken up footy less than 18 months prior, recruited as cover for Jess Allan, ends up becoming our lead (and only) ruck in her debut season. I honestly don't think we would have even made the GF in 2019 without her on the list. We would have most likely turned to Sarah Allan or possibly even Maisie Nankivell to lead our ruck. It would have been a disaster.

A year later Foley was retired. We got her in for a two-year window as the backup to the backup, and turned it into a flag.
 

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