Bigman’s Training Reports

[1970crow]

You absolutely can perform better due to an easy draw.

We were 5-5 against teams from the top 8 and 13-0 against teams from the 9th -18th.

It's not a knock on the Crows - 2025 was a great season. We had a dream run with injury, had a bunch of players get to AA level (Dawson, Worrell, Keane, TT, Rankine) and played some scintillating football.

The biggest challenge for 2026 is going from the hunter to the hunted. We will have a harder draw, have lost the best fitness guy in Australia and still have a coach that isnt good on gameday.

Also - our best is absolutely good enough against anyone. We were only genuinely outclassed in two games this year (Freo and the Hawks final).

I am a believer that to win a flag and finals - everything needs to go right. I think that losing Rankine in the circumstances was an absolute massive blow to our entire squad and the main reason we were so flat entering the finals.

I don't disagree with almost all of this. Except that the flatness was evident against West Coast and Collingwood, both games Rankine was playing. We continued that trend against Roos and then in finals. But to say we flattened after the Rankine thing is extremely arguable.

 

[1970crow]

I disagree. I think that if the season was two months shorter, we would absolutely have been in the mix.

We clearly lost our way in the final month or two. Some of our younger players ran out of steam, the side as a whole lost momentum, and rather than addressing it our coaching staff just tried desperately to keep the train rolling.

I think we surprised ourselves at how well we were doing, and with the whole "we only think about next week" mentality, lost sight of the bigger picture.

The problem is that this isn't something new or peculiar to a Matthew Nicks led coaching group. This mentality has been a core philosophy since the early 2010s. People are posting like it was just something that cropped up unexpectedly and due to us finding ourselves in a challenging position. It was always going to happen because it's a deliberate strategy to maintain continuity.

 

[cmndstab]

I just dont understand this 'running out of steam' narrative. We won our last 9 games. In the last month before finals we beat two of the preliminary finals teams. Now I know that we also barely beat two cellar dwellers, but it's the AFL. Look at Brisbane. In the 5 weeks prior to the finals they got thumped 66 points by the Suns, lost to the Swans and then lost their first final by 38 points.

We had 12 days between Rd 24 and our first final. Fitness was not an issue.

Which of our younger players ran out of steam? I thought Curtin was decent against Collingwood but didnt play well against the Hawks.

We gave Dawson reduced minutes leading into finals, same as TT. We rested Laird and Walker in the lead up.

We were over-awed. Most of our team had not played finals. The Rankine drama was also a massive factor.

We won our matches, certainly. But in the last month, we were either limping over the line against weak teams, or we were expending every drop of energy we had to beat good teams. Collingwood kicked themselves out of the game, and we got lucky against Hawthorn. It was clear that we were flagging, but trying to ride our momentum into the finals. Unfortunately it ran out. The two teams we had beaten over a few rounds back were able to get past us pretty easily in the finals.

Many of our players (not just young ones) were nowhere near their earlier form by the end of the year. Curtin went from odds-on favourite for the rising star to being average. Berry fell away, Keays' output evaporated, Peatling's form dipped, Murray became a liability. Michalanney was injured, Rachele was injured, Butts had a collapsed lung. We ended up relying on the likes of Cook, Bond, Pedlar etc to come in late in the season after ignoring them all year long. We were well and truly sputtering by the time finals rolled around.

No doubt we were also overawed in the finals, and the Rankine drama didn't help. But the cracks were well and truly visible several weeks before the finals started.

 

[Golumless]

TBH, even though Riley Thilthorpe kicked 60 and was an AA, I still feel like his next step could be a big one.

There were multiple stretches where he just didnt seem to get the targets he really should for such a dominant presence.

This year I hope we plan on finding way more ways to isolate him and get him a big bump in targets. There's just so few defenders who can match him in the air, body and ground

The fact Thilthorpe kicked 60 indicates there is no more major steps in his game. Football does have a habit of imposing hard ceilings with how much players can produce.

It's just about year-to-year consistency now, and developing methods to counteract his body as it takes more wear and tear. Of course, what we do with Thilthorpe could alter things, for instance if we're willing to ditch his ruck minutes and run him as a 90% TOG key forward, 70-75 goals should be possible. Equally, it's not out of the question that pathway finds TT the extra disposal or two to put him in the Carey/Reidwoldt stat lines.

 

[cmndstab]

The problem is that this isn't something new or peculiar to a Matthew Nicks led coaching group. This mentality has been a core philosophy since the early 2010s. People are posting like it was just something that cropped up unexpectedly and due to us finding ourselves in a challenging position. It was always going to happen because it's a deliberate strategy to maintain continuity.

Don't get me wrong, we've always had a "make decisions to win the next game, not the long-term" mentality. But last year they turned it into a catchphrase. They had this whole thing about how they had gotten ahead of themselves previously, focusing too much on the finals, and had lost sight of the task in front of them. So now they were only ever focusing on the next match.

Somehow, the obvious solution of focusing on both was lost to them.

 

[jackster83]

We won our matches, certainly. But in the last month, we were either limping over the line against weak teams, or we were expending every drop of energy we had to beat good teams. Collingwood kicked themselves out of the game, and we got lucky against Hawthorn. It was clear that we were flagging, but trying to ride our momentum into the finals. Unfortunately it ran out. The two teams we had beaten over a few rounds back were able to get past us pretty easily in the finals.

Many of our players (not just young ones) were nowhere near their earlier form by the end of the year. Curtin went from odds-on favourite for the rising star to being average. Berry fell away, Keays' output evaporated, Peatling's form dipped, Murray became a liability. Michalanney was injured, Rachele was injured, Butts had a collapsed lung. We ended up relying on the likes of Cook, Bond, Pedlar etc to come in late in the season after ignoring them all year long. We were well and truly sputtering by the time finals rolled around.

No doubt we were also overawed in the finals, and the Rankine drama didn't help. But the cracks were well and truly visible several weeks before the finals started.

Other teams clearly did their homework on us and adjusted accordingly. We became the hunted, especially after that excellent win over Hawthorn.

They clamped down on our attacking kicks out of defence, forcing us to long bomb it instead. Even the 18th ranked team managed to completely throw us off our game, and that was with Rankine still in the side.

It's very easy for players to look tired or overwhelmed when the oppo stops us playing "our way".

That we had no answers for it comes down to the coaches.

 

[1970crow]

Other teams clearly did their homework on us and adjusted accordingly. We became the hunted, especially after that excellent win over Hawthorn.

They clamped down on our attacking kicks out of defence, forcing us to long bomb it instead. Even the 18th ranked team managed to completely throw us off our game, and that was with Rankine still in the side.

It's very easy for players to look tired or overwhelmed when the oppo stops us playing "our way".

That we had no answers for it comes down to the coaches.

To be fair, the coaches did ask them to try harder for longer. I mean, what more could you realistically expect?

 

[Coopers]

Other teams clearly did their homework on us and adjusted accordingly. We became the hunted, especially after that excellent win over Hawthorn.

They clamped down on our attacking kicks out of defence, forcing us to long bomb it instead. Even the 18th ranked team managed to completely throw us off our game, and that was with Rankine still in the side.

It's very easy for players to look tired or overwhelmed when the oppo stops us playing "our way".

That we had no answers for it comes down to the coaches.

Imagine having west coast do it to us and then not thinking through a way to deal with it when an actual competent team does it way better

 

[AFC979810]

We won our matches, certainly. But in the last month, we were either limping over the line against weak teams, or we were expending every drop of energy we had to beat good teams. Collingwood kicked themselves out of the game, and we got lucky against Hawthorn. It was clear that we were flagging, but trying to ride our momentum into the finals. Unfortunately it ran out. The two teams we had beaten over a few rounds back were able to get past us pretty easily in the finals.

I think you are looking for explanations after the fact. Finals are about the day.

Suns had lost 2 out of 3 and came up against Freo who had won 6 of their past 7 and were playing at home.

Many of our players (not just young ones) were nowhere near their earlier form by the end of the year. Curtin went from odds-on favourite for the rising star to being average. Berry fell away, Keays' output evaporated, Peatling's form dipped, Murray became a liability. Michalanney was injured, Rachele was injured, Butts had a collapsed lung. We ended up relying on the likes of Cook, Bond, Pedlar etc to come in late in the season after ignoring them all year long. We were well and truly sputtering by the time finals rolled around.

Curtins rising star form was from a period of 5 solid games in a 6 week period between rounds 16 and 21. Of his great 5 games 4 of them were against non finalists and 4 of them were 5 of the games against non finalists and 3 of which we won by 65 points plus.

Those players you mentioned were certainly down on earlier in the year, but you can't say we were spluttering when we had won 9 straight and had beaten two preliminary finalists in the month leading up to the finals. The premiers lost to Sydney before the finals - were they sputtering? The only team with impeccable form leading into the finals was Geelong and they got pumped by 50 in the Grand Final.

No doubt we were also overawed in the finals, and the Rankine drama didn't help. But the cracks were well and truly visible several weeks before the finals started.

We have Rankine in that side against Collingwood and non of the bullshit and we win that game IMO.

 

[AFC979810]

Don't get me wrong, we've always had a "make decisions to win the next game, not the long-term" mentality. But last year they turned it into a catchphrase. They had this whole thing about how they had gotten ahead of themselves previously, focusing too much on the finals, and had lost sight of the task in front of them. So now they were only ever focusing on the next match.

Somehow, the obvious solution of focusing on both was lost to them.

Once more. Disagree with this.

From the beginning of the year there was a clear focus on resting players. Walker subbed out, Rankine subbed out in the early rounds.

We rested Laird and Walker leading up to the finals. We gave Dawson and TT reduced minutes in the last 6 weeks.

It's not like we had a squad of old players. We had the best fitness guru in the industry. It doesn't add up that we were 'tired' come finals.

 

[Scorpus]

We won our matches, certainly. But in the last month, we were either limping over the line against weak teams, or we were expending every drop of energy we had to beat good teams. Collingwood kicked themselves out of the game, and we got lucky against Hawthorn. It was clear that we were flagging, but trying to ride our momentum into the finals. Unfortunately it ran out. The two teams we had beaten over a few rounds back were able to get past us pretty easily in the finals.

Many of our players (not just young ones) were nowhere near their earlier form by the end of the year. Curtin went from odds-on favourite for the rising star to being average. Berry fell away, Keays' output evaporated, Peatling's form dipped, Murray became a liability. Michalanney was injured, Rachele was injured, Butts had a collapsed lung. We ended up relying on the likes of Cook, Bond, Pedlar etc to come in late in the season after ignoring them all year long. We were well and truly sputtering by the time finals rolled around.

No doubt we were also overawed in the finals, and the Rankine drama didn't help. But the cracks were well and truly visible several weeks before the finals started.

It was a pretty sharp decline. Just two weeks prior to the horrible performance against West Coast, we beat Port Adelaide by a record margin, and smashed Gold Coast prior to that

Directly after playing Port we came out and were five goals down in the first quarter to Hawthorn

Obviously there were many contributing factors but I think in the space of a few weeks Nicks deliberately tried to tighten up our contest work and get into a defensive "grindset" that would win finals. I don't think he ever truly trusted the attacking plan that saw us win big over Port and GC. This backfired and as we went defensive we also began struggling all over the ground including at contests. The fact we looked absolutely clueless for three quarters against West Coast is a big tell, our players didn't seem able to execute the plan against the worst side in the league.

Combine Nicks' finals gameplan with the Rankine saga, supposed sickness and injuries to key players and the 'first time in finals' thing and we get our straight sets disaster

 

[AFC979810]

I don't disagree with almost all of this. Except that the flatness was evident against West Coast and Collingwood, both games Rankine was playing. We continued that trend against Roos and then in finals. But to say we flattened after the Rankine thing is extremely arguable.

Just dont know how we were flat against Collingwood. Look at the previous games against Collingwood:

Rd 23 2025 - Win 59-56
Rd 10 2025 - lose 68-78
Rd 10 2024 - lose 74-78
Rd 15 2023 - lose 80-82
Rd 7 2023 - lose 58-59

They were all extremely close, relatively low scoring struggles that all went down to the last minute.

 

[AFC979810]

It was a pretty sharp decline. Just two weeks prior to the horrible performance against West Coast, we beat Port Adelaide by a record margin, and smashed Gold Coast prior to that

Directly after playing Port we came out and were five goals down in the first quarter to Hawthorn

Obviously there were many contributing factors but I think in the space of a few weeks Nicks deliberately tried to tighten up our contest work and get into a defensive "grindset" that would win finals. I don't think he ever truly trusted the attacking plan that saw us win big over Port and GC. This backfired and as we went defensive we also began struggling all over the ground including at contests. The fact we looked absolutely clueless for three quarters against West Coast is a big tell, our players didn't seem able to execute the plan against the worst side in the league.

Combine Nicks' finals gameplan with the Rankine saga, supposed sickness and injuries to key players and the 'first time in finals' thing and we get our straight sets disaster

It wasn't a decline at all. We won 9 bloody straight including beating two teams that we have struggled to beat over the past few years and who ended up being prelim finalists.

Sure we looked complacent against West Coast. Pretty tough to get up for a game against a team with 1 win in 20 games away from home knowing you have the Pies the following week for a top 2 spot.

Similarly the game against North. We had the Rankine scandal and had a top 2 spot locked up. In both these situations we came away with the 4 points and did enough.

 

[WeeBlake]

It wasn't a decline at all. We won 9 bloody straight including beating two teams that we have struggled to beat over the past few years and who ended up being prelim finalists.

Sure we looked complacent against West Coast. Pretty tough to get up for a game against a team with 1 win in 20 games away from home knowing you have the Pies the following week for a top 2 spot.

Similarly the game against North. We had the Rankine scandal and had a top 2 spot locked up. In both these situations we came away with the 4 points and did enough.

It sure felt like a decline, at the time

 

[AFC979810]

It sure felt like a decline, at the time

If winning 9 straight and beating Hawthorn and Collingwood in the last month is a decline I dont know what to tell ya.

 

[WeeBlake]

Winning 9 straight and beating Hawthorn and Collingwood in the last month is a decline I dont know what to tell ya.

Same. I think it was obvious we absolutely sputtered our way into finals.

 

[AFC979810]

Same. I think it was obvious we absolutely sputtered our way into finals.

Huh? Winning 9 straight is sputtering into finals?

 

[BRL121]

It wasn't a decline at all. We won 9 bloody straight including beating two teams that we have struggled to beat over the past few years and who ended up being prelim finalists.

Sure we looked complacent against West Coast. Pretty tough to get up for a game against a team with 1 win in 20 games away from home knowing you have the Pies the following week for a top 2 spot.

Similarly the game against North. We had the Rankine scandal and had a top 2 spot locked up. In both these situations we came away with the 4 points and did enough.

Basically agreed. We lost nothing after the bye.

I agree that the performance against WC was terrible, just like our other WA game. What got me was that we looked like we had absolutely nothing in response to their pressure tactics. I was convinced we were going to lose that one for pretty much the whole game.

I have to difffer on the NM game though. That bore no similarities at all to the WC game. We came out firing (Keays) and looked the far superior team all day. This one was looking like a 6-goal+ win all day to me. They only managed to respond through the individual brilliance of their FF and a completely umpire-assisted 4-goal burst in the last, which was still not enough.

 

[1970crow]

Once more. Disagree with this.

From the beginning of the year there was a clear focus on resting players. Walker subbed out, Rankine subbed out in the early rounds.

We rested Laird and Walker leading up to the finals. We gave Dawson and TT reduced minutes in the last 6 weeks.

It's not like we had a squad of old players. We had the best fitness guru in the industry. It doesn't add up that we were 'tired' come finals.

Dawson reduced minutes in the last 6 weeks? 91, 91, 86, 87, 91, 91 against a yearly average of 84.3%. I bet he really appreciated the breather, odd it didn’t improve his output.

 

[AFC979810]

I have to difffer on the NM game though. That bore no similarities at all to the WC game. We came out firing (Keays) and looked the far superior team all day. This one was looking like a 6-goal+ win all day to me. They only managed to respond through the individual brilliance of their FF and a completely umpire-assisted 4-goal burst in the last, which was still not enough.

Thats a fair call.

I forgot we went up 38 points with 8 minutes gone in the 4th quarter and basically just tried to coast to get ready for Collingwood.

 

[1970crow]

Just dont know how we were flat against Collingwood. Look at the previous games against Collingwood:

Rd 23 2025 - Win 59-56
Rd 10 2025 - lose 68-78
Rd 10 2024 - lose 74-78
Rd 15 2023 - lose 80-82
Rd 7 2023 - lose 58-59

They were all extremely close, relatively low scoring struggles that all went down to the last minute.

Comparative to our form of the previous few weeks we were. Can’t imagine how you’d think games played years ago would be relevant. We went through a patch of ripping form that came to a grinding halt 3 weeks out. Pies were in a rut, we should have done to them as we did Suns and Dogs. And in the end, we were lucky to get the points.

But I understand you’re an ‘all wins are good wins’ fan. So pointless discussing with you, 9 wins straight , derp, derp.

 

[Scorpus]

It wasn't a decline at all. We won 9 bloody straight including beating two teams that we have struggled to beat over the past few years and who ended up being prelim finalists.

Sure we looked complacent against West Coast. Pretty tough to get up for a game against a team with 1 win in 20 games away from home knowing you have the Pies the following week for a top 2 spot.

Similarly the game against North. We had the Rankine scandal and had a top 2 spot locked up. In both these situations we came away with the 4 points and did enough.

Not all wins are the same. If you thought we played as well against West Coast as we did against Richmond in that winning streak even though both were away games against bottom 2 sides, I don't know what to tell you

 

[AFC979810]

Dawson reduced minutes in the last 6 weeks? 91, 91, 86, 87, 91, 91 against a yearly average of 84.3%. I bet he really appreciated the breather, odd it didn’t improve his output.

You are counting the finals as part of the 6 weeks smartass.

71 and 76 against the Power and Suns in blowout wins was his significant rest.

Also look at his CBA's. Took a significant dip after the bye until we plugged him back in round 22.

We also rested Peatling heavily from the centre square against WCE and North trying to get him ready for finals. Rankine also spent considerably less time in the middle after the bye (this started even before Rachele got hurt). Soligo was given reduced CBA's against Port and West Coast.

 

[WeeBlake]

Huh? Winning 9 straight is sputtering into finals?

Did you watch the games

 

[AFC979810]

Comparative to our form of the previous few weeks we were. Can’t imagine how you’d think games played years ago would be relevant. We went through a patch of ripping form that came to a grinding halt 3 weeks out. Pies were in a rut, we should have done to them as we did Suns and Dogs. And in the end, we were lucky to get the points.

But I understand you’re an ‘all wins are good wins’ fan. So pointless discussing with you, 9 wins straight , derp, derp.

Nah you are right as always mate.

Our form was shit in the last month. Only won 4 games and knocked off two preliminary finalist teams.

Not all wins are the same. If you thought we played as well against West Coast as we did against Richmond in that winning streak even though both were away games against bottom 2 sides, I don't know what to tell you

You think we were in a form slump when we knocked off Collingwood and Hawthorn?