Preview Changes: Round 16 v Western Bulldogs

[Simmo28]

Bulldogs by 35. Reckon Beveridge has been pumping them up all week knowing we are vulnerable, have lost games at home, and disliked by the Bulldogs in general. With their season on the line, they'll be firing and will play themselves into form.

Have same feeling, unfortunately will be in the air when game is on, hoping plane has wifi and I can get to my foxtel service!!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Roovolution]

That's why people like you and me don't (or shouldn't) bet !!! Hell, I avoid tipping contests because it feel dirty picking teams I hate, and am almost never going to pick against the Crows

If you bet the Dogs at +25.5 and the Crows only win by 10 for example then the Crows have won and you also won the bet!

 

[6BTS]

Looking forward to watching the game with some port supporters tonight.....

 

[BrissyCrow]

Dogs.

Forward line is ok.
Defense too big and slow.
Midfielder short still.
Milera contributing nothing; another mid short.
Cameron mediocre of late; another hole in the midfield.
Douglas; he'll slip over all night, has no hurt factor, little impact defensively; another poorly contributing mid.
Mackay; irrelevant, another hole in the midfield.
Thommo - will dominate in close, use it poorly, give away tons of frees; and do absolutely nothing defensively - another hole in our midfield.

What's that;
1 mid short.
5 whose contributions will probably be shithouse.

Stop Smith, we lose.

If the Dogs set up like Hawthorn, they'll torch us.

Just add one more thing. Redpath. He always plays a blinder against us for some reason. He can be having a bad run of games but comes good against us.

 

[hippyhippy]

thommo will do well to keep his frees against under 5 ... its the bulldogs, worst ducking team in the comp after geelong.

 

[Huntercrow]

Looking forward to what Thomo can bring. I know its generally not a popular inclusion but looking at our midfield depth at the moment what bloody harm can it do?
We need to see why the club thought he deserved 1 more season. The 1 SANFL televised game I was able to see this year was a good one for Thompson.
Yeah its a different level but this guy is a veteran and may be able to guide the other mids in the right direction. They are still relatively young and their most experienced mid is struggling to get his game going. Let Thomo at em I say!

 

[Vader]

thommo will do well to keep his frees against under 5 ... its the bulldogs, worst ducking team in the comp after geelong.

Geelong are worse than the dogs? Any team is worse than the dogs?

 

[fabs33]

Mate at work supports Adelaide, but not as in depth as I do.

I said to him last night that Thommo was in, he says he's surprised it's taken until now and then asked how he'd been going in the sanfl.

This is your typical uninformed crows supporter.

No wonder the club can pull this shite and the happy clappers go along with it.

In fairness to your mate, I was surprised too...

 

[ftmch]

Greenwood resting yet named as an emergency is a strange one.

If Thommo's gout flares up then surely Greenwood comes straight in? So is Greenwood in urgent need of a rest or not?

I don' think there's any suggestion that it's urgent.

I think their rationale is that, on the basis of his performance - he's now going to form an integral part of our push to the finals this year. With that in mind, they probably see he's going to need a rest at some stage, so are choosing to do it now rather than later in the year (or worse, during finals).

If someone drops out, he's ready to come straight back in, and they give him a rest game at another point.

I'm OK with their thinking on this - managing him to make sure he's cherry ripe for the finals is common sense, given his only recent exposure top level footy.

Again, the problem is with the ins.

 

[GrommoT]

When I was at the Norwood SANFL game I spoke to some of Wiggys family members. Said that there were 2 distinct groups. The senior players who all try and look after one another, and the rest....

Hey guys, I've started a new thread to continue this discussion (and asked deaneus to move or copy related posts from this thread to it)

Do Crows have a toxic exclusive clique culture?

 

[Dewy006]

I do it to feel better if we lose.



Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Yep, small consolation. I have cleaned up this year in our losses to North, Dees and Hawthorn. Pays for my day/night at the pub having to watch us spud it up...

 

[WetCrow1991]

No level of performance warrants Thompson's selection because he is 35 years old and finished, he should no longer be on the list and every minute of game time he gets at AFL or SANFL level is game time a player with ongoing value is being deprived. Let us all be honest though, he is no longer capable of a BOG performance, so that isn't happening, if he plays a role, so what, there are a number of players in the 2s that can play a role and actually could have a future at AFL level.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk

 

[BrissyCrow]

Yeah I know. just feels wrong on so many levels to bet against your own team.

The Crows is the one team I will not bet on. I tend to let my heart overrule my head and end up losing.

 

[Ozzie]

I'm sure they know better than I do. I just don't understand how we reached the point where Thommo was the best option left in the SANFL?

Have a look at our injury list: Lynch, O'Brien, Cheney, Davis, Hartigan, Hampton, CEY.

Only Lynch, Hartigan and Cheney are in our best 22. Hampton is borderline. It's not as if we have a heap of injured best 22 midfielders.

Then we look at what's left in the way of midfielders - Beech, Menzel, Gallucci, Poholke, Seedsman, Wigg, Signorello, Doedee (OK - he's a defender), and Gore. The first two just aren't good enough, and most of the rest are untried 1st and 2nd year players. Seedsman is the only one who doesn't fall into either category, and he's still regaining match fitness after returning from injury.

It pretty much came down to a choice between Thommo, Seedsman (not match fit), an untried kid, or a proven dud. Personally, I'd lean towards playing one of the unproven kids (Gallucci or Poholke), but Thommo is one of the few viable options they have left.

Greenwood is being rested, which is fair enough. Even so, Greenwood & Hampton makes a grand total of 2x best-22 midfielders MIA. Two. Let that sink in. We're only missing 2x best-22 midfielders, and Thommo is in the team.

How did it come to this?

Quite simple really Vader...we're actually missing 3 mids not two. CEY was first in line to replace Thommo before he was done for the year. Actually this week if we had CEY,Hampton and Greenwood available then Thommo doesn't get a sniff.

 

[ShadeyP]

Not disagreeing with ya mate. Best we can hope or is 1 more game for him. The farwell game

On SM-G930F using BigFooty.com mobile app

I was in jest ... liked your analogy .

 

[ShadeyP]

Quite simple really Vader...we're actually missing 3 mids not two. CEY was first in line to replace Thommo before he was done for the year. Actually this week if we had CEY,Hampton and Greenwood available then Thommo doesn't get a sniff.

And if we kept Lyons the only thing Thommo would be sniffing tonight is some home cooking .

 

[Ozzie]

Yeah I know. just feels wrong on so many levels to bet against your own team.

If I were to bet like this, it would give me great satisfaction to point out how I made some money to my obnoxious brother-in-law. He delights in telling me how he backed the opposition team when we lose a game. It was bliss for the first 6 games. I never heard a bopeep from him. Total quiet.

 

[Vader]

Quite simple really Vader...we're actually missing 3 mids not two. CEY was first in line to replace Thommo before he was done for the year. Actually this week if we had CEY,Hampton and Greenwood available then Thommo doesn't get a sniff.

What have you been smoking? Must be some powerful stuff, if you think CEY was even close to being a semi-regular selection this year. He may have been ahead of Thommo, and even that's debatable, but only someone smoking some seriously good weed would suggest that he was going to be in our best 22.

 

[Ozzie]

What have you been smoking? Must be some powerful stuff, if you think CEY was even close to being a semi-regular selection this year. He may have been ahead of Thommo, and even that's debatable, but only someone smoking some seriously good weed would suggest that he was going to be in our best 22.

Vader...from all accounts I have read concerning CEY he was supposedly very much in the frame to play this year. I know you don't rate him at all but seriously he does have some talent. FTR my weed smoking days are long gone.

 

[Jack is Back]

I suspect that our selectors have the same concerns about Thommo as the rest of us.

Last year he was playing good footy in the first half of the season but his form declined. Was this because he was playing injured or was he cooked? We have now lost two inside mids for the season (CEY and probably Hampton). Like most teams we have been spreading most of the midfield minutes between 5 players (Sloane, M Crouch, B Crouch, Douglas and TMT). Sloane is struggling, B Crouch has yet to hit his best, Dougie has been Dougie and TMT has played 5 (fantastic) games. The only consistently good inside mid has been Matty Crouch.

The inside mids playing in the Twos are Thommo, Wigg, Poholke and Gore. If we need to replace an inside mid from our current group of five there isn't a whole lot to go to. IMHO part of Thommo's selection tonight is to see whether he is as cooked as many on this Board expect. If he plays his role tonight then we can have him as a back up for the finals. If he is terrible then we need to go to Plan B. Rather than trying Poholke, Gore or Wigg I expect we will use one of the current 22 (Atkins, Laird or at a stretch Cameron, Smith or Brown).

I expect that Thommo will get more touches than TMT did last week but have less influence on the game. TMT had 3 kicks and 9 handballs last week but did have 9 tackles and he is very good at preventing the opposition getting clean ball from a stoppage. I will also be checking that there is not a reduction in TOG for our other mids.

I am also looking forward to Thommo Watch from 1970Crow . As long as we win I couldn't GAF about the 50 pages of Thommo talk on the BigFooty Board tomorrow.

 

[dogs105]

I suspect that our selectors have the same concerns about Thommo as the rest of us.

Last year he was playing good footy in the first half of the season but his form declined. Was this because he was playing injured or was he cooked? We have now lost two inside mids for the season (CEY and probably Hampton). Like most teams we have been spreading most of the midfield minutes between 5 players (Sloane, M Crouch, B Crouch, Douglas and TMT). Sloane is struggling, B Crouch has yet to hit his best, Dougie has been Dougie and TMT has played 5 (fantastic) games. The only consistently good inside mid has been Matty Crouch.

The inside mids playing in the Twos are Thommo, Wigg, Poholke and Gore. If we need to replace an inside mid from our current group of five there isn't a whole lot to go to. IMHO part of Thommo's selection tonight is to see whether he is as cooked as many on this Board expect. If he plays his role tonight then we can have him as a back up for the finals. If he is terrible then we need to go to Plan B. Rather than trying Poholke, Gore or Wigg I expect we will use one of the current 22 (Atkins, Laird or at a stretch Cameron, Smith or Brown).

I expect that Thommo will get more touches than TMT did last week but have less influence on the game. TMT had 3 kicks and 9 handballs last week but did have 9 tackles and he is very good at preventing the opposition getting clean ball from a stoppage. I will also be checking that there is not a reduction in TOG for our other mids.

I am also looking forward to Thommo Watch from 1970Crow . As long as we win I couldn't GAF about the 50 pages of Thommo talk on the BigFooty Board tomorrow.

You really should put TMTTM

 

[Vader]

Vader...from all accounts I have read concerning CEY he was supposedly very much in the frame to play this year. I know you don't rate him at all but seriously he does have some talent. FTR my weed smoking days are long gone.

Couldn't see him getting a gig ahead of any of the midfielders we've used so far this year.

The coaches will always say that a player is "in the frame", even if they're 32nd on the pecking order.

 

[Ozzie]

Couldn't see him getting a gig ahead of any of the midfielders we've used so far this year.

The coaches will always say that a player is "in the frame", even if they're 32nd on the pecking order.

I watched a lot of the Crows in the Sanfl last year and how he never got more than the 2 games was beyond me. Ther are players currently getting a game even now which IMO he would beat hands down. The organic growth was meant to come from players such him along with Doedee and Hampton. 2 of those are gone for the year so it makes it hard. He certainly wasn't #32 on the list in my mind.

 

[Paladin]

Couldn't see him getting a gig ahead of any of the midfielders we've used so far this year.

The coaches will always say that a player is "in the frame", even if they're 32nd on the pecking order.

Lyons was traded because we had CEY as depth and didnt need both. I have no doubt CEY gets games this year without his injury. His sanfl season last year was without peer. His afl form good.

 

[DD#23]

Couldn't see him getting a gig ahead of any of the midfielders we've used so far this year.

The coaches will always say that a player is "in the frame", even if they're 32nd on the pecking order.

not including Thommo I presume?