Preview Changes: Round 3 v Port Adelaide

[LittleCrowBoy]

Yeah I can see the issue with structure and match ups.

They may have to make a tough call on Otten.

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I think team balance is a funny thing...in general....a quality tall beats an average small....every day of the week. I look at the team from a different angle...who is the least skilled, lowest "footy smarts" player out there....why worry about 5 or 6 cm in height difference....very few games of footy are decided be a tape measure. Don't get me wrong ...you can't play 18 talls or a midget brigade and expect to win...but with Cameron, Milera, Knight, Atkins, Betts, Brown, Laird, Hampton etc....I think we can play an extra "smart, footy minded tall" and Smash almost anyone. With this line of thought I'm hoping Otten plays almost every game. He's a super smart footballer. Most others want to drop him for "team balance"...ba humbug !!! Rubbish.

 

[marty36]

Yeah I can see the issue with structure and match ups.

They may have to make a tough call on Otten.

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I am confused why anyone would suggest dropping a player that is in form and keeping players in which arent.

It doesnt really matter Pyke wont drop in form players

He will shuffle the team to ensure that he has 22 in form players playing at the same time, which is usually how you sin games, and drop those that are not performing

 

[LittleCrowBoy]

I am confused why anyone would suggest dropping a player that is in form and keeping players in which arent.

It doesnt really matter Pyke wont drop in form players

He will shuffle the team to ensure that he has 22 in form players playing at the same time, which is usually how you sin games, and drop those that are not performing

100 % correct. I wonder how many times posters use "team balance" in defence of their prefered players holding a spot in the top 22? ....best 22 footballers - in FORM ....should be picked more often than not. I think Pyke thinks this way already. Crows have been obsessed with the "formula" for years and won nothing. Play your most talented 22....and make the opposition counter OUR game....instead of worrying about the opposition and what they might do...jumping at shadows is a sure why to screw up anything.

 

[Elite Crow]

Put in the defensive work and he has as long as it takes to find someone to do both.

After all he's doing the work in an area that has cost us massively in the past 5-10 years.



Hampton first game was poor and was ok last week. He's living off his defensive work though (which i suppose why I have a lot of time and patience for him).

I don't see Hamptons spot under any pressure for a while yet. There is a serious amount of upside if he clicks, and we have form in giving those with a lot of time to those players.

Thommo hopefully never makes another appearance if we are serious, B.Crouch will take someones position though seeing i'm guessing we'll look at GC for a return.

Brad does both

 

[Vader]

Polhoke emergency again, they must like what they see.

He's an interesting selection. He was on the emergency list for R1, then they went with Wigg for R2, now Poholke is back for R3. Haven't seen Gallucci's name on the emergency list yet.

 

[Vader]

Crows falling into their old mistakes of "dont drop players from a winning team". He's this years Mackay.

But at least we aren't playing jenkins injured.

We just don't have a replacement for him at present, with Cheney & Doedee both on the injury list. Dropping Kelly would leave us short one small defender, and the cupboard is bare when it comes to alternatives.

 

[1970crow]

Cant see logic in keeping Kelly in team as simply not AFL standard and last weeks game was far far worse than Menzel the week before who got dropped but could not get back.
Just another safe easy decision not a match winning attacking selection.

Sometimes to win a match you need to shutdown an opponent.

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

Kelly and Hampton have been well and truly kissed on the dick this week. Call me a pessimist, but I think we're asking for trouble by selecting BOTH of them (I could've tolerated one). Personally would have preferred them both out for Greenwood and Menzel. Please spare me the "but this would make us unbalanced" nonsense as we just dropped a pure forward for a pure defender. Juggling the side without like for like replacements is a real thing that occurs. That said, Greenwood is actually already a far better inside mid than Hampton so there's that. Hampton is racking up tackles largely because he's actually not very good at winning the ball. Something to watch right there.

Looks as though Otten might spend pretty much the whole game up forward, because you can't have all of him, Talia, Hartigan, Kelly AND Lever down back. I actually quite like that. Reckon he'll go well. He can still float into defence at times when others are on the bench or if Hartigan swings into the ruck.

Huge game. Win this and we're absolutely primed to go on a big run. We will be strong favourites to win 10 of the next 11 games after this (the only exception being Geelong away which we may as well forfeit). I'm not saying we're going to win 10 of the next 11 because s**t never really works that way, but after a very tough draw in the first 3 weeks which we've nailed so far, that stretch of 11 games was always going to be our chance to really put the foot down. We then have a very, very tough run home (rounds 16-23), so we've really gotta make hay while the sun is shining.

Didnt Sloane only get like 7 tackles in his first game of AFL?

 

[LittleCrowBoy]

Sometimes to win a match you need to shutdown an opponent.

On this topic....don't we think Kelly has all the attributes of a perfect tagger ??? ....we haven't had a quality shut down, run with player in some time. We tend to go "head to head" and prefer the shoot out method with our dominant forward line. But I do like the options a decent tagger would give our team...especially against teams like Geelong who rely on a couple key mids for almost all of their clearances.

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

I clearly have no clues, I am happy with both Hampton and Kelly.
Hampton is only going to get better and is definitely worth giving some time.
Kelly no doubt is doing a role until Cheney or Doedee are fit, but I havent seen his performances as anywhere near as diabolical as others.

They havent been diabolical... Some people just need to have that one person to whip at

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

With Otten in the forward line, we have a legitimate defender who we can send back to play spare man in defense if the other team gets a run on. I dont see this being too much of an issue for our forward line, playing one man down creates space.

Hampton is a tough one. On one hand I think Hampton has a massive upside and a big future for us, so I would rather see Dougy or Mackay dropped for Crouch to keep Hampton in. On the other hand, Hampton needs to perform better than MacKay and Douglas to keep his place when Crouch comes back.

 

[hippyhippy]

i dont mind hampton still in ... hes high tackle count means hes working his ass off... the possesions will come as he gets more used to the afl midfield role.

 

[NTRabbit]

Brad does both

He wasn't last year, put in as much defensive work as the maligned Thompson.

 

[Elite Crow]

He wasn't last year, put in as much defensive work as the maligned Thompson.

He averaged 6.4 tackles a game, the highest of his career......

Take off those Crouch hate glasses before you watch the games

 

[craig crowing]

Think all getting carried away with this small defender -tall defender.
If Otten stayed in defence who would you rather have a extremely talented Lever or Kelly who lacks in footy nous and skills .
And what are the difference in height anyway- 2cm maybe.

 

[hey shorty]

He's an interesting selection. He was on the emergency list for R1, then they went with Wigg for R2, now Poholke is back for R3. wcHaven't seen Gallucci's name on the emergency list yet.

He's probably physically not as ready as the others

 

[marty36]

Think all getting carried away with this small defender -tall defender.
If Otten stayed in defence who would you rather have a extremely talented Lever or Kelly who lacks in footy nous and skills .
And what are the difference in height anyway- 2cm maybe.

Id want the one in best form, that gets in the best players and helps us win games

 

[NTRabbit]

He averaged 6.4 tackles a game, the highest of his career......

Take off those Crouch hate glasses before you watch the games

I do watch the games - there's tackles, and there's tackles, and there's defensive running. Brad is great at catching the flat footed opponent who just got a hospital ball cold, and dumping him to the ground with the ball locking double arm pin that so many players can't get right, but his chase down tackles were far fewer, and his efforts when it came to defensive running, purely to close space, harass, and cause pressure, were really subpar for a guy with his pace and reputation.

 

[Vader]

Think all getting carried away with this small defender -tall defender.
If Otten stayed in defence who would you rather have a extremely talented Lever or Kelly who lacks in footy nous and skills .
And what are the difference in height anyway- 2cm maybe.

If Otten wasn't playing forward/ruck this week, then we'd have Lever & Kelly in defence and Otten in the SANFL.

 

[Jeffcrowe]

I am confused why anyone would suggest dropping a player that is in form and keeping players in which arent.

It doesnt really matter Pyke wont drop in form players

He will shuffle the team to ensure that he has 22 in form players playing at the same time, which is usually how you sin games, and drop those that are not performing

Team balance takes priority over picking the best 22 players on the list - simple as that

We all know Menzel is a better player than Kelly but doesn't mean he plays more games - for now

 

[Jeffcrowe]

I think team balance is a funny thing...in general....a quality tall beats an average small....every day of the week. I look at the team from a different angle...who is the least skilled, lowest "footy smarts" player out there....why worry about 5 or 6 cm in height difference....very few games of footy are decided be a tape measure. Don't get me wrong ...you can't play 18 talls or a midget brigade and expect to win...but with Cameron, Milera, Knight, Atkins, Betts, Brown, Laird, Hampton etc....I think we can play an extra "smart, footy minded tall" and Smash almost anyone. With this line of thought I'm hoping Otten plays almost every game. He's a super smart footballer. Most others want to drop him for "team balance"...ba humbug !!! Rubbish.

Considering our weakness with clever small nippy forwards then I say this doesn't make much sense TBH

Overstock the backline with talls and less agile players and we will exaggerate the problem

We've been going ok so far this season haven't we ?

Lever too good not to have in the side , looks like Otto will be our depth tall for both ends

 

[earlsta]

It's top notch drafting by deciding to go with Doedee though, definitely the right type of player to fill our needs, lets hope he comes on well this year because if he gets fit before Cheney I rekon he'd come straight in. He doesn't need to be supremely match fit like Brad Crouch and the other mids to get a game for us. He's playing SANFL next week or the week after and I bet he's itching to debut. He was performing way better than Kelly in reserves last year.

 

[LittleCrowBoy]

If Otten wasn't playing forward/ruck this week, then we'd have Lever & Kelly in defence and Otten in the SANFL.

Your only proving Craig Crowing point ??? ...your obviously only concerned with 2cm height across an entire team..."sorry mate....your a real smart, handy, dependable, versatile player in form....but your just a inch too tall...so we HAVE to play this little spud instead" ....spoken like the Crows selection panel of old. Team balance is SECONDARY to form players holding their spot in the team.

 

[Vader]

Your only proving Craig Crowing point ??? ...your obviously only concerned with 2cm height across an entire team..."sorry mate....your a real smart, handy, dependable, versatile player in form....but your just a inch too tall...so we HAVE to play this little spud instead" ....spoken like the Crows selection panel of old. Team balance is SECONDARY to form players holding their spot in the team.

It's not even about height. Otten's knee injuries have robbed him of pace and agility. He still has his footy smarts, but he's as slow as treacle, with the turning circle of the Queen Mary. What Kelly offers is very different to what Otten offers. Both have something to offer, but they are very different and play very different roles.

Otten plays on the taller and (ideally) slower 3rd tall forwards, where his footy smarts allow him to cover for his physical limitations. Kelly plays on the quicker and more agile mid-small sized forwards.

 

[marty36]

Team balance takes priority over picking the best 22 players on the list - simple as that

We all know Menzel is a better player than Kelly but doesn't mean he plays more games - for now

The point there is they are both playing s**t, Otten is playing well