Traditionally, a face-off thread is where we come together for some detailed and well researched insights into an upcoming game.
And that's totally what you're getting. Absolutely. Focusing on the right things in here.
I've done face-off's before (they always seem to be in April?), so was shocked to find it’s been a couple of years since football depression has allowed me to lift my typing fingers.
If you're keen to harken back to 2017 and 2018, feel free. I checked out my own s**t for inspiration, not gonna lie. It's some of the best football analysis you will ever see. Old names. Hampton, remember him? Yeah.
So anyway, now that we're all in the mood, let's get into it:
VS
WHEN?
Sunday April 18th 12:40 CST (so like 8am in Perth)
WHERE?
Adelaide Oval
FACE OFF!!!!!!!
WOOOOOOO FACEEEEE OOOOOOFFFF!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!
BAM BAM BAM, BAM BAM BAM, BAM BAM! (That's the BAM! smiley apparently?)
In your faaaaaaace!
FORM ANALYSIS
I have to be up front about this: I am somewhat surprised that we crows are playing so well this year. It's good to see.
I know why. I know the secret. Has anyone noticed a trend with our small "pressure" forwards this year? The ones that play up forward but also get runs through the middle: Murphy, McHenry, Schoenberg. All 3 have stepped up and are in surprising form: Murphy and Ned are playing well enough to... maybe keep having careers I guess, and Schoenberg looks like a future mainstay of the midfield. Guess what?
Same Haircut.
Now I won't go as far as saying that the trio have discovered an untapped source of footballing power and skill using dark magic and haircut related rituals, possibly involving a Dungeons & Dragons session, but I'm also not not saying that.
Look closely: The 3 of them essentially rotate through similar positions, and all of them have the huge fuzzy do on top with the shaved sides (for speed).
So what's more likely?
There's also like, 19 other guys that are on the field. Some of which do football things too.
And then there’s Fremantle, who have also… been a team this year. Probably anyway. I haven’t paid attention.
THE STATE OF FOOTBALL IN 2021
I spent a lot of time (literally zero) wondering about the effect of the injury sub rule on the season, and given it was sprung as a surprise twist on the league by the AFL (in all likelihood to try to help Geelong’s Zimmer frame brigade get into another granny (double entendre meant), given their arthritis, osteoporosis and other age-related illnesses) I think the effort put in by myself (go me, well done coopers) I think I deserve a commendation for it (and my use of bracket(s) in sentences).
The conclusion I have come to is that the medical sub is a waste of a weekend for a young kid and probably also a waste for a senior, who statistically will only get less than a quarter on the field. May as well be helping the SANFL team.
So, here’s my proposal: assuming we have a tough time of the mid-season stretch and are tanking for draft picks (not that we’d do that *cough* Melbourne *cough*) I reckon we use the mid-season draft to pick up one of Otten, Mattner or Wright. Hell, Wright’s played games for us… last year-ish?
Stick with me. The game spent on the bench still counts to the player's game tally. They are on 98, 98 and 96 games respectively for the club. Surely they could (maybe contractually if required?) also have kids.
So thinking it through:
Oh, titus.
FREO’S FENG SHUI
Also, I think it’s important to take this opportunity to have a go at Freo: I know it’s unwarranted, but “unsociable football” is still cool right? So logically we apply the same concept to our message boards. I have several issues.
Firstly, their symbol is an anchor. I can’t claim that psychologically this is an issue for a footballer. I do know that I worked for an organisation who had a poo emoji as their corporate logo, and it was hard to be taken seriously as a dairy products manufacturer.
Secondly, I simply can’t handle clubs that have “concepts” as their mascot. I mean the giants and the suns… that’s dumb, but those are at least “things”. A “Docker” is a job title, and the “Power” I mean, that’s a unit of measurement. This must get under control. What does the future hold if we continue to tolerate the intolerable? Tasmania’s expansion team to be called the “Tassie Cognitive Dissonance”? Where does this end?
Thirdly, their song is something like “Freeeeeo, heave ho ho, tug and pull and give a ro-sham-bo, Freeeeo, yo ho ho, bottle of rum and a reindeer show”. Something along those lines. I’m not sure if it’s about Christmas, Pirates, swift kicks to the nuts or violent gastro. I am sure it’s not about football.
You poor kenny! Ah, it's 1995 again.
GOING ON RIGHT NOW - AFLW GRAND FINAL
Just pointing out that the grand final is on Saturday afternoon – get yourself there. Happy to say I saw the 2019 win live, looking for another one this year. Randall is out with concussion, so we don’t all get to see our favourite player play, unless your team Phillips. Which is reasonable, and I have a lot of respect for that perspective, but much like those creepy middle-aged women fangirling over the twilight movies appx 10 years ago, just pick team Jacob or team Edward and stick with it. They'll have more silverware than the mens team when we win this btw.
SELECTIONS AND CONCERNS
So Freo’s midfield has Fyfe, Mundy and Brayshaw as a starting line-up. That’s pretty bloody good. Those guys are also huge in comparison to our midfield. Hopefully getting old. I think it’s a worry: for anyone paying attention it’s clear that we have periods (and they go for 15 minutes) where we can’t win a clearance and the ball spends the entire time in our defence. There’s significant risk this happens again, except unlike the Suns and Roos, Freo are likely to… actually be capable of kicking goals.
That leads to the next concern which is our defensive matchups, with Taberner, Meek and Darcy all being enormous man-mountains. Butts is big enough for one of them, but either Meek/Darcy will be roaming there at any point (the other one rucking). Without a change into the team then it’s Kelly or Doedee matching up on those guys. A lot of height to give away.
There’s also a rumour that Freo will select an underdone Rory Lobb
which will make the above comment… even worserer. I’m actually in favour of that, as he’s… Ok as a footballer. Probably not that good if underdone. We should put Kelly on him to even out the Ok’ness. Then we can all go mild with ambivalence.
Changes for the crows – I think the reasonable consensus is that Frampton should play left-right-out. So given there’s no tall in the SANFL bashing the door down – I reckon it’s time to debut Riley Thilthorpe. We need to fast track the guy, he can’t be worse than Frampton, and a home ground debut against a not-top-8 team seems like the way to go.
We’re going to hit a patch of games in a few weeks where we play like… most of the current top 8 sides in a row. It’s going to be a tough stretch and Thilthorpe should be given the opportunity to debut in a game where the ball will actually be down his end a bit.
So that’s my one change – Thilthorpe in for Frampton.
CONCLUSION
Really not very confident about this one, but there’s a lot to like about what the crows have been doing in 2021. It’s at home.
Crows by 15 points.
And that's totally what you're getting. Absolutely. Focusing on the right things in here.
I've done face-off's before (they always seem to be in April?), so was shocked to find it’s been a couple of years since football depression has allowed me to lift my typing fingers.
If you're keen to harken back to 2017 and 2018, feel free. I checked out my own s**t for inspiration, not gonna lie. It's some of the best football analysis you will ever see. Old names. Hampton, remember him? Yeah.
So anyway, now that we're all in the mood, let's get into it:
VS
WHEN?
Sunday April 18th 12:40 CST (so like 8am in Perth)
WHERE?
Adelaide Oval
FACE OFF!!!!!!!
WOOOOOOO FACEEEEE OOOOOOFFFF!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!
BAM BAM BAM, BAM BAM BAM, BAM BAM! (That's the BAM! smiley apparently?)
In your faaaaaaace!
FORM ANALYSIS
I have to be up front about this: I am somewhat surprised that we crows are playing so well this year. It's good to see.
I know why. I know the secret. Has anyone noticed a trend with our small "pressure" forwards this year? The ones that play up forward but also get runs through the middle: Murphy, McHenry, Schoenberg. All 3 have stepped up and are in surprising form: Murphy and Ned are playing well enough to... maybe keep having careers I guess, and Schoenberg looks like a future mainstay of the midfield. Guess what?
Same Haircut.
Now I won't go as far as saying that the trio have discovered an untapped source of footballing power and skill using dark magic and haircut related rituals, possibly involving a Dungeons & Dragons session, but I'm also not not saying that.
Look closely: The 3 of them essentially rotate through similar positions, and all of them have the huge fuzzy do on top with the shaved sides (for speed).
So what's more likely?
- They live together and therefore attend a local hairdresser who can only do one cut, or
- They all lost the same bet, or
- Nicks has a Mr Burns-esque issue with sideburns, or
- Dark magic.
There's also like, 19 other guys that are on the field. Some of which do football things too.
And then there’s Fremantle, who have also… been a team this year. Probably anyway. I haven’t paid attention.
THE STATE OF FOOTBALL IN 2021
I spent a lot of time (literally zero) wondering about the effect of the injury sub rule on the season, and given it was sprung as a surprise twist on the league by the AFL (in all likelihood to try to help Geelong’s Zimmer frame brigade get into another granny (double entendre meant), given their arthritis, osteoporosis and other age-related illnesses) I think the effort put in by myself (go me, well done coopers) I think I deserve a commendation for it (and my use of bracket(s) in sentences).
The conclusion I have come to is that the medical sub is a waste of a weekend for a young kid and probably also a waste for a senior, who statistically will only get less than a quarter on the field. May as well be helping the SANFL team.
So, here’s my proposal: assuming we have a tough time of the mid-season stretch and are tanking for draft picks (not that we’d do that *cough* Melbourne *cough*) I reckon we use the mid-season draft to pick up one of Otten, Mattner or Wright. Hell, Wright’s played games for us… last year-ish?
Stick with me. The game spent on the bench still counts to the player's game tally. They are on 98, 98 and 96 games respectively for the club. Surely they could (maybe contractually if required?) also have kids.
So thinking it through:
- Unlikely to play.
- If they have to play, we don’t really want to win anyway.
- More father son/daughter selections.
Oh, titus.
FREO’S FENG SHUI
Also, I think it’s important to take this opportunity to have a go at Freo: I know it’s unwarranted, but “unsociable football” is still cool right? So logically we apply the same concept to our message boards. I have several issues.
Firstly, their symbol is an anchor. I can’t claim that psychologically this is an issue for a footballer. I do know that I worked for an organisation who had a poo emoji as their corporate logo, and it was hard to be taken seriously as a dairy products manufacturer.
Secondly, I simply can’t handle clubs that have “concepts” as their mascot. I mean the giants and the suns… that’s dumb, but those are at least “things”. A “Docker” is a job title, and the “Power” I mean, that’s a unit of measurement. This must get under control. What does the future hold if we continue to tolerate the intolerable? Tasmania’s expansion team to be called the “Tassie Cognitive Dissonance”? Where does this end?
Thirdly, their song is something like “Freeeeeo, heave ho ho, tug and pull and give a ro-sham-bo, Freeeeo, yo ho ho, bottle of rum and a reindeer show”. Something along those lines. I’m not sure if it’s about Christmas, Pirates, swift kicks to the nuts or violent gastro. I am sure it’s not about football.
You poor kenny! Ah, it's 1995 again.
GOING ON RIGHT NOW - AFLW GRAND FINAL
Just pointing out that the grand final is on Saturday afternoon – get yourself there. Happy to say I saw the 2019 win live, looking for another one this year. Randall is out with concussion, so we don’t all get to see our favourite player play, unless your team Phillips. Which is reasonable, and I have a lot of respect for that perspective, but much like those creepy middle-aged women fangirling over the twilight movies appx 10 years ago, just pick team Jacob or team Edward and stick with it. They'll have more silverware than the mens team when we win this btw.
SELECTIONS AND CONCERNS
So Freo’s midfield has Fyfe, Mundy and Brayshaw as a starting line-up. That’s pretty bloody good. Those guys are also huge in comparison to our midfield. Hopefully getting old. I think it’s a worry: for anyone paying attention it’s clear that we have periods (and they go for 15 minutes) where we can’t win a clearance and the ball spends the entire time in our defence. There’s significant risk this happens again, except unlike the Suns and Roos, Freo are likely to… actually be capable of kicking goals.
That leads to the next concern which is our defensive matchups, with Taberner, Meek and Darcy all being enormous man-mountains. Butts is big enough for one of them, but either Meek/Darcy will be roaming there at any point (the other one rucking). Without a change into the team then it’s Kelly or Doedee matching up on those guys. A lot of height to give away.
There’s also a rumour that Freo will select an underdone Rory Lobb
PLAYERCARDSTART
7
Rory Lobb
- Age
- 31
- Ht
- 207cm
- Wt
- 106kg
- Pos.
- Fwd
Career
Season
Last 5
- D
- 11.0
- 3star
- K
- 6.7
- 3star
- HB
- 4.4
- 3star
- M
- 4.0
- 4star
- T
- 2.4
- 4star
- G
- 0.9
- 4star
- D
- 11.3
- 3star
- K
- 8.0
- 3star
- HB
- 3.3
- 2star
- M
- 4.6
- 4star
- T
- 1.4
- 2star
- G
- 1.0
- 4star
- D
- 7.0
- 2star
- K
- 4.0
- 2star
- HB
- 3.0
- 3star
- M
- 2.6
- 3star
- T
- 2.8
- 5star
- G
- 0.6
- 3star
PLAYERCARDEND
Changes for the crows – I think the reasonable consensus is that Frampton should play left-right-out. So given there’s no tall in the SANFL bashing the door down – I reckon it’s time to debut Riley Thilthorpe. We need to fast track the guy, he can’t be worse than Frampton, and a home ground debut against a not-top-8 team seems like the way to go.
We’re going to hit a patch of games in a few weeks where we play like… most of the current top 8 sides in a row. It’s going to be a tough stretch and Thilthorpe should be given the opportunity to debut in a game where the ball will actually be down his end a bit.
So that’s my one change – Thilthorpe in for Frampton.
CONCLUSION
Really not very confident about this one, but there’s a lot to like about what the crows have been doing in 2021. It’s at home.
Crows by 15 points.