Gary Ablett crying a river over Crowley's tactics

[Frigate]

Good come back from Gaz. He had a great game for someone who was under enourmouse pressure. Crowley's game had a bigger influence on the game though.

Bennell will be a star, he has been unstoppable in some games and his skill level is at another level than most. If he was on our list I would be pretty happy.

I recall one of the commentators was saying what a good move it was to put Swallow on Ballantyne. I laughed. I would have loved to have been in the room when that conversation happened. "So Swallow we will move you to a back pocket this week..... you know part of our junior development policy to give everyone a go at different positions"

 

[strobe00]

Tend to agree. He has tremendous upside, but doesn't bring it to the table nearly often enough.

I get the impression that he is still not happy over there, regardless of what the Suns are saying.

I dunno... he seemed pretty invested, based on his actions after Spurr's bump on Hunt.

Was the first to step up and grab Spurr, and seemed to want to go on with it afterwards. I'm sure Spurr was absolutely terrified, but Bennell showed a fair bit of feeling for a team mate. Gave away a stupid free kick a little later though.

It's a pretty small snippett, but I haven't seen much so far to suggest that he's looking to run out of there. I hope he is (and that he'd want to come back to us rather than the Slime).

 

[strobe00]

Just imagine Bennell under Ross Lyon though, absolutely mouth watering prospect. He hasn't been consistent but he's played in an absolute rabble of a team to be fair.

He finished a close second in their best and fairest last year. He has been pretty consistent from what I'd heard. Admittedly, it's not like he placed second at Geelong or Hawthorn... but I thought he'd consistently been amongst their best after the first month or two of last season.

EDIT: Wasn't a close second really. But it was absolute daylight between Bennell (who was well behind Ablett, but who wouldn't be?) and the next best.

http://www.sportal.com.au/afl-news-display/no-surprises-at-suns-best-and-fairest-197447
The Suns' inspirational skipper picked up his second best and fairest gong in as many years on Saturday night at a sold-out gala event in Southport with a total of 215 votes.
Next best in the count was Harley Bennell with 163 votes. Then it was daylight - third-placed Danny Stanley finished with 84 votes.

 

[strobe00]

can't ever expect to keep Ablett away from the ball, it's just a matter of limiting effectiveness and pushing him away from the more damaging areas of the ground, which Crowley did an ok job of. obviously if he was surrounded by better quality you would have a harder time containing his attack, which is where a team like Collingwood could expose Crowley.

Ablett's average kick to handball ratio this season is 1.3, and that dropped to 0.8 (more handballs than kicks). Kicks are more damaging, so forcing him into so many handballs helped blunt the influence Ablett would usually have.

Very similar overall possessions compared to his average (28 vs Freo, Avg of 30), but the big difference was the proportion of contested. He always wins a lot of contested possession (average of 57% so far) but Crowley shut down his outside possessions. Considering Ablett's pace, game sense and kicking... his uncontested possessions are usually the more dangerous ones. Against Crowley 72% of Ablett's possessions were contested.

Ablett is a stone cold freak. He had to win 21 (!!) contested possessions to get his tally up to 28. Very, very few guys in the league are capable of that.

Ablett definitely won the match-up, but Crowley prevented him from having a game-turning impact. Ablett wins, Crowls plays his role, Freo wins. Works for me.

 

[whiteoak]

I dunno... he seemed pretty invested, based on his actions after Spurr's bump on Hunt.

Was the first to step up and grab Spurr, and seemed to want to go on with it afterwards. I'm sure Spurr was absolutely terrified, but Bennell showed a fair bit of feeling for a team mate. Gave away a stupid free kick a little later though.

It's a pretty small snippett, but I haven't seen much so far to suggest that he's looking to run out of there. I hope he is (and that he'd want to come back to us rather than the Slime).

Flying a flag for a teammate in the heat of battle is pretty different to your feelings about living 4,000km's from home after the game, don't you think??

He's already pissed off once and they had to coax him back.

The wraps on this kid were immense and he should be dominating after 3 years. He isn't.

 

[Bender571]

I dunno... he seemed pretty invested, based on his actions after Spurr's bump on Hunt.

Pretty sure he lives or lived with Hunt

 

[strobe00]

Flying a flag for a teammate in the heat of battle is pretty different to your feelings about living 4,000km's from home after the game, don't you think??

Fair point, and true. Though if he hadn't shown that kind of reaction, I'd have been more confident we'd be able to poach him in future. Time will tell in any case.

He's already pissed off once and they had to coax him back.

The wraps on this kid were immense and he should be dominating after 3 years. He isn't.

I remember him being homesick in his first season, and him missing a flight or something. Hadn't heard any rumblings since then that I can remember. Doesn't mean there haven't been... I just don't remember hearing anything.

As for the domination bit, it's the start of his third year of footy. He's playing with a bunch of kids, rather than a club with a heap of senior players (e.g. Duncan and Christensen at Geelong) to help guide them. So obviously his learning curve will be a lot slower.

He'd definitely have developed quicker playing for another club (unless said club were GWS or Melbourne), but the expansion thing makes some of that unavoidable. GWS do seem to be doing a better job of developing their kids quickly though, so it's not just the expansion bit.

Regardless, I'd love him to come back to play for us. Fingers crossed.

 

[strobe00]

Pretty sure he lives or lived with Hunt

Righto. Well, that explains the extra fire.

 

[Belnakor]

I recall one of the commentators was saying what a good move it was to put Swallow on Ballantyne. I laughed. I would have loved to have been in the room when that conversation happened. "So Swallow we will move you to a back pocket this week..... you know part of our junior development policy to give everyone a go at different positions"

Swallow played alot of his junior footy in defence. He toweled up Balla.

 

[Lach72]

Swallow played alot of his junior footy in defence. He toweled up Balla.

Not really.

It was all self inflicted. Dropped marks, fumbles, s**t kicks

 

[Belnakor]

Not really.

It was all self inflicted. Dropped marks, fumbles, s**t kicks

sometimes i reckon Balla needs his eyes checked.. the amount of times he will misread a ball in the air.

 

[Nickos66]

I'd love to have Bennell in the side, but he wouldn't have extended his contract if he didn't want to be there in the first place... It'd be great to see him play some 30+ possies, 3 goal games for freo.

Ballas being horrible was his own undoing the other night, every time he got the ball in space he butchered it by foot. He was on 0% kicking efficiency mid way through the game, i'd guess it would've improved marginally by the end of it.