Preview [NAB Challenge] Round 3 vs Adelaide

[exile]

rosa was pretty good i thought. can definitely see the difference between him and the guys who have been in our system for years. always had clean hands gathering and disposing of the ball, straight to one of our guys who would fumble it. saw it all night, good pick up i reckon.

can definitely see an improvement from last year. guys look to be running in the right areas and not getting lost with their handball chains. looking forward to the season opener.

 

[Cochblocked]

Just back home
Left at 3/4 time (getting late with the kids)
Reading the comments I reckon you guys must be on the Kool-Aid
There's a strong chance that midfield tonight will be the core of 2016 unless the Fab 4 miraculously recover
If that's the case we gonna get whacked
You can't rely on Hallahan and Riska and Miller to do the job
They're great in and unders, but once the ball broke free the Crows mids were 20 metres away
I've tried to be brave about Harley and Dixon, but after tonight I might start blubbering in my sleep again
If Lynch has an off game, who's kicking our goals?
We'll win a few against some bottom 8's and sneak a couple of good wins too, but I don't see final 8 on tonight's performance
We had nearly 100 less posessions!Again!
If that's where we're at now it's the end of pre-season I reckon Essendon has our measure
Anyway, it's a new season,I'll try to stay a bit positive.

edit:Sunny not on the kool-aid.Saw it pretty much as I did.A big positive is McKenzie finding his mojo again and Malceski doing some good things

I think our midfield was great tonight, yes they bombed a few to many long but if you add Ablett and Prestia into that midfield mix it will give more options to Hall and Miller as well as giving more of a break while now when they have a break the game could fall apart. Also don't forget just how bad Essendon are at the moment how much they are missing and how little experience they have. No tall forwards had good games tonight and without some early poor kicking and the removal of the super goal we would have won. I'm very confident with at least the start of the season and feel that the team is clicking well which is more important that wins and losses in the NAB challenge.

 

[kreglze]

Ehh I thought he played well. I thought we played well based off that tbh.

 

[kreglze]

SandyToes Watch the last quarter if you get a chance, we played well for a lot of that.

I think with the 4 that missed tonight back in, we look a much better team.

 

[TheSunGod]

Think Rocket wouldn't have minded that loss. Stops the boys from getting too far ahead of themselves and keep the focus on working on those areas that need improvement. Unfortunately you can't hide the fact that no matter what team we put on the park there's going to be one too many serial shankers.

 

[Fidel Cashflow]

I think we need to understand Day's just an average footballer that can be used either end to fill gaps. That's all we're going to get I'm afraid. I've been patient and have run out of excuses. 2010 was a poor draft for talls apart from Lynchy. Even Gorringe was a first rounder.

 

[Ben Drever]

If Sam Day plays round one I'll cry. Wright deserves the spot every day of the week.


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He needs to play back 1 kick behind the play... West CoastMcGovern
Type player. As a forward he shows little has his 10mins of goodness then non exsistent

 

[OB11]

I feel like Aaron Hall is some sort of gift from God as a sorry for ******* up Jaeger. Here, I'll just put his ability in your worst players body and well call it square!


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He is best mates with the son of god so it makes sense

 

[OB11]

Think Rocket wouldn't have minded that loss. Stops the boys from getting too far ahead of themselves and keep the focus on working on those areas that need improvement. Unfortunately you can't hide the fact that no matter what team we put on the park there's going to be one too many serial shankers.

Can't fault the game plan, the way they are trying to move the ball and the pressure around the contest but the execution of some of the blokes absolutely kills us and turnovers cost us big time. The blokes who can't kick just need to go.

Serial Shankers that need to go

1. Harbrow
2. Lemmens
3. Sexton
4. Cameron
5. Shaw

Our play and decision making going forward was dreadful, I'm not sure if going long to the square was part of our plan to bring our small forwards into the game or lock in the forward line but didn't translate well when watching on TV.

Tommy Lynch played one of his worst games for a while but was such an anomaly it's nothing to be concerned about
Rory T looked ok defensively but seemed to lack the touch to pick up the ball one touch and turn defense into attack ala 2014
Harbrow has lost his speed to get into space and him kicking and being under pressure is a bad combo - even shanks his goals
Saad destroyed Betts and was BOG
Miller was pretty quiet to 3QT but ran out the game strongly in the last - was clean with his hands and defensively in the contest and gets better every game he plays
Hall was our only line breaking mid, generally uses it well when he doesn't blaze away and was sticking his tackles which was good
Sexton can only be used as a pure tagger as seems to hurt us when he has the ball in hand
McKenzie was good again - put the cannon away and was hitting up short targets ok, defensively was passable which is a big improvement on last year
Brooksby can only play ruck/fwd role as is a step slow at AFL and is just a serviceable back up
Martin was quiet and needs to lift
Keough was OK with ball in hand, a little slow to make decisions, not sure who he was on so unsure how he went defensively
Malceski was at least a bit better than last year kicking the ball
Davis did a couple of nice things in space but under pressure lacked composure which is a bit of a worry when playing forward
Wright took 3 good clunks and depending on if they think he can relieve in the ruck would have to be in front of Day
Day did not much but provide a contest but eventually you have to win a 50/50 ball or create space to touch the ball
Rosa gets to the right spots, generally makes good decisions but noticed he lacks speed which is a lit concerning given his age and his 3yr contract
Ah Chee shows glimpses but has a long way to go to keep himself involved in the game

For me the changes would be:

Out: Brooksby, Lemmens, Keough, Cameron, Day (Harbrow should be out but they won't do it)
In: Ablett, Prestia, KK, Jesse, Currie

 

[gcsunsfc]

I haven't followed the footy pre season as closely this year.
Watched about half the match last night.

Hall impressive, continuing his run of good games from last year. Has flaws but moves the ball forward.
Davis looks ok for a rookie, even though mature aged. IS he a lock for round one?
Bring on Peter Wright!

 

[TARGETMAN]

the suns went alright. missed 4 set shots in the first 1/4 and the crows had 3 super goals. they only lost by 20 odd. bring it on.
i went down to the ghost town end last night and thought how quiet the screamers(cheers squad) was. there were more cheers coming from the western stand. crowd about 5k and about 15 crows supporters behind the nthrn posts. 14 days to go til the game matters and the wins count

 

[SandyToes]

SandyToes Watch the last quarter if you get a chance, we played well for a lot of that.

I think with the 4 that missed tonight back in, we look a much better team.

I think Adelaide had the game won by the end of the 3rd
They would have eased back considerably
Which 4 are you talking about?
Ablett KK Prestia and Lonergan
If so I agree
Sometimes I reflect on my "disappointment posts" the next day(and believe me there's been a fair few over the past 7 years) and think.."oh maybe we weren't that bad"

So being the next day the positives were definitely how hard everyone is contesting the ball.
That will win us games.
The improvement in TMac and Mal is good
The rest is still ugly
No lead up forward.
No system into the forward line because of that
Hopefully Lynchy won't believe the hype and think he can out pack mark every defender in the comp
And, OMG...the shanking horror, the horror
It's true we had a bad talls draft.
I just hope it's because they didn't have it rather than us making them bad.
I see signs that 2Mp will progress which is good, but Sam Day will have to be very very special this year to avoid delisted free-agency

 

[SandyToes]

the suns went alright.

This
But if we're going to progress this year Adelaide is the sort of team we're going to have to beat

 

[Iva Bigun]

People are forgetting how friggin good Jaeger is

I can't remember, it's been so long

 

[eighties]

If Sexton is getting games this year we wont make the 8. Have never liked his game.. he has great speed, agility, good size etc and looks good on the training track which is why the coaches must like him, but he just isnt a footballer. Shitty high bombs, somehow always JUST misses his shots on goal and poor decision making. Id much rather Shaw in the team. Sure he is soft, but has a much better footy brain than Sexton.

Liked Mckenzie's game again, and Mal was good too. Our backline will be incredible if those 2 and Rory can find some consistent form this year. They might need to be incredible though so we can make the 8 this year.

Still pretty positive about 2016, we just need early wins to get the confidence up and Jaegs and Swallow to come back mid year and we could be looking pretty dangerous.

 

[Donble]

We had nearly 100 less posessions!Again!

This !!

We won all the key stats last night but got smashed in uncontested possession , this is very similar to the back half of last year . Ablett and Prestia are going to go a long long way in helping this . We are really missing the runners in the team that can complement Touky , Hall and Lonergan.

 

[SandyToes]

^^^^
As I lamented last night
We have some nice tough nuts in and under, but once the ball broke to space the Adelaide mids were gorn -outta here-making space and linking and our second tier mids just couldn't go with them.
If we did get the ball , those same opposition mids were able to close us down so our disposal was hurried and abysmal
this was the main thing I took away from last night
Not seeing the 4th quarter when the game was lost wouldn't change that

 

[TheSunGod]

Can't fault the game plan, the way they are trying to move the ball and the pressure around the contest but the execution of some of the blokes absolutely kills us and turnovers cost us big time. The blokes who can't kick just need to go.

Serial Shankers that need to go

1. Harbrow
2. Lemmens
3. Sexton
4. Cameron
5. Shaw

Our play and decision making going forward was dreadful, I'm not sure if going long to the square was part of our plan to bring our small forwards into the game or lock in the forward line but didn't translate well when watching on TV.

Tommy Lynch played one of his worst games for a while but was such an anomaly it's nothing to be concerned about
Rory T looked ok defensively but seemed to lack the touch to pick up the ball one touch and turn defense into attack ala 2014
Harbrow has lost his speed to get into space and him kicking and being under pressure is a bad combo - even shanks his goals
Saad destroyed Betts and was BOG
Miller was pretty quiet to 3QT but ran out the game strongly in the last - was clean with his hands and defensively in the contest and gets better every game he plays
Hall was our only line breaking mid, generally uses it well when he doesn't blaze away and was sticking his tackles which was good
Sexton can only be used as a pure tagger as seems to hurt us when he has the ball in hand
McKenzie was good again - put the cannon away and was hitting up short targets ok, defensively was passable which is a big improvement on last year
Brooksby can only play ruck/fwd role as is a step slow at AFL and is just a serviceable back up
Martin was quiet and needs to lift
Keough was OK with ball in hand, a little slow to make decisions, not sure who he was on so unsure how he went defensively
Malceski was at least a bit better than last year kicking the ball
Davis did a couple of nice things in space but under pressure lacked composure which is a bit of a worry when playing forward
Wright took 3 good clunks and depending on if they think he can relieve in the ruck would have to be in front of Day
Day did not much but provide a contest but eventually you have to win a 50/50 ball or create space to touch the ball
Rosa gets to the right spots, generally makes good decisions but noticed he lacks speed which is a lit concerning given his age and his 3yr contract
Ah Chee shows glimpses but has a long way to go to keep himself involved in the game

For me the changes would be:

Out: Brooksby, Lemmens, Keough, Cameron, Day (Harbrow should be out but they won't do it)
In: Ablett, Prestia, KK, Jesse, Currie

One thing that I found disappointing last night was that we didn't maintain that extreme pressure on the opposition ball carrier enough. We managed to keep it up for 3-3.5 quarters against the Lions and Eagles but I think it was only for about 1.5-2 quarters against the Crows. Conditions, reduced interchange and better opponents were probably factors there though.

 

[Phlanispo]

Alright, it's time to defend Alex Sexton.

...I got nothing. He was pretty bad. He didn't seem to be tagging anyone, so the fact he was pretty useless as a winger is damning. It's so weird, I always thought of him as one of our best ball-users. I remember in the North game last year, where all the mids were palming it off to Sexton so he could deliver it into the forward line. I suppose he either had an off night or is just bad under the increased pressure he was under.

The annoying thing about Sexton is his inconsistency. His bad games are a far cry from his best. But I always gave him a pass because he at least kept his opponent quiet. He doesn't have that to fall back on tonight.

He was bad, but no way am I playing Matt Shaw over him.

 

[Phlanispo]

One thing that I found disappointing last night was that we didn't maintain that extreme pressure on the opposition ball carrier enough. We managed to keep it up for 3-3.5 quarters against the Lions and Eagles but I think it was only for about 1.5-2 quarters against the Crows. Conditions, reduced interchange and better opponents were probably factors there though.

Spot on, I thought our tackling pressure was way down at times, particularly in the fourth quarter. I suppose the legacy of Schwerdt lives on, our endurance is still crap.

 

[SandyToes]

Rocket's presser - he blamed the conditions (but Adelaide handled them better)
He thought our pressure was ok but related it to last year where he thought we had good endeavour but a lack of personnel
Make of THAT what you will
Was he saying we still lack personnel?

 

[Experimental]

I'm a huge Sexton fan, and I feel empty.

 

[Young_Guns]

Rocket's presser - he blamed the conditions (but Adelaide handled them better)
He thought our pressure was ok but related it to last year where he thought we had good endeavour but a lack of personnel
Make of THAT what you will
Was he saying we still lack personnel?

Well yeah cos we were. Its hard to go up against a midfield like Adelaides without 5! of your best 8 mids. Plus kk I guess but Malceski seemed to cover him alright-ish.

Guys. of course we were smashed in possessions. Thats what happens when you dont have the likes of GAJ, Omeara and Swallow who are such smooth movers and do most of the linking and outside running in the midfield. All of our mids last night were pure inside mids. None of them bar Hall provide much run and carry and they're not expected too. Its just that due to circumstances they had too last night because we had no choice. Theres no point in worry/complaining about it yet. If come round 1 we lose to Essendon by 100 possessions then yeah we can go crazy.

 

[Young_Guns]

I'm a huge Sexton fan, and I feel empty.

His disposal just lets him down soo much. He can find it in space but you can almost guarantee he'll either spray it or choose the wrong option. Its such a shame because he could make that wing spot his own.

 

[TheSunGod]

I'm a huge Sexton fan, and I feel empty.

Yeah I don't feel Sexy today...