Review R12: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly vs. Sydney Swans

[Mr MysteryGuest]

 

[PCORF]

• We've been a very different side since that horror show against Fremantle.
• Best away game for years. Biggest road win since 2018 when we destroyed Carlton by 104 (that Carlton team had an awful season winning 2 games)
• First win vs the Swans since 2018.
• 14 individual goal kickers.
• Rachele was superb, that goal assist was amazing.
• Keane's best game.
• New additions to the club (Neal-Bullen, Cumming) really shined tonight.

Will be pull off an Adelaide 2012 / Brisbane 2019 this year? (huge turnaround from bottom 4 to top 4). Gotta wait and see. Upset the Lions next Friday and we can probably start believing in finishing in the top half of the 8 and having a good finals run. But right now not getting too carried away. I am going to the game in Launceston in 2 weeks time against Hawthorn.

 

[moogerfooger]

great - noticed Balmey in the rooms after the game. Not sure if that's been commonplace but seeing him close to the action is the most reassuring thing I've seen all season.

that soccer from Rachele, wow.

good -
Like a good side does, put the foot on the throat and kept outscoring them in the 2nd half. If it was dry we would have won by 120+. first real sign of a ruthless mindset
Best game of Curtin's career. he could be a real x factor in finals. building nicely
Crushed them without Dawson or Rankine having big games
Three players with 500+ metres gained
Keane developing quickly into not only our best KPD but one of the better ones in the comp
We're building with every week.

bad - it favored us a lot of time but holding the ball and push in the back have never been more of a lottery

ugly - Sydney really have gone to shit after a GF loss and didn't need a camp to do it

Let's play like that against Brisbane (Davis will help with some IP) and Hawthorn (catching them at a good time) and go into the bye 10-4

 

[AFC979810]

So much good has been talked about. Great to win away from home in emphatic fashion and be sitting 3rd halfway through the season with a pretty damn healthy list.

The one thing that was bloody terrible was only giving Sid 20% gamete in a bloody 90 point win. Give him gametime - should have gotten him on at half time and put him in the guts for the entire 2nd half.

 

[PeterSalt]

great - noticed Balmey in the rooms after the game. Not sure if that's been commonplace but seeing him close to the action is the most reassuring thing I've seen all season.

that soccer from Rachele, wow.

good -
Like a good side does, put the foot on the throat and kept outscoring them in the 2nd half. If it was dry we would have won by 120+. first real sign of a ruthless mindset
Best game of Curtin's career. he could be a real x factor in finals. building nicely
Crushed them without Dawson or Rankine having big games
Three players with 500+ metres gained
Keane developing quickly into not only our best KPD but one of the better ones in the comp
We're building with every week.

bad - it favored us a lot of time but holding the ball and push in the back have never been more of a lottery

ugly - Sydney really have gone to shit after a GF loss and didn't need a camp to do it

Let's play like that against Brisbane (Davis will help with some IP) and Hawthorn (catching them at a good time) and go into the bye 10-4

Curtin will be fine

 

[PeterSalt]

So much good has been talked about. Great to win away from home in emphatic fashion and be sitting 3rd halfway through the season with a pretty damn healthy list.

The one thing that was bloody terrible was only giving Sid 20% gamete in a bloody 90 point win. Give him gametime - should have gotten him on at half time and put him in the guts for the entire 2nd half.

Weirdly i think Sid will be fine

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Cox has shat the bed. They're trash.

We know ourselves that after finals debacles it can sap the spirit of the group completely

 

[AFC979810]

Weirdly i think Sid will be fine

I think he will be.

But not sure why you wouldn't want to fast track his development by actually playing him.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Milera is right about Sydney but not great to say it.

Plenty of other clubs could have made comments about us over the last 7 years.

And a candid analysis of Milera as a player would be a waste of talent and non-entity for almost his entire career.



Get some talent, then you can mouth off

 

[jirkago1975]

Our play was the best and hope we can continue to play that way. Our midfield broke even with Sydney but yet we smashed them in other ways. Yes Sydney are shit but we know we can win when our midfield isn’t dominating which is great. We have such good forwards that work and block for each other that it makes the game look easy at times.
Win this week against Brisbane and we play finals, hope to get at least one home final

 

[jirkago1975]

Good:
The Rachele soccer - every now and then you sit back and go “wow” at a moment of brilliance. That piece of ridiculousness took me back to the McLeod and Jarman days. Ludicrous.

Mark Keane. Look, the Sydney tall forwards are a joke and we knew that coming in, but after giving away a silly free early, and no doubt with the ghosts of the Amartey debacle in the back of his mind, Keane went ahead and dominated the entire game from then on. Dean Cox’s incompetence allowed it to happen, but still, an excellent game from a player who is developing very nicely.

Sam Berry. I think most people had pretty much written Berry off as a best 22 player. After formerly having him as my avatar, I can tell you that there were very few who enjoyed Sam Berry’s early career more than I did, but even I had reached a point by the end of last season where I thought it was all over, mainly due to his fumbling. What we are seeing here is hugely important, because it gives us another genuine stoppage player who can actually tackle, which frees up Dawson and Rankine to spend less time at these stoppages, and let’s face it, that’s a good thing.

James Peatling. Speaking of stoppage players who free up others. Going from strength to strength, and is becoming one of our most important players.

ROB. The big fella has defied the odds and hit a great patch of form. His tackling is a real feature right now and he just looks 10x the player he looked 6 weeks ago. Piss off Sam Draper, we don’t want ya.

The Keays / Neal-Bullen combo. Hassled and harassed all night, and destroyed their opponents.

Worrell. Beast.

Curtin. It’s not like he had a statistically dominant game but he had a real influence. Building nicely and understanding his role better. Look at the size of him too, imagine another 3 years in the gym.

Smith and Milera. Very solid games from a much maligned pair. Especially Milera, I thought he was excellent.

Cumming. Look I don’t like to use the term downhill skier, but…. Nah, he was really good, and he needed to be, because he was very much in line to be dropped if he kept up the garbage he’d served up in the 3 weeks prior.

Having the luxury of subbing Thilthorpe off at 3/4 time.



Bad:
Tex. Was shit. Clearly it didn’t matter, but he stunk.

Fog was pretty well beaten too.



Ugly:
Dean Cox’s coaching ability. He is blatantly hopeless, and I’ve been saying this for 6 weeks. They need to blow it up.

Honestly, the umpiring in our favour was pretty ugly. Bordering on cheating at times. If we were on the receiving end of that people would have pitchforks out so I feel it needs to be called out.

Chad Warner’s decision making by foot.

The clear and unavoidably obvious pattern that when a club gets properly smashed in a grand final, they turn into a rabble for the next 5 years.


Speaking of the word “rabble”, what has Milera gone and done on radio, uh oh.

Reading your post got me thinking about ROBs turn around. Not sure is Davis has something to do with it, this year alone, Rob has been unpredictable. That’s a good thing, he’s smashed balls forward instead of always dropping them straight down. He soccered a lot of the ball instead of trying to pick them up which makes him a better player. He’s been quite impressive this year.

As for Berry, think he’s been pretty good and he point of difference is he has a burst of acceleration . All these years we’ve been saying that we can’t develop a midfielder and now we can.

Don’t know if this is all down to Davis or not but we have become a much better team since he’s joined

 

[Brasher]

Good.

Made the trip out with my brother who is turning into a Crows talisman. He's been to maybe a dozen games and never seen them lose. Give him a role in the coaches box.

Better.

Swans fans being Swans fans allowing us to stroll to an empty carpark and being home in record time.

Best.

Haven't seen a Crows team pressure and stick tackles like that for a long time.

Observations.

Curtin is often on the "dead" wing on the ground, hence the gaudy stats, but when it's on his side his running, class and poise is obvious.
We have a great midfield by committee, no out and out superstars as mids, but a collective that works when on.
Draper not coming on earlier is stupid.

 

[davos44]

Good:
Peating gives us a lot of endeavour around the ground stoppages, Berry gives us some genuine size and strength around the contest (also that left foot goal from 45, superb balance)
Soligo looked back to his 2024 self.
Worrell and Keane intercepting everything, Butts doing the lock down stuff until Murray gets back but.... I don't know about that at the moment. Let the guy recover properly.
Drapers energy... he can't get the football though, the perfect sub until he does.
Rachele's skill to dodge an opponent and then hit that kick to Fogarty was all class.
Tackling, Tackling, Tackling. High end stuff all game.
We did get "beaten" around stoppage but we played our game, the pressure on them around the contest caused so many ineffective clearances.
Sydney kicked the first goal, then 4 in 10 minutes. The rest of the game was a defensive headlock on them. 2 goalless quarters.
ANB's best game for us.
Pedlars grunt up forward (that pressure forward we need) and his skill was good, there were some concerning things last year but he looked sound with his kicking.
Dan Curtins best position, its basically everywhere.

Keane, Worrell, Milera (ESPECIALLY MILERA), Curtin, Berry, Rachele and Thilthorpe have improved all us as a team since 2024 (via form, personal improvement and injury) + the 3 imports.


Bad:
ROB the clearance machine, not exactly how we want our clearance work to look though...
Milera calling Sydney a rabble, whoops. I assume he didnt mean that in that way.


Ugly:
The bitterness eminating from some posts after a 90 point away win is something to behold. We are a building club with players starting to get things right, just be patient, get frustrated after poor games but its sometimes it might actually be the players who get things wrong and not just the coach.

I didnt trust the side before the game but this helps, had Fremantle game vibe all over it.

 

[footy4ever]

View attachment 2330733

Those guns! sheeesh!

 

[Josh Jenkins #1Fan]

He has been playing a meaningful defined role on the wing and building into it.

I stand on the Western side at AO and you can see his work up close.

Very smart footballer. Has great positioning and reads the game so well.

Being 197cm and having the ground work skills he has is borderline unfair...

I am on the Curtain train officially now! Give the man a 5 year deal NOW!!!!

 

[Pugsley]

Smith was far more dynamic than Laird’s been

He has 200 game player in him. I think he has a bright future.

 

[footy4ever]

I like winning

I'm trying to understand the disappointment.

Strange really.

 

[coast2coast]

I'm up to the part where they're showing Nicks in his playing years. Even when he had hair he didn't really have hair.

 

[pjcrows]

 

[FR0GGY]

He was keeping a good defender occupied.

Hamling isn’t very good.

 

[kirky]

So we scored 88-22 from turnover which has predicted 18 of 19 last premiers

And we are ranked #1 in comp re scored and against from turnover

So we can all get negative about and it doesn’t mean we win the flag but let’s not pretend we haven’t improved

It’s actually so funny that people can say we haven’t improved from coming 4th bottom

Proper comedy act

I’m certainly one who has doubts about Nicks but at the same time we need to face the following facts -

• we might have come 15th last year but we had a % of 99% - not many 15th teams have that
• currently (on averages) we are the second best team offensively and defensively
• we have won 37 of 48 quarters so far (last year we won 42 and even in 2017 we won 65 of 100 inc finals)
• we have the best % in the AFL and we get to play Brisbane, Collingwood, Gold Coast and Hawthorn - all potential top 8 sides to improve our top 8 win %
• we have recruited extremely well the past 4 years - Dawson, Rankine, Rachele, Michalanney, Curtin, ANB, Peatling and Cumming - all starting 18 players

The next two weeks will provide a test of where are at and again as a comparison with 2017 we were 9-3 with a % of 141 after Round 12.

Can we dream? Perhaps, ask me in two weeks.

 

[OverseasCrowNA]

Nicks just said that he's concentrating on doing less

Keep it up I say

Less is more, Nicks, try not being there next week.

 

[dogs105]

We know ourselves that after finals debacles it can sap the spirit of the group completely

Time for a camp?

 

[SugarShane]

great - noticed Balmey in the rooms after the game. Not sure if that's been commonplace but seeing him close to the action is the most reassuring thing I've seen all season.

Spotted him in the post-game too. Really good to know he's around the system on game day, especially away.

 

[ftmch]

That burst of speed too. Thing of beauty.

It is. And he straight lines the ball. Loved this bit of play from the 3rd qtr - great little injection of intensity just at a time when we needed it.

So pleased to see him back and playing with confidence and purpose.