dlanod
Moderator
- Sep 14, 2006
- 52,399
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- GWS; CCMariners; NQCowboys; Ravens
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- #1
Date – Saturday, August 15
Time – 7:10 pm
Venue – Adelaide Oval
Weather - 17° Possible late shower
Preview by whatboutbob... s**t, ummm, Fatcat08
Well at the start of the year I glanced at the preview writers schedule and upon seeing that Reardo was writing the first Adelaide preview I rejoiced. He would do an excellent job as per usual and then I would be able to plagiarise him mercilessly, and you would all enjoy a well written thoughtful preview. Well, unfortunately he had to go ahead and post a picture of Nickleback, thereby contaminating the whole post rendering it completely unusable. Unfortunately the result is you have to suffer through whatever crap I manage to exude (luckily everyone should be used to disappointment by now).
Thank goodness the Lions managed to have a win on the weekend otherwise I wouldn't be in the delightfully gleeful mood I find myself it (can't you tell?). While watching the Wallabies get thumped by the AllBlacks at the Norman pre game I should have realized that the world had gone back to normal, balance had been restored and that Carltank would take their rightful tanking place at the bottom of the ladder.
Fast forward to the week ahead however and I'm under no such illusion. Its amazing that Adelaide are playing as well as they are given the events that have transpired this year, however they've pushed through and are playing a pretty exciting brand of footy. Their midfield continues to get better each week after a disjointed start to the year where multiple players missed patches of footy and they certainly don't lack scoring power. Looking over their list they're a pretty balanced side. They've got some good lock down defenders, quality rebounders off the half back, solid inside mids who win the ball and a well balanced and potent forward line.
Their only weakness is perhaps that they lack a bit of footspeed although I am probably nitpicking a bit here. Outside of Danger they don't really have that break the lines mid or half back flanker, which means they can rely on hitting up targets to move forward, something they've been pretty good at. Of course having two bail out options in Walker and Jenkins also helps when you're a bit stuck transitioning.
The lions were better last week but in all honesty there were about 8-10 times where we managed to transition from our half back line even with a few mistimed and badly chosen handballs. By that stage Carlton were no better than witches hats in the middle of the ground, but we won't get away with it against the Crows. Still it was good to see us having some confidence to move the ball quicker and I was especially pleased to see us look inboard toward the corridor as a primary option, even if we didn't always take it. What its done is make it hard to work out whether our periods of boundary hugging, chip around play during a lot of games this year was Leppas instructions or guys just not having the confidence to look inside first and then execute.
What I did enjoy last week was our multiple options coming off the half back line. Rich was excellent but I thought that Cutler and Dawson both provided other options and both of them executed their skills pretty well. Teams will certainly look to lock up Rich, probably as early as this weekend, so we need to find other avenues forward, something we're on the way to achieving. Aside from the two talls what we will have to watch is Betts and Cameron, with none of our mid sized defenders being natural defenders. Overall we're going to have our hands full.
While I am trying to be optimistic I can't see anything other than a reasonable loss being in our future. Anything less than 6-8 goals will be a pretty decent effort IMO although I feel that it could be a bit worse than that if we're not switched on for the whole game. What I do want to see is us continue to move the ball quickly and have faith in the guy on the lead. We do that and i'll be a happy man regardless.
Adelaide by 40
Time – 7:10 pm
Venue – Adelaide Oval
Weather - 17° Possible late shower
Preview by whatboutbob... s**t, ummm, Fatcat08
Well at the start of the year I glanced at the preview writers schedule and upon seeing that Reardo was writing the first Adelaide preview I rejoiced. He would do an excellent job as per usual and then I would be able to plagiarise him mercilessly, and you would all enjoy a well written thoughtful preview. Well, unfortunately he had to go ahead and post a picture of Nickleback, thereby contaminating the whole post rendering it completely unusable. Unfortunately the result is you have to suffer through whatever crap I manage to exude (luckily everyone should be used to disappointment by now).
Thank goodness the Lions managed to have a win on the weekend otherwise I wouldn't be in the delightfully gleeful mood I find myself it (can't you tell?). While watching the Wallabies get thumped by the AllBlacks at the Norman pre game I should have realized that the world had gone back to normal, balance had been restored and that Carltank would take their rightful tanking place at the bottom of the ladder.
Fast forward to the week ahead however and I'm under no such illusion. Its amazing that Adelaide are playing as well as they are given the events that have transpired this year, however they've pushed through and are playing a pretty exciting brand of footy. Their midfield continues to get better each week after a disjointed start to the year where multiple players missed patches of footy and they certainly don't lack scoring power. Looking over their list they're a pretty balanced side. They've got some good lock down defenders, quality rebounders off the half back, solid inside mids who win the ball and a well balanced and potent forward line.
Their only weakness is perhaps that they lack a bit of footspeed although I am probably nitpicking a bit here. Outside of Danger they don't really have that break the lines mid or half back flanker, which means they can rely on hitting up targets to move forward, something they've been pretty good at. Of course having two bail out options in Walker and Jenkins also helps when you're a bit stuck transitioning.
The lions were better last week but in all honesty there were about 8-10 times where we managed to transition from our half back line even with a few mistimed and badly chosen handballs. By that stage Carlton were no better than witches hats in the middle of the ground, but we won't get away with it against the Crows. Still it was good to see us having some confidence to move the ball quicker and I was especially pleased to see us look inboard toward the corridor as a primary option, even if we didn't always take it. What its done is make it hard to work out whether our periods of boundary hugging, chip around play during a lot of games this year was Leppas instructions or guys just not having the confidence to look inside first and then execute.
What I did enjoy last week was our multiple options coming off the half back line. Rich was excellent but I thought that Cutler and Dawson both provided other options and both of them executed their skills pretty well. Teams will certainly look to lock up Rich, probably as early as this weekend, so we need to find other avenues forward, something we're on the way to achieving. Aside from the two talls what we will have to watch is Betts and Cameron, with none of our mid sized defenders being natural defenders. Overall we're going to have our hands full.
While I am trying to be optimistic I can't see anything other than a reasonable loss being in our future. Anything less than 6-8 goals will be a pretty decent effort IMO although I feel that it could be a bit worse than that if we're not switched on for the whole game. What I do want to see is us continue to move the ball quickly and have faith in the guy on the lead. We do that and i'll be a happy man regardless.
Adelaide by 40
