Review Round 3 vs Adelaide @ Adelaide Oval (02.04.21 - 6:50pm)

Jirik13

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A couple more points on SUNS after sleeping on it.

I had look at BF threads. I am a bit surprised but most other club fans were quite positive about SUNS performance against Crows. They enjoyed the game and think we are on the way up. Definitely more positive than most SUNS supporters.

All I hope for now is that Witts did not do ACL. There were players who did ACL when a player fell on their knee from the side (Lions Rich was a typical one). Morris saying that he talked to SUNS and they fear ACL made me expect the worst.

All that talk about bad recruiting, list management - I don’t buy it at all. Like we should draft Pescud, Gore. Jeez, all these are speculative picks. No other team touched them.

As for recruiting more rucks. We had 4 rucks - Witts, Smith, Day, Conroy. All are done - hopefully only for a half of season except Conroy. No other team would cope with these injures. No other team has more rucks on the list.

St Kilda lost Marshall, Ryder. So they are playing McKernan who was useless against Wright (who actually was also very ordinary in the ruck).
Lions lost BigO and Smith (who is below average). Now Ballanden and Fullarton were getting obliterated by Grundy.

Crows are ahead of us. Another overreaction. Yes, they beat us but that does not mean they are ahead of us and we are irrelevant. They played well so far this year. I like their pressure and Sloan and Laird played really well in the middle. But they got a lot of issues ahead of them including plenty of old players close to the end of their careers.

There are no ifs but if Crows had our schedule, if Witts did not get injured, if we took our chances (again), if the game was played at Metricon - I would put money on us.

The game against Carlton will tell us more about SUNS. Yes, we will have no ruck and it will hurt us but I expect a lot of players who struggled against Crows will improve after 8 days break. And there were a lot of players who struggled to perform. Without watching replay - Collins, Sexton, Brodie, Swallow, Ainsworth, Markov, Luko.

We definitely made a mistake just bombing it into I50 late when only King was there. More poise and gradual build up was needed. On the positive side, when the game was on the line I liked how Ballard, Powell, Anderson, Greenwood, Burgess, Lemmens, Holman went about it.

Limited rotations, 20 mins quarters really stretch players. How teams control the game is pretty crucial. No teams can go 100% for 4 quarters. Every game I watch, teams slow down at some point, in late parts they just keep possession, walk it, gut it out.

Probably only after 5-6 games into season one can properly assess how teams go. Injuries unfortunately will play a big part as usual. It’s a bloody even and difficult competition. So far only North looks in trouble. The rest - anybody can beat anybody on the day.
 
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NOBBYS

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Mar 19, 2018
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LIFE As A Sun Supporter.
Frustrating Disappointment Good Effort Injuries Missed opportunities Never gave up More injuries .
Friday nights game was all those in a nutshell.
First quarter fast open football pleasure to watch.
Second quarter absolute rubbish ,sideways backwards no run , horrible to watch.
No doubt Adelaide became more aggressive but we just went into our shells , not sure players or coaches fault.
Second half was even battle with Walker and Sloan the difference in the finish.
We did well to stay in touch with so many players having very poor games (SWALLOW WELLER BRODIE AINSWORTH SEXTON COLLINS)
Dip my lid to Burgess and Holman probably the least naturally talented players in our team but gave 110 % and almost helped get us across the line.
Greenwood and Anderson manfully battled without much help.
Good to see Ballard ,Lemmens Powell and King showing continued improvement.
What on earth has happened to Ainsworth and Brodie both used to at least find the football , now possessions are single figures.
The loss of Witts for several weeks is a huge blow .
We now have seven players with serious long term knee injuries , how we overcome these losses is going to be very difficult.
Hard to win games at this level without one genuine ruckman and very few talls.
Enjoy the rest of Easter.
See u at Metricon next weekend.
Cheers
.
 

Jirik13

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I’m sure some of you feel that if I am so disappointed I should just stop supporting the Suns and pointing out the failings, but it is the very fact that I love the club so much and want to see us reach the level we should already be playing at
It's only a social forum. Express your feelings, opinions, disagree as much as you want. We all do that. That's what this forum is for. Some people even use it for trolling. It's not like views of 20-30 people here have any bearing on SUNS performance, future :)

BTW, even if SUNS go well this year, they will still probably lose half of the games. There will be plenty more opportunities to feel disappointed.
 
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Stroppy

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It might just be as simple as some of our better performing players not playing well this week.

Swallow, Collins, Lukosius, and Weller were well below their normal best. Bowes, Powell and Miller not great either. So basically half our midfield, our best key defender, and a good chunk of our backline.

Some of it them playing well, especially Tex, but a few of those blokes would be disappointed that they were a lot better against West Coast then they were against the Crows.

PS. Thought Greenwood was our best player by a fair margin.
PPS. Not all doom and gloom from me just yet. All those players have a few points in the bag that they can have a poor game.
PPPS. There is doom and gloom however that Brodie and Ainsworth will ever be good enough to be best 22 in a finals team.
 
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Even though Ainsworth had a stinker. He has shown he is capable in the past kicking some decent goals and getting on the score board, willing to give him a couple more games.

Brodie however has run his race, and would be again, looking to move him on this year. Would like to see Davies get a block of games this season, but you would expect Fiorini to get first crack at Brodie's spot.
 

Corkie

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Even though Ainsworth had a stinker. He has shown he is capable in the past kicking some decent goals and getting on the score board, willing to give him a couple more games.

Brodie however has run his race, and would be again, looking to move him on this year. Would like to see Davies get a block of games this season, but you would expect Fiorini to get first crack at Brodie's spot.

Ainsworth has definitely stagnated a bit but I think he is currently stuck in no mans land. Is he a small forward or is he a midfielder? He seems to be a bit lost with his role in the team at the moment.

Atkins is the player I think we need in the team asap. More outside run. Either on the wing or back flank, it gives us options to move other players into more effective positions and improve our structure. He adds another mature player that can help lift the team when needed.
 

OB11

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Even though Ainsworth had a stinker. He has shown he is capable in the past kicking some decent goals and getting on the score board, willing to give him a couple more games.

Brodie however has run his race, and would be again, looking to move him on this year. Would like to see Davies get a block of games this season, but you would expect Fiorini to get first crack at Brodie's spot.

Just watching the Sunday Footy Show and they highlighted how good Sloane was on 2 key occasions in the 1st quarter - was obvious that Brodie was his man and let him do whatever he wanted to. Brodie is finished and if he has a year left on his contract he either needs to be traded or demoted to the rookie list so we can can pick up a player who has a future at the club.
 

Jirik13

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It might just be as simple as some of our better performing players not playing well this week.

Swallow, Collins, Lukosius, and Weller were well below their normal best. Bowes, Powell and Miller not great either. So basically half our midfield, our best key defender, and a good chunk of our backline.

Some of it them playing well, especially Tex, but a few of those blokes would be disappointed that they were a lot better against West Coast then they were against the Crows.

PS. Thought Greenwood was our best player by a fair margin.
PPS. Not all doom and gloom from me just yet. All those players have a few points in the bag that they can have a poor game.
PPPS. There is doom and gloom however that Brodie and Ainsworth will ever be good enough to be best 22 in a finals team.
Agree with everything except Ainsworth. Yes, he had an average game and was disappointing but to write him off is way, way too early. He was good in the first two games. Even against Crows he had I believe 2 goals on his foot. He will learn from it. Still young and had some very good games last year.
 

OB11

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Agree with everything except Ainsworth. Yes, he had an average game and was disappointing but to write him off is way, way too early. He was good in the first 2 two games. Even against Crows he had I believe 2 goals on his foot. He will learn from it. Still young and had some very good games last year.

Ainsworth was pretty good last year
 
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It’s the fear of another round of injuries affecting our growth that worries me.
I had us in front of a rebuilding Sydney & Adelaide. Injuries for a young team could all of sudden end up with us bottom 4. Contracts then mean zero.
At the present rate we have 4 long term knee injuries from just 3 games. We cannot take a trick
 

Stroppy

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Agree with everything except Ainsworth. Yes, he had an average game and was disappointing but to write him off is way, way too early. He was good in the first two games. Even against Crows he had I believe 2 goals on his foot. He will learn from it. Still young and had some very good games last year.

My worry is that he does not kick it well enough to be damaging enough often enough as a forward/mid.
Does a lot else at a high level, but a lot of his kicks to goal and to forward targets are not precise enough.
Has to do everything else right, which he did a lot last year. But also why I am a bit worried about what his ceiling is.
 

Jirik13

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My worry is that he does not kick it well enough to be damaging enough often enough as a forward/mid.
Does a lot else at a high level, but a lot of his kicks to goal and to forward targets are not precise enough.
Has to do everything else right, which he did a lot last year. But also why I am a bit worried about what his ceiling is.
Agree, he definitely needs more kicking lessons under fatigue from Dew and Drummond.
 
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Aug 7, 2013
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My worry is that he does not kick it well enough to be damaging enough often enough as a forward/mid.
Does a lot else at a high level, but a lot of his kicks to goal and to forward targets are not precise enough.
Has to do everything else right, which he did a lot last year. But also why I am a bit worried about what his ceiling is.
In his first year he looked like he’d could be anything. 13 games booted 14 with a 4, 3, 3 x 2.
Following 46 games he has gone goalless in 23 of them and booted 2 only 4-5 times since. 27.38 since that first year. I love him and agree he does a lot of good things but I’m also not sure where his best spot is.
 
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Ainsworth is at his best as a lead up forward, marks the ball exceptionally well at full pace. That slow chipping ball movement, allowing opposition to set up defensively kills his game

Having said that, he played really poorly on the weekend, but I thought he was one of our better players last year for the games he played

On SM-G960W using BigFooty.com mobile app
 

robo_1

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I agree that our ceiling is high and while my post can be seen as pessimistic I think it is more of a rant from an angry fan that sees us once again wasting what we have. The whole “it’s ok they are young” narrative we see trotted out time after time is covering over the cracks that clearly show that many high draft players are well behind where they should be

I see as honest truth not pessimistic.. at some stage the young thing and the it was close loss or the schedule didn’t suit or that team lost to another team has to stop though.. at what point do we get to of close losses does say a Jack lukosius does a Tom lynch and requests a trade back to Adelaide 41 games 9 wins 1 draw 31 losses
 

Peel67skin

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I see as honest truth not pessimistic.. at some stage the young thing and the it was close loss or the schedule didn’t suit or that team lost to another team has to stop though.. at what point do we get to of close losses does say a Jack lukosius does a Tom lynch and requests a trade back to Adelaide 41 games 9 wins 1 draw 31 losses
Rankine and Lukosius could request to trade back to Adelaide next year.
 

robo_1

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Rankine and Lukosius could request to trade back to Adelaide next year.

I’m not as worried about rankine as lukosius as rankine seems quite happy where he is has a local girlfriend likes the lifestyle went straight back to gc after game whereas lukosius girlfriend still in Adelaide stayed there after the game best mate rozee killing it in port team
 

CrowBloke

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All I hope for now is that Witts did not do ACL.
Unfortunately ABC News has reported that it's an ACL, and might be season-ending.
I am very sad for Witts and your side for that bad news.
Until he sustained that injury he was well on top and I suspect that had he stayed on your blokes would have won the game.

I wish him all the best for his rehab and for a total recovery, and to your blokes for the rest of the season.
 

CoolyRocks

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Unfortunately ABC News has reported that it's an ACL, and might be season-ending.
I am very sad for Witts and your side for that bad news.
Until he sustained that injury he was well on top and I suspect that had he stayed on your blokes would have won the game.

I wish him all the best for his rehab and for a total recovery, and to your blokes for the rest of the season.
Oh-I thought you might of come here to apologise for your numpty ruck ******* up Wittsy's knee- but all we got was the usual serve of opposition crocodile tears.Had enough of those for a lifetime on this board "mate"
 

CrowBloke

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Oh-I thought you might of come here to apologise for your numpty ruck ******* up Wittsy's knee- but all we got was the usual serve of opposition crocodile tears.Had enough of those for a lifetime on this board "mate"
I understand your frustration, even the anger. Witts is co-Captain and was playing very well.

Players from all Clubs suffer ACL ruptures and I was horrified when Witts went down, then relieved when Ch7 commentators speculated soon after it might have been a medial ligament , or even less.
Tragically, that's not the case.
I was reminded of Crows players (eg Shaun Rehn (twice), Taylor Walker (2013), and more recently Brodie Smith, Tom Doedee, Wayne Milera and Erin Phillips) who've done ACLs and the impact it had on their teams' fortunes and their own form afterwards.
It's a bad injury and takes a year to recover from. No offence intended. I was offering no "crocodile tears"; only empathy and best wishes to Witts, and I meant it.
 
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