Top heavy Pies

[lethalburns]

Is it just me or did tonight's game mirror the Brisbane's game almost exactly?

We went in with 3 tall fowards and 4 tall backs and almost lost the game.

I don't believe there is room for Dawes Cloke and Leigh Brown in the one forward line.

Leon or Medhurst need to be in this team for our press to cause enough turn overs.

On a final note, it is concerning that we rely so heavily on turn overs to score goals. If we are slightly off on our pressure and our zone breaks down we could potentially get belted by a good team.

When we arn't on the turn over we are generally really slow at moving the ball.

 

[Zahki]

Weren't we smashing sides for the past 8 weeks with Dawes, Cloke and Brown in the forward line? Not sure you can use the result of one game to outweigh a 2 solid months with the exact same setup.

 

[lethalburns]

Well, who played Leon's role tonight?

There was no small forward pressure or crumbing.

 

[The Panther]

Good call.

Adelaide have one of the best attacking defences in the AFL. I also thought Adelaide outzoned us, we normally slaughter them when we go 1/1.

 

[Dundalis]

I think we really really miss a genuine small crumbing forward. Without Davis we simply don't have one. Im not talking about midfielders whom can go into the forward line and kick the odd goal, I'm talking about a geniune small forward that is developed at that craft.

When one of our big forwards gets to the contest and the ball hits the ground, in a congested Finals like intesity (which the Crows brought) I think we will really need someone that can consistently get the crumbs like Leon can at his best. If Leon doesn't get back into the side, I think we may struggle with that for our forward setup, given it otherwise be very top heavy with the bigs we have in the two key forwards and two rucks we rotate through there.

We can get away with it when our forward line isn't congested, which is when we get the ball forward quickly and our midfielders stream forward to kick those easy goals, but when it's congested like tonight and we struggle to get quick play ons, a genuine crumbing small forward may be invaluable.

 

[Invigoration]

Yeah it wasn't great watching Leigh Brown and Jolly lumbering behind the rebounding Crows defenders, we really lacked that intense forward pressure tonight. I think we saw the value that Davis brings to the team tonight.

 

[FloreatPica17]

Yeah it wasn't great watching Leigh Brown and Jolly lumbering behind the rebounding Crows defenders, we really lacked that intense forward pressure tonight. I think we saw the value that Davis brings to the team tonight.

glad someone said it. davis is huge to our structure and sacrifices his own game to do so at times. though some numnut commentators (cough, robert walls; lloydy [worst commentator ever]) forget this at times

 

[Football God]

First Half, We had no Forward structure whatsoever, all we had was 2 big forwards just floating somewhere in the F50 and Travis Cloke was in the centre.

When the ball was in our defensive 50 maybe 1 or 2 players were on the edge of the 50 arc, the rest of our players were around the ball-ups. We struggled witht the running game tonight with Adelaides great pressure. they simply played our style tonight by using the boundary line aswell.

Got to fix up our structures from tonights match.

 

[Dylz48]

Bullshit dud you actually buy into the crap walls and lane pedelled the forward set up has been fine tge reason we didn't kick big scores like we have been is because we were very inefficent going inside 50. and our intensity was well down on ussual.

 

[Football God]

I was at the game and all i saw when the ball was around the wing/HBF area, was 2 or 3 forwards floating around our f50 and a zoned flood adelaide backline with Cloke in the middle, worked a treat for them for a bit.

We need a small forward, We need Leon i dont care what anyone says about him,

 

[TwisTz]

We need a small forward, We need Leon i dont care what anyone says about him,

One or both of Davis and Medhurst definitely need to come back into the side next week.

Based on this weeks VFL form Medhurst is ahead.

• Leon Davis: 20d, 4m, 2t
  
• Paul Medhurst: 32d, 13m, 2g, 1t

However... based on Malthouse's theory of being Medders being left too long in the VFL, Leon is ahead.

Will be a hard week for the selectors.

 

[lozza63]

I dont think being top heavy was really our problem at all tonite.
Grumpy old Wallsy was "pointing the finger" at our talls before half time and Lloydy completely "cut him down to size" by pointing out the real reason for being behind - supply - a mere 19 I50s for a half of footy, all kudos to Adelaide for that.

Usually we find that Harry, Heater, Swanny and Johnno are streaming off half back setting up numerous inside 50s which was not allowed last night.

As a direct consequence of Crow pressure (be it actual or percieved) our disposal efficiency dropped to around 71% - from a usual platform of 75%.

Our intensity and tackling was first rate - 76 tackles and 135 CPs evidence our work rate to be better than our standard. Adelaide in comparison 58 and 119.

Our talls in Brown and Cloke especially kicked clutch goals for us (in the second half) - obviously Clokey could have iced the match with a commanding last quarter. Clokey plucked 3 CM, and 8 of his disposals were contested with 5 magnificent crunching tackles. Daisy was obviously our best for mine. Special mentions for Pendles and Wellas (gee loved his pack mark inside 50 late in the game).

Dids did what he does best and added that touch of magic for us to win - "ugly".

What really gets my goat is the horrendous case of the yips we seem to suffer in front of goal - please address this someone, please.

 

[Jonno_]

I don't think we were top heavy, though I definitely think Leon and/or Meddy will come back in next week. The reason our forward structure looked so bad was because for most of the first half, Adelaide looked as if they played two loose in defence. So everytime we kicked it to half forward, it was to a 3 on 1 and came straight back immediately.