That's the way Crouch was taught to go for a ground ball. If Carroll had learnt the same technique, there would have been no head contact.
I agree that the game has to evolve to minimise head knocks but part of that evolution is a return to good technique and the elimination of foolhardy play encouraged by the rules as they are interpreted now. If two players went for the ball as Carroll did, it would have resulted in a head clash.
That's the way I teach my 9yo son to go for the ball. Protect yourself by turning your body. If the other bloke is stupid enough to not do that, then that's on him. He doesn't meant to hurt the opposition by doing that, but protect yourself first, opponent second.
Afls duty of care will get you if you hurt someone else, but that someone else needs to show a duty of care to themselves!
First Crack showed Rankine going into the middle and stood on Cripps. Crows won the ball, Rankine pushed forward and got away from our captain who was right on his tail but too slow to stop him.
Next time Hewett picked him up but then just let Rankine go by himself inside 50.
Sure, its not great and will be harshly judged, but do we actually have anyone that could catch him?
As K pointed out, VFL good form does not automatically transfer to good AFL form. And this applies, especially, to the perplexing selection of Pitto... to replace a mid... WTF! I don't care how well Pitto played in the Magoos, his selection unsettled our side. Another sentimental selection?
Personally, I think Binnsy is close but his light body still concerns me... needs more strength in the contest. When the going got really hard and tough in the VFL Rottingwood game, especially in the second half, Binnsy went missing.
Ollie hasn't been down on form, he's been ordinary. Reality. Tries his heart out, but tackle failures and fumbles worry me. I'd definitely give him a spell in the Magoos to regain touch and work on hurting the opposition with possessions... not to mention much needed confidence.
Acres and Cotters are our best wingmen... both can run all day, defend well and then hit the scoreboard.
I called it before the game. "There goes our team balance".....and it was obvious once the final siren went, if not before, that i was right.
Only question i have is WHY did they 'pull that reign'? If for some reason nobody else was available to be sub, then put Pittonet as the sub and hope you don't get an injury. Really like to see what happened with Cincotta being MIA. Really like to hear the justification for Cerra <> Pittonet.
re Hollands.... I don't think he has been as bad as some are making out. You are correct that Cottrell and Acres can run all day.....but so can Hollands. FWIW.... Distance covered.... Cottrell ran 15.5km in our game vs the Crows, to lead everyone else on the ground. Hollands was second with 15.0km. 3 adelaide players manged 14km+ to round out the top 5.
Distance covered at high speed.... Hollands lead the rest of the ground with 3.7km Crows 2+3 Acres 3.1 Cottrell 3.0 In terms of sprints from last game... Acres was #1 with 31. O.Hollands was 3rd with 27 (adelaide 2, 4 and 5).
Work rate (average km/h in attack).... O. Hollands was ground leader with 9.1. Walsh 8.8 Solijo 8.6 E. Hollands 8.4 Cottrell 8.3 ***5 adelaide players made up the top 5 in defence.
So 'out of form' is subjective. One thing for certain is he is certainly trying and putting in the hard yards and that won't be replaced in a hurry
Kicking for goal was simply atrocious, 14.14 to 16.4 cannot be tolerated.
In fairness, we did have 5 rushed behinds (they had 0) So it was essentially 14.9 to 16.4, and we had at least 1 hit the post, and 1 go down as touched when it was a goal. So its not so bad when you dive down into it.
It was more of a case of them not being able to miss more than it was our bad kicking.
Agree with that, KP players should be on the agenda as a priority, need some more speedy ball winning mids but given we have the Campo kids on the way that might cover that area although I wouldnt mind a taller/stronger young mid or two to future proof the list as Hewett, Kennedy and Cripps get older.
Yep. We are chasing the same players. What often gets overlooked is a) How easy is it to get them? Supply vs Demand b) How much does it cost to get them in terms of picks/players when it is i) Through the draft ii) Via trade c) How long before they are AFL ready once we do get them.
In terms of good KPPs Easiest way to get them is via trade, but that will cost you BIG time. Next best way is via the draft, but you have to be proactive as it is usually years before you see if they are up to scratch. Which, in the meantime means you could miss your (next) window if you get a bad batch and are not continually drafting them.
Tend to agree on Lemmey, he should be doing better given he had some senior SANFL experience and seems very mark and kick but not much else. He could be a player who needs a taste of senior footy to take the next step and VFL footy may just see him plod along at that lesser standard without challenging himself too much. Id like to see him run on the ball a bit more in the ruck and get more involved....Okeefe is a good blue collar kid but is another who seems to be showing little improvement after a good start last season.
So, we could, be going back to the draft to chase some genuine KP players for the future. Something we should've been doing for years. Unless we find one soon, we'll have Charlie, Harry and Weitering (and Jack) all over 30 without a genuine replacement on the list.
Binns running power is outstanding he is perfect runner for transition play like Cottrell. He finds plenty of the ball through pure work rate. But what impresses me more is that work rate he also adds tackles and clearances to his game. 25 touches, 4 tackles 3 clearances from the young fella is fantastic for a wingman.
First of all, VFL form doesn't mean AFL form. Plenty of great VFL players haven't made it at AFL level.
Secondly, where do you want us to play Binns? Acres, Hollands (x2), Cottrell all play similar position and all are doing well enough in those positions so far. So we drop a regular AFL player for a rookie because......why?
I've got nothing against Binns. Honestly, i couldn't pick him out of a crowd, i just don't understand why we are pushing for a bloke when he doesn't fill a position we need filling. Its like if a ruck was the most in form player in the VFL and dominating all comers. Do we introduce him to the 1's when we have TDK (and now Pittonet) playing decent enough footy? No, there isn't a spot, no matter how well he might be playing.
GWS copped as many injuries as we did. Haven't heard the latest update, but there was a concussion, Coniglio had a knee scare and someone else was hurt.
The two Ruck option is not just a matter of replacing a tall for a more mobile mid/forward/defender. It's a little more complicated than that. There are a number of other variables that come into play. There is a flow on effect for multiple other positions. The roles played by TDK, Harry, even Kennedy change to some extent. Of course that can have an impact on performance Initially that can be unsettling to a side. If it's to be persisted with it's something that would take time to fine tune. The alternative is to scrap it completely and consign one ruck to a season of VFL
Given all that. And also given the understanding that a ruck on the bench reduced mid-field rotations, which was further complicated by injuries.
Pittonet played 50% of the game. TDK played 75% Was there a difference in our effectiveness or style of play in the lengthy times when one ruck was off the ground? For much of the game we did play only one ruck.
Firstly, given the injuries we had, and still only played 2 rucks for a half and 3/4's of a game, it showed how little we used 2 rucks at once.
There was a ruck off the ground for 3/4's of the game. The question should be, watching the game, can you tell if/when we had 2 rucks on the ground? There didn't appear to be any on-field benefit to having 2 rucks. Its hard to quantify how much it hurt us by having 2 rucks. But, what is clear is that we took up a large part of the game, 3'4s to be exact, with a ruck on the pine. That time would've been better suited to a smaller (mid/flanker type) as that 50%* game time would've been better off sharing between 10 other mid/flanker types. (*50% rather than 75% because TDK would still have 75% game time, so we only gain Pittonets time on the bench).
I must have missed something Thought Cincotta would have been a better option to replace Cerra rather than Pittonet but....
Wasn't picked. Not Playing VFL Not on the injury list.
He was an emergency. I thought he HAD to be picked as our 24th player (instead of Pittonet) because you couldn't include Pittonet.
....and yes, i did crack it when i heard.
In the end, i don't know what happened to Cincotta, so maybe he had a late injury?
Going back to who should've played instead of Pitto.....play Carroll as the 22 and bring in a different sub. I think Cowan was the 3rd option from our emergencies and if Cincotta wasn't available, then Cowan should've been it. Would've been perfect in the end since we lost a HBF.
Only because of injuries, but that can happen for any position on the ground.
Fans seem oblivious to the risk of a single point of failure, which is the one ruck scenario, at least with Mids you have multiple points of failure so it's much easier to cover the loss of one.
We literally won game(s?) last year without a recognised ruck.
You, among others, have pointed out how pointless some ruck stats are.
You, amonth others, have pointed out that the around the ground work is more important than what happens in the ruck.
So why are you, among others, so fixated on the need for a second ruck in the side?
For the record, Harry did not attend a single ruck contest.
I'm not blaming forwards and have spent a lot of time pointing out the good that is often missed by them.
However, when we have 3 of them who had 4 tackles between them, and were lower half of the pressure acts each.....you gotta start asking some questions.
