Crouch

[ROK Lobster]

Did he come in to the season underdone? Would he have played round 1 but for that meaningless record? Was the individual (and the record) put before the team? Because I think he is struggling like he has never struggled before: not as fit and not as confident in his body, a little, 'stand offish' (not in a cowardly sense, more a conservative/cautious one).

[giant]

Fair cop (and pretty close to a serious post too). He's been badly towelled two weeks in a row now which is most unlike Jared.

What do they do now? Admit they were wrong & send him back to the ressies to get his confidence? Or hope the election of a new pope will spark a resurgence?

[Barry Schneider]

I said on another thread that he played on arguably the BOG in the last 2 games.Adelaide did a great job in targetting him and helping McLeod break free.Lots of pushing and blocking.
I did see him lag behind McLeod by about 20 metres on a few occasions when I would expect him to be side by side.
He doesn't appear fit.

[liz]

Every player wants to play senior football and will be selfish in the sense that they will put themselves forward if they think they are physically ready. I reckon it was more Crouch's fierce desire to play rather than the record that drove him.

From Roos point of view, is there anyone else who could have done better than Crouch who is languishing in the reserves?

We may all be looking forward to the likes of Moore, Willoughby and Schmidt getting a taste of senior football but none of us would surely suggest that any of them could have done a better job on McLeod or Akermanis, both of whom were in excellent form before they played us.

Fosdike's never been a good defensive player, Fixter is injured yet again and Schneider couldn't have done it.

Kirk is our best shut-down player but doesn't have the foot speed to play on either of these two, and in any case was needed to play on Riccuito (which it has to be said he did fairly successfully - Riccuito wasn't that damaging even when the Crows were all over us at the end).

Ablett is maybe the only other option available to Roos but again it would have been a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Against the Lions Ablett was minding Lappin well, and taking advantage of the Lion's lack of fitness by being one of our best all game. He then did another OK job on Goodwin yesterday. It might have been worth moving him onto McLeod when it became clear that Crouch was struggling with the job but that is maybe the only obvious switch that didn't happen.

[Newbie]

Spriggs is fit and raring to run. He is quick and got a great endurance. Crouch is not fit to be playing his role at the moment. A couple of games in the twos should help. Did anyone notice that Crouch is very hesistant to put his shoulders to a contest at all?

[jenky28]

Originally posted by liz
Every player wants to play senior football and will be selfish in the sense that they will put themselves forward if they think they are physically ready. I reckon it was more Crouch's fierce desire to play rather than the record that drove him.

From Roos point of view, is there anyone else who could have done better than Crouch who is languishing in the reserves?

We may all be looking forward to the likes of Moore, Willoughby and Schmidt getting a taste of senior football but none of us would surely suggest that any of them could have done a better job on McLeod or Akermanis, both of whom were in excellent form before they played us.

Fosdike's never been a good defensive player, Fixter is injured yet again and Schneider couldn't have done it.

Kirk is our best shut-down player but doesn't have the foot speed to play on either of these two, and in any case was needed to play on Riccuito (which it has to be said he did fairly successfully - Riccuito wasn't that damaging even when the Crows were all over us at the end).

Ablett is maybe the only other option available to Roos but again it would have been a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Against the Lions Ablett was minding Lappin well, and taking advantage of the Lion's lack of fitness by being one of our best all game. He then did another OK job on Goodwin yesterday. It might have been worth moving him onto McLeod when it became clear that Crouch was struggling with the job but that is maybe the only obvious switch that didn't happen.

Just remember that crouch didnt play on Mcleod the whole match so all the damagethat was done by that player was not all his fault. Mcleod is an excellent player and would have wiped any player we played on him off the ground. Yes Crouch is in a form slump but so many of his team mates are in the same boat.

Put him in the back pocket on a small defender and that is crouchs best possie.

[dendol]

It seemed McLeod played almost all of the second half in defense where he was supposed to be minding O'Keefe, but instead was allowed to continually rebound with no pressure put on him.

[Rizzo]

Putting McLeod down back in the second half was a really smart move. As Barry Schneider there was heaps of blocking on Crouch...but I do wonder whether a fitter more confident Crouchy would have done a better job.

The Crows had it all over us for tactics with defenders running up the ground of Hall and MOL, a squeeze on the half back line and paddocks of space for the midfielders on the flanks.

Better stop now, blood pressure rising....

[Schneiderman]

Originally posted by Rizzo
The Crows had it all over us for tactics with defenders running up the ground of Hall and MOL, a squeeze on the half back line and paddocks of space for the midfielders on the flanks.

The tactic worked on the day. If the clearance from our HB flank had been up to its normal level, this would have blown up in their face.

Most disappointing from my point of view was the way we kept switching play towards the "uncongested" side of the field, without accepting that the Adelaide zone defence was expecting this. We stacked all our players on one side whilst Adelaide spread out, then we switched to the other side where... low and behold, there were mostly Adelaide players in the zone. Dumb.

[Go Swannies]

Did anyone count how many players the Crows had on the field? Last week, they seemed to always have players on their own yet had enough to bottle up Port. I found myself thinking "Port is so much worse than the Swans in not manning up so the Crows always get to run. That won't happen when the Crows play the Swans." But it did!

At the aftermatch, Jude Bolton said that the wings weren't properly defended because the Swans were running down the corridor. That was a clever move by the Crows that was never countered by the Swans. But they just seemed to have more players on the field than us. So did the Roos. It better not happen again on Saturday night - it certainly did when we lost the first game against the Dees at Olympic Park last year.

[originalswan]

I would have thought that two defensive midfielders taqht could possibly take Crouch's place for the time being are the obvious in Ablett and then possibly Bevan in a similar role to Crouch.

Bevan deserves the chance.

[sharpie]

Originally posted by Go Swannies
Did anyone count how many players the Crows had on the field? Last week, they seemed to always have players on their own yet had enough to bottle up Port. I found myself thinking "Port is so much worse than the Swans in not manning up so the Crows always get to run. That won't happen when the Crows play the Swans." But it did!

At the aftermatch, Jude Bolton said that the wings weren't properly defended because the Swans were running down the corridor. That was a clever move by the Crows that was never countered by the Swans. But they just seemed to have more players on the field than us. So did the Roos. It better not happen again on Saturday night - it certainly did when we lost the first game against the Dees at Olympic Park last year.

Its easy. When we are all bunched together waiting for dinky little handballs, two opposition players can defend against the three swans who are all standing within 5 metres of each other. This frees up the 3rd defender to drop back into space to wait for the inevitable turnover

[Go Swannies]

Originally posted by sharpie
Its easy. When we are all bunched together waiting for dinky little handballs, two opposition players can defend against the three swans who are all standing within 5 metres of each other. This frees up the 3rd defender to drop back into space to wait for the inevitable turnover

And how did they do it against Port?

[sharpie]

Originally posted by Go Swannies
And how did they do it against Port?

Port have a load of injuries at the momentm I believe.

[jenky28]

Originally posted by Rizzo
Putting McLeod down back in the second half was a really smart move. As Barry Schneider there was heaps of blocking on Crouch...but I do wonder whether a fitter more confident Crouchy would have done a better job.

The Crows had it all over us for tactics with defenders running up the ground of Hall and MOL, a squeeze on the half back line and paddocks of space for the midfielders on the flanks.

Better stop now, blood pressure rising....

In all honest with all the injurys from the weekend he will get a game so i hope he puts all the critics to rest and has a reasonable game.