Was Crouch up to it,IMO no.

[swantastic]

I know he hasn't played for a long time,but he didnt seem to have the run in his legs and the hard tackling at all.Am i being to hard or am i being a realist?

[Snake]

I know he hasn't played for a long time,but he didnt seem to have the run in his legs and the hard tackling at all.Am i being to hard or am i being a realist?

I agree, he looked very underdone, but he still do alot better than clanger king @@@@ for brains McVeigh.

[dread and might]

He wasn't great, but certainly wasn't alone in that respect

[ScottH]

Exactly, while he is below his best (which is to be expected after 6 months out), he played better than a fair few of his team mates.

[NMWBloods]

It's good to see him back. I think with a bit more run he might be back to his old self, which the team could really use.

[Go Swannies]

He seems to have lost that explosive speed of his. I hope it comes back as he gets match fit.

[Bleed Red Blood]

I think it was a pretty hard game to come back in for. So intense and close in.

Just another bad thing about the bye, if he'd have been able to play another ressies match he would have been able to come into the (should be) less pressured Demons game.

[Nico]

Very hard to be critical of Grundy when Crouch was brought in with much less pre season than Grundy. Dont think Grundy was any worse than Crouch.

It is very interesting that we have 2 players in the side with very restricted pre season build up. Are they testing both players out.

It was mentioned in another thread that Grundy was the Chambers of 2007. Roos tends to do this early in a season to give a player plenty of time to prove himself. Be interesting come Round 6/7 to see where Grundy and Crouch are at. Maybe they are throwing Crouch in to see if he can stand up to the rigours of the game still.

[Lucky Knickers]

The only way to get Crouch up to it is to get him back in the seniors and match hard and fit. Given the deficiencies of the 2nds comp - what would leaving him there for a week or two have done?

[RogueSwan]

The only way to get Crouch up to it is to get him back in the seniors and match hard and fit. Given the deficiencies of the 2nds comp - what would leaving him there for a week or two have done?

Just how I was thinking (that's poor grammar isn't it? ). Crouch was eventually going to have to play a seniors game and no matter who we were up against he would not appear ready.
Hopefully a strong game this weekend will have him back up to the speed of the game. His hands seemed a bit slow against the Crows. His leg speed I thought was alright. His mental speed needs to catch up.