Rnd 4 Match Day Thread Adelaide Crows V Sydney Swans. 19.10pm (ACST) Adelaide Oval.

[giant]

Roo is really impressive and trying to be impartial - but Brereton needs a hot pie shoved into his eyes!! (I'm not happy with that twat!)

Ricciuto is an excellent commentator.

[aardvark]

For me though, Richards was my biggest worry. I love him to death but I was concerned about what I saw tonight. Hopefully it was just a bad game.

Not sure we have anything better to replace him with although Alir had another good game in the 2's today.

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Lost at the selection table. Playing mcveigh instead of jones ans stuffing around with towers confidence last week.

Not sure Jones would have been any better than Macca. I don't like Mills and Macca both playing HBF, neither are great defenders.

[giant]

Fabulous game of footy, couple of pretty lucky goals for the Crows in the end made the difference.

My lordy Heeney is going to turn into a very good footballer. We might be asking a lot from Mills to be playing HBF though. some of his disposal tonight showed a fella with a lot to learn. Few of the youngsters struggled but really liked Lloyd's game and thought Nankervis held his won too. Without wanting to be cruel, you could almost argue Towers was the difference - he really was just dreadful.

[Melbourne_Blood]

Ricciuto is an excellent commentator.

100% agree, almost goes out of his way to be unbiased. Dermott on the other hand...

[dejavoodoo44]

Of course, once again I found myself thinking, 'Just what would be the best way to improve Dermie's commentary?'

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[Melbourne_Blood]

Not sure we have anything better to replace him with although Alir had another good game in the 2's today.

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Not sure Jones would have been any better than Macca. I don't like Mills and Macca both playing HBF, neither are great defenders.

A guy ( Mills) that continually runs back with the flight, and clunks marks in the defensive 50, I would argue, is quite a good defender. His Intercept marking by reading the play better also was great. He tackled and harassed quite well too.

[Ludwig]

I'll add to those who appreciated a high quality intense game.

The game could have gone either way, but Adelaide deserved the win. They took it up to our midfield and beat us in the areas where we should have had a considerable advantage. However slight, they had more contested possessions and clearances. When they won the ball they took advantage of holes in our defence, an area where we were also supposed to be strong. They looked a more settled team and didn't make many errors. It was very solid performance from a quality team.

I was disappointed with our defense in general, particularly Reg and to a lesser extent Ted. We shouldn't be giving up 113 points. We also had a return of our problems of getting the ball out of our backline.

I was also hoping for more from Towers, but he doesn't seem to perform when the pressure's on. I hope the Papley miracle isn't over yet, but he had a slow one.

I was surprised to read our tackle stats. At the top of the table was Toby with 9, followed by Macca and Cunningham with 8.

I think there are several changes to come in this team over the coming weeks as we sort out which of our youngsters are truly ready for the big time. Looking forward to getting Reid and Rohan in the side.

Credit to both teams for giving footy fans a real treat.

[ernie koala]

Can't believe the criticism of Mills I'm reading...

He had one of the great 'game 4' games you'll see. He threw himself into contest after contest, and won most of them, had 23 possessions, played well beyond his rookie status.

Both he and Heeney showed what all the draft fuss was about.

Robinson was OK. Towers was predictably terrible. Papley didn't get involved enough.

Nankervis played really well. Tippo continued his excellent form. Rampe played the best game of his career thus far.

All in all that was a cracking game and gives me great optimism about the season ahead....Can't wait for next week.

[mcs]

Great game of footy and while i was disappointed we didnt get the points, it was what afl should be about.

Umpiring was pretty good tonight on balance, but that hands in the back free they missed late was a huge blunder at a critical stage of the game. I have no issue with a 50/50 call at that stage being missed, but there was an umpire very close and that was a clear free kick where the ump simply bottled it - that was a very poor error. Hopefully sometime along the way later in the season we will get a bit of luck to even it out.

As for our play, we just werent quite clean enough when we needed to be, but it was such a close game so cant complain too much. I thought nankervis did well but equally we missed sinclair, and our worst parts of play seemed to cluster around the times when tippo wasnt in the ruck.

Midfield brigade were pretty good, and that heeney is something special.

Adelaide bogans were fairly tame really, but kept it classy with a tippo is a wanker chant a few times. They are fairly tame in general bar one idiot that told me to f off back to sydney because i politely asked him to get out of the stairwell when we tried to exit just before the siren. Managed to make him look a fool in front of his mates when he started ranting on, so hopefully he might bave learnt something as a result!

Disappointing result but good night at the footy. Important we bounce back next week though, 4-1 would be more than respectable return after 5 rounds.

[Maltopia]

Macca didn't have a brilliant game, but he led he was second for tackles with 8. I thought Papley, Towers and Ted were the ones who were more obviously sub-par tonight.

[aardvark]

A guy ( Mills) that continually runs back with the flight, and clunks marks in the defensive 50, I would argue, is quite a good defender. His Intercept marking by reading the play better also was great. He tackled and harassed quite well too.

I'm happy with either Mills or Macca playing HBF but not both at the same time. I'd rather see Jones in there and either Mills or Macca up the ground. It doesn't help when Smith and Richards both get smashed as well.

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Macca didn't have a brilliant game, but he led the team with 8 tackles.

I agree he didn't have a brilliant game, Nankervis, believe it or not, had 9 tackles.

[wolftone57]

Toby probably played his best game. Follow up work was great and competed strongly. Very comfortable keeping him in if Sinclair is not right.

Rampe was incredible.

Was Richards injured during the game? I don't recall him being on the field in the last quarter and Rampe was playing on Walker who would usually get Richards.

Luke Teddy was moved from Walker after the first quarter. He then played on Lynch and McGovern. He was terrible beaten by every opponent tonight. His disposal the few times he got it was diabolical. I think teddy is slow and gone.

Rampe played a very good game.

One of the best games I have seen in a couple of years. High quality. A few home town non decisions got them home in the end. That and kicking the goals when they counted. A few things. for those who are pleased by Benny's game second back think again. He got 9 disposals playing in the mids. Sure he kicked goals at crucial times in the first half. But his output was not high enough. Young Tom Papley found out just how hard AFL Footy is tonight. but he fought through that and came out ok in the end. totally unsighted in the first half but managed 5 disposals and a few tackles in the second. The Adelaide backs were very good.

Not worried about this game. Chalk it down to experience. Next week we play West coast at home. I think we need to think about replacing Teddy before Talia gets back. I wonder how Aliir or X went today?

[707]

Aliir best I believe

[bodgie]

Great game to be there. Mucho intensity in the midfield, but we were exposed often without anyone to kick to up forward. Just kicking long and hoping we would be fast enough to run onto it. We succeeded sometimes, nearly enough, but its an opportunistic way to try and win a game. Heeney was a joy to watch.

[goswannies]

From tonight's team:

Daniel Robertson 8 games
Heeney 18
Mills 4
Nankervis 6
Papley 4
Towers almost a veteran at 20 games

More than a quarter of the team have played a combined 60 games between them. A couple of points hit the post, a couple of early final quarter snaps just missed. Lost to a fair side on their home deck by less than a couple of kicks.

It's was a good effort IMO

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Great game to be there.

Except for the parochial, ferral Crows supporters