I’d play Crouch next week. Let him go up against last years wooden spooners with their addition of an 18 year old H Sheezle and let’s see how he goes. If he plays like he did against Port and against Carlton, then drop him after that and let him mentor the young lads at Sandrigham for the rest of his contracttakeaway wrote: ↑Sun 30 Apr 2023 12:48pmThanks for your commentary. I think. You love watching Crouch from the couch with your little notepad don't you? Obviously he is a spud. Definite out for game vs North. Who do you suggest replaces him?Scollop wrote: ↑Sun 30 Apr 2023 12:17pm The long bombs into the forward line were happening from the get go. Wood did it. Ross did it. Crouch did it and even Sincs did it
I find it amazing that people think it’s just the defenders fault which cost us the game. They made a few errors, but they weren’t the only reason we lost. I think our mids were ineffective and they couldn’t work enough as a team to run and gun and try and create some clean entries inside 50.
Port had a really good 2nd quarter, but we fought back. I thought we played the better footy and the ball lived in our forward half in the 3rd. We had our chances but inside 50 work was sloppy. Wasted too many entries with wayward kicks.
Then when we found targets in the pockets near the boundary late in the 3rd, Higgins just had absolutely no thought of sharing the footy.
Steele got us going with that first goal in the last quarter and Gresh got us the lead
We controlled the footy in the first ten minutes of the last quarter. We were the dominant team.
We had the momentum and we had about 5-6 entries inside 50 after the Gresh goal. ALL were again wasted.
Port only had about 4 entries for 2 goals while we had about 12 inside 50’s for 3 goals. Clark was showing the rest of our midfield what class looks like.
After Hunter’s goal, Rowan actually got a ruck tap to the advantage of our mids. The ball landed in Brad Couch’s lap and Brad get’s the stat that says ‘clearance’ and ‘contested possession’. Unfortunately it went straight to a Port player at Centre Half Back (just like most of his possessions on the day). There’s about 8 minutes to go.
What really annoys me isn’t when Crouch is under pressure in congestion and he turns it over, but it’s when he blasts away and wastes inside 50’s instead of looking for a team mate. After a goal to Finlayson and a goal to Charlie Dixon, it put them 8 points up. Ball goes to the middle and again we win a centre clearance. Theres under 6 minutes to go at this stage
Marshall gets a clear tap to Sinclair who handballs to Steele who gets it to Crouch. Boak is on his hammer so Crouch kicks to the flank. There’s no clean possession until again Sinclair and Steel combine and Crouch is the beneficiary. Instead of Brad using his captain who is free on the wing near the boundary he bombs it into the half forward flank (for a pathetic shallow entry) and we wasted another inside 50.
Allir marks about 45 out from our goal and then Port start controlling the footy and looking for the loose man. Port are still 8 points up and basically they win most of the 50/50 ball. They were more desperate and they won the ground ball contests.
Instead of the mids running and gunning which only happened once when Hunter Clark ran clear and demanded the footy, most of the time they kicked a tired long bomb to no one. Hunter was everywhere and even took a nice contested mark. He was brilliant in the last.
We got it inside 50 more than twice as many times as they did in the last quarter I reckon. The last opportunity we had was from Marshall getting a clear tap to advantage. Steele handballs to Sebby who kicks an up and under and it’s marked again by Allir. Port iced it after that with only 1 minute left to ice the game
As I’ve said before. We recruited Crouch and Higgins at the end of 2020. Both were surplus to our needs
