Adelaide v Hawthorn & Port v Richmond

Well, a huge week for both local sides coming up.

Friday night we have a massive clash at Adelaide Oval between the resurgent Adelaide and the faltering Hawks.

Adelaide are now fielding their strongest side of the year and building some momentum on the back of a stirring Showdown win a couple of weeks ago. A win over Hawthorn on Friday night will put them firmly back in finals calculations, and with Hawthorn battling a heavy casualty list and Adelaide Oval now becoming an intimidating home ground for the Crows, you'd have to rate them as a chance.

Port on the other hand have started to cough an splutter a bit. Two losses on the trot have them in completely uncharted territory this year, however they have great opportunity to put Richmond to the sword on Sunday and get some of their well publicised form, run and confidence back.

Discuss away.....

In brief ( with more later in the week ) :

Hawthorn will be smarting after their loss to the Kangaroos. You got them at the worst possible time. Undermanned, yes but will be hell bent on not losing two in a row. Promises to be a good enough Friday Night match to ensure Boon doesn't fall asleep half way through the third quarter on his 6th Pale Ale in the recliner.

Port simply must bounce back and beat Richmond if we want any hope of staying in the top 4. Serious teams beat Richmond, we will be deadly serious this weekend.

Booney wrote: Hawthorn will be smarting after their loss to the Kangaroos. You got them at the worst possible time. Undermanned, yes but will be hell bent on not losing two in a row. Promises to be a good enough Friday Night match to ensure Boon doesn't fall asleep half way through the third quarter on his 6th Pale Ale in the recliner.

Yes, one of my mates who's a Hawks fan was saying the same thing, that you wouldn't want to be playing them the week after a defeat like that.

I kind of agree, but think there are a lot of things that are working Adelaide's favour this week:

Adelaide Oval - Adelaide have got their home deck sorted now, particularly at night. The atmosphere is electric at the games I've been too in the last few weeks, including the North game and the Showdown.

Brian Lake - The Lake brain fade and expected suspension will be a boon for Mr Walker, who is well overdue to rip one open. Not to mention the rest of the Adelaide attack who have been on song and are starting to find some real chemistry now. That little bloke will kick some half arsed goals too no doubt.

Hawthorn's Injury List - Hawthorn looked tired last week. They've been battling an extensive injury list for sometime and have done incredibly well - but it really look like it had finally caught up with them.

Not saying any of this will deliver us victory - but rather turn what may have been a one sided affair into a very interesting clash.

Port should destroy Richmond - if it doesn't then there is a chance that it will finish outside the top 4 at seasons end.
Friday night should be a great game. A couple of weeks ago I thought Hawthorn by lots but now I am not so sure. The Hawks defence struggled against North, particularly their talls. If they lose Lake as well they might have trouble matching up on Walker, Jenkins and Pods. Losing Rioli hurts their forward line as apart from Gunstan and Roughie there is no obvious 3rd goal scorer. I reckon that if the Crows can bring the intensity they showed against Collingwood and Port they should win this in a close one. Lose and they have to beat either Collingwood or North in Melbourne to have a chance at finals.

Hawthorn have lost their last 3 under Clarkson too.

Hawks comfortably by 4 goals in the wet & if Port don't win this week some serious questions will be asked, however Port by 16 points after a big fright for mine

Here's hoping Adelaide bring their A game as this is a game we need to win to prove our worth. Hawthorn Lake incident was a huge brain fade, but there was a lot of other 'undisciplined' acts particularly from their defence players - if Adelaide's forwards 'get a run on' do Hawthorn defence lose the plot again? We wait and see I guess.

I think Port will fight back and show Richmond how to play footy.

Port fans fairly quiet on their game this week? Are you worried at all?

Richmond are a mongrel of a team. I can see them playing their 'once in six week' pearler this week against Port.

Damn straight I am.

Richmond and the Kangaroos are our bogey sides and we go in without our two best key defenders, the loss of those two, like any team, is going to hurt us.

It really is 'big statement' round for both SA based Clubs this weekend.

Adelaide has a chance to announce itself as a genuine finals contender on Friday night, and Port Adelaide can slam the door on the doubters with a big win against Richmond.

Anything could happen!

Agreed.

Two big games that could possibly go either way.

Adelaide will be watching with interest Essendon v Collingwood, North v St. Kilda and Bulldogs v Gold Coast.

If Adelaide get done, Essendon, North and the Gold Coast win, that will dent Adelaides chances.

If Adelaide win and Essendon and Gold Coast lose, the 8 opens up.

Two huge games for the two SA based clubs this week ( I think I’ve typed that before? ) with several other results around the country impacting upon both clubs and their finals chances/aspirations.


Tonight, Adelaide face Hawthorn at what looks like it will be a cold, wet and windy Adelaide Oval. Make sure the lid is on the thermos tight for the half time apricot slice and Twinnings, you may even want to take a blanky for the knees, it’s going to be frosty there tonight....but not on the park, this will be one hot contest.

Adelaide are in good nick, real good nick after a narrow loss to fellow finals chance Essendon and win over Port and belting the hapless GWS kids, Adelaide have got some real momentum on the back of two very important players that have cleared a little form speed bump and look set to finish the year off with some real impetus. Jacobs and Thompson have both had big months, especially Jacobs and tonight he comes up against Ben McEvoy and Jonathon Ceglar, Hawthorn making the unusual decision to take to genuine ruckman into a night match. If they stay as named. I’ve got a gut feel they will stay as named and try and stretch Jacobs by dragging him into defence where and when they can and running him ragged. This will also force Jenkins to spend more time in the ruck and disrupt Adelaides forward set up.

Thompson looked to cop a hammy/corky last week late in the GWS clash and it seems Adelaide are running a smoke and mirrors campaign here, if it’s a hammy they simply won’t risk him and he’ll be a late withdrawl, if it’s a corky they’ll give him until the 11th hour to prove his fitness. I think he’ll miss and that might just hurt Adelaide going up against the strong bodies in the Hawthorn midfield.

With Brian Lake having a braid fade last week and again exposing the Hawthorn defence to big men in the opposing forward half, the likes of Jenkins, Walker and Podsiadly will like their chances tonight, if it wasn’t so wet, windy and cold. Adelaide have been hitting the scoreboard with Betts, Kerridge and the mids in the last few weeks while the big men have been relatively quiet.

Hawthorn appear to be undersized in the back half, oversized in the front half and carrying two ruckman. Now, clearly I’m no AFL coach or strategist but the Hawks line up appears to also be smoke a case of smoke and mirrors and the likes of Shoenmakers in a forward pocket won’t happen and two ruckman might not.

This one looks about the toughest of the round to pick, I’m going to say Hawthorn to win a really close contest. Why? They would be hell bent on not losing two in a row and I think their midfield matches up to Adelaide well and the likely ( I think ) loss of Thompson will dent Adelaides chances. Hawthorn by 9 points.


In the other contest Port travel to the Dome to take on Richmond. One of Port’s bogey sides along with the Kangaroos and one that might make the last 1/3rd of the AFL season uncomfortable for Port fans, or will it?

Port have had two narrow losses, our biggest of the year in 23 points to Adelaide ( 2 goals late to Adelaide ) and a narrow 2 points to Essendon, both sides sitting, nay, clawing at the door of the final 8. Nothing to be too concerned about you would think, unless you genuinely believe Port are a two games clear on top kind of side. At this stage, this group is not a two games clear on top at round 17 group.

So we come to this week where the loss of Trengove and Carlile might not be as critical as Ports back half deal with Riewoldt, Vickery and Edwards. Lets be straight, Vickery doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of any genuine full back and Riewoldt and Edwards aren’t amongst the gorilla fowards of the AFL and the crew of O’Shea ( who had his best match at AFL level last week ), Hombsch and Jonas should be able to handle.

Again, as in every week in every match, the midfield battles will be the deciding factor in this match and Port get a chance to work this week on the outside. ( Hopefully they shut the bloody roof so the TV cameras can actually capture footage across the whole arena!! )

Cornes will blanket the real danger man in Cotchin and the likes of Boak, Ebert, Wines etc etc will be looking to turn around the last two weeks where they have been soundly beaten. Monfries misses with a hamstring ( or form,I’m not sure? ) while Wingard will want to get some confidence back.

I do have some reservations about this one but I’m going to back in the Port side to hit some form and run over a Richmond side who have won only 5 games for the year and seem to be outclassed when they play the sides who are genuine top 8 contenders. They’ve beaten Brisbane twice, Carlton, St.Kilda and GWS.

This could potentially be a danger game for Port, but that would be the Port side of old who crumbled under external pressure.

Port to win, and win well. Port by 49 points.


In important matches for both Port and Adelaide, Gold Coast go to Cairns to play the Bulldogs, Collingwood face Essendon and the Kangas go to Tassie to play the Sts.


I’ve used the AFL ladder predictor and gone ahead through the season and finish up with my ladder like this :

Sydney
Geelong
Fremantle
Port

Hawthorn
Collingwood
Adelaide
North

See what you come up with.....?

http://www.afl.com.au/ladder/ladder-predictor

Some really interesting and insightful analysis there, Booney, thanks.

redandblack wrote:Some really interesting and insightful analysis there, Booney, thanks.

Somewhere between that and the ramblings of a drunk....you decide.   



( Thanks mate )

Just did the ladder predictor again and got :

Sydney
Freo
Hawthorn
North

Port
Geelong
Collingwood
Essendon

____

Gold Coast
Adelaide

I'm hoping it slightly clears up by tonight - but yes, no thermos or blanky going with me - we're not fishing after all   

Adelaide by 11 points.

Yep, top preview there Booney.

I also have a feeling that Thompson may miss. It would dent our chances of winning - but the silver lining is that it would also deliver us our first look at a midfield unit featuring both Crouch boys, something I am super excited about.

Although I am a pacifist, I will happily shoot the first commentator who says "Crouch, of the Matt variety".

Oh, "Crouch, down"   

I always wanted to hear a commentator, with Tadhg Kennelly in view, say, "This Irish boy, 'Kennelly can play"   

There's only one question here.

Why did it take so darn long to get officially called "Eddie Betts pocket"?

It's long overdue.   

I must admit I got to the game and saw the t shirts and the name plates on the old scoreboard and I thought "gee it's a pity Booney's not here, he would've really loved this."  

It was his 200th, I liked it.

Regarding the game, I'll post in more detail later but I wasn't unhappy walking out last night. Couldn't fault Adelaide's effort, but the just lacked the polish of Hawthorn when it counted.

I definitely feel as if the team as a whole has come on in leaps and bounds as the season has progressed.

Fecking hell.

Nothing is more disappointing than watching your side’s season spiral out of control. I wrote top spot off after the showdown, and wrote top 2 off after last weekend. Will port make the top 4? Looking at our form at the moment, as well as our run home, worst case scenario being we could very well be looking at an away elimination final. Completely staggering.

Where do you start with today? I honestly can’t find any positives outside of our captain.

The negatives. There were plenty.

1) Absolutely belted in the key statistics. 50>41 in the centre clearances, 159>126 in contested possessions, 78>70 in tackles, 49>41 in hitouts, 60>50 in I50’s. Is this workrate? Is this fitness (surely not!), is this errors at the selection table? Is it selfishness? Is it our structure? Is it our game plan? Ill throw that to the masses.

2) Out of the key stats- our tackling today stood out for mine as a massive disappointment. Normally an indicator for a loss is a spike in tackles. Our wins this season have seen us average 69 tackles, a loss sees us average 76. Alarmingly our opposition averages 68 tackles when we win and 81 when we lose. Not only has our run and spread been countered, but we are being belted in close. My gripe is when we do tackle of late, its soft. The amount of times Richmond were able to brush us off and generate attacking forays was hard to watch. FFS wrap the arms and grind them into the turf!!!! Whilst on tackling- another disappointing aspect was seeing us mindlessly handballing when tackled to awaiting Richmond players- id rather see us hold the footy in, get done holding the ball but at least giving our defence an opportunity to re-set, rather than putting the poor blokes under the pump by un-characteristic handballs.

3) Our midfield. What the bloody hell is going on with these blokes at the moment? Aside from Boak, and probably Wines today, we were smashed in there- absolutely smashed. Ebert has hardly had a piece of it for the best part of 2 months, the Sydney game his only exception. Hartlett fades in and out of games way too often for my liking, Cornes hasn’t been as prolific as what he was early in the season (both offensively and defensively), and Polec might as well apologise to the port faithful, saying he got the wrong ground today, such was his 1st half impact. What was our major strength between rounds 1-13 is now our Achilles heel. Concerning is an understatement

4) Selections. By crikey we need a few more talls into this line-up. Give this team something Ken. I know people will see this as making excuses, but its reality- we do not have the KPP depth to cover Jacko and Bob. Jonas cannot consistently perform against players 15cm taller than him, Hombsch is battling hard (no secret he dominates as the floating tall), O’Shea is absolutely not a KPD, and Westhoff costs our side invaluable KPF presence by spending so much time across half back. Injuries are killing us, but we need to look at brining in Clurely, Butcher or Shaw in the coming weeks- just to offer a tall target, make our defensive transfer more potent, just to offer us something. Mitchell is not offering us anything at the moment, Sam Gray about the same. In my opinion, as of right now- selections are not working.

My top 5:
Travis Boak- Our Skipper. What a rich vein of form this bloke is in. He has registered 39,22,33,30 and 26 over the past 5 weeks and is just putting this team on his back almost weekly. For the love of god Ebert, Polec, Hartlett, Cornes- Give the guy some support!! AA squad lock for mine. 39 touches (21 contested), 8 clearances (6 centre clearances), 6 tackles, 5 I50’s and a goal. The complete midfielders (and captains) game.

Daylight

Robbie Gray- Battled hard for little support up forward, finishing with 4 goals. Has dropped a little over the past 3 weeks, but I thought he at least offered us some inside contest, and outside run today. 15 touches, 4 marks, 2 I50’s rounds out a solid performance.

Matt White- Did his absolute best to offer us outside run and carry over 4 quarters, and kicked just about the goal of the year in the last. Copped some extra attention from his old team mates and handled it well I thought.14 touches and 3 I50’s with 2 goals.

Ollie Wines- Did his best inside along with Boak today- but we were belted on the outside. 25 touches (11 contested), 6 clearances, 4 tackles, 4 I50’s and a goal. Really needed to capitalise on his hard running with finishing on the scoreboard. A couple of easy misses a blight on his day.

Hamish Hartlett- After the top 4 it’s a blanket over the rest. Hamish got on the end of a couple of good attacking movements and finished with 21 touches (10 contested), 4 tackles, 4 I50’s and a goal. Well down on what we know he can produce though.

To say we need Bob and Jacko back in this side is an understatement. At least something to arrest the slide. We play Melbourne at AO before the bye, then a run home consisting of Collingwood, Sydney, GC, Carlton and Fremantle will really test the nerves of our supporter base. If we lose to the demons, top is toast. Given that we should be in line to get Bob back for the Collingwood clash- a win against the Demons will keep that top 4 candle flickering..

I’ll still hold hope.

Too much to write on my phone so I'll elaborate tomorrow.

Difficult to watch our back half bleed on the back of sloppy midfieldwork.

Booney wrote:This could potentially be a danger game for Port, but that would be the Port side of old who crumbled under external pressure.

This is the most disappointing aspect of my preview of the weekends games, I honestly thought there had been enough of a change in the psychological make up of this group to deal with the external pressure of the AFL world, two losses to teams outside the 8, simply, it shouldn't be three. It was.

I'm not going to get all down trodden on the back of three weeks of footy after the 12-13 week period prior to that, no chance.

I am however going to get upset at the side for showing no will at the contest to turn things around after half time. Early in the second the lose Richmond players around the outside of the contest were killing us. As such, I'd imagine Ken Hinkley would have lost his **** at half time, I know I was!

To then come out and not change one of the things you can control, manning up at stoppages, was simply unacceptable.

The back half bled and bled badly, they will while we miss our key pillars in Trengove and Carlile. With Redden and Renouf lost to season ending injuries we have no 195cm+ back ups to play forward or in the rucks to help Lobbe and release Westhoff back. While Westhoff was back yesterday, we held sway, as soon as he went forward, we bled.

That's where our squad is at though. The likes of Hawthorn can cover the loss of Gibson and Lake by having their midfield hold the opposition in Hawthorns forward half, as they did Friday night. Port let Richmond out far too easily yesterday.

The likes of Fremantle can do the same and Sydney rely on the star studded forward half and midfield. So, your defence is only as good as your midfield is at helping them and our midfield is doing the back half no favours.

Butcher continues to disappoint, Mitch Harvey and Mason Shaw might just get a gig this week to allow Hinkley the luxury of keeping two talls in the F50 while Westhoff floats back. But Ken has made it clear, you demand through SANFL form to be picked and you'll be picked. Sam Gray and Ben Newton testament to that, you simply won't come in to make up a spot for making up a spots sake. So then this comes down to how head strong and set in his ways Hinkley and the coaching staff are. Structure Vs Form. Will be an interesting week at selection.

One thing for sure is the midfield need to pull their finger out and help the skipper and Ollie Wines. These two have carried the midfield for a few weeks now and the in and out form of Polec, Harlett, Broadbent ( better yesterday ), Wingard, White and to a lesser extent Robbie Gray needs to stop. If they continue to allow the opposition 60 F50 entries as they did yesterday then our best defensive structure will suffer, let alone our currently undermanned one.

So the blokes in the midfield who are struggling need to turn in around in both aspects of the midfield mix, the defensive and attacking side of their games.

By attacking, I don't just mean running forward of the contest, that only works when we get first hands on the ball. I mean attacking the contest like Travis Boak does with an intent to win the ball and desire to beat his opponent one-on-one.

Big week ahead against Melbourne who nearly unravelled us in Alice Springs. Which in all honest is about the time we started to look unsettled by losing Monfries, White, Boak and Polec to rolled ankles in the following weeks then Trengove to a long term ankle and Carlile and Monfries with hamstrings.

Top 2 is out of reach now I think, top 4 is still an out side chance but so is missing the 8 altogether if we don't roll the Dees this week.

The week off before Collingwood away and Sydney at home. Melbourne is a must win, Collingwood ( we should have Carlile back ) is winnable in the form they are in and Sydney, well, its Sydney.

With Gold Coast away, Carlton here and Fremantle away I cant write down any of these games as certain wins in our current form.

If we can beat Melbourne, Carlton and one of Gold Coast / Collingwood we will end up on 15 wins and 5th/6th.

Booney wrote:

Adelaide are in good nick, real good nick after a narrow loss to fellow finals chance Essendon and win over Port and belting the hapless GWS kids, Adelaide have got some real momentum on the back of two very important players that have cleared a little form speed bump and look set to finish the year off with some real impetus. Jacobs and Thompson have both had big months, especially Jacobs and tonight he comes up against Ben McEvoy and Jonathon Ceglar, Hawthorn making the unusual decision to take to genuine ruckman into a night match. If they stay as named. I’ve got a gut feel they will stay as named and try and stretch Jacobs by dragging him into defence where and when they can and running him ragged. This will also force Jenkins to spend more time in the ruck and disrupt Adelaides forward set up.

Well, I nailed that bit.

McEvoy and Ceglar combine for 4 goals, keeping Jacobs quiet. Pretty much the difference between the two sides.

Thompson went in under an injury cloud and looked, well, hamstrung before finally being benched late iced up again.

Jenkins was good, making the most of every opportunity while Betts, Walker, Lynch and Podsiadly had their supply blocked by a Hawthorn side who wouldn't let Adelaide get out of their D50.

Adelaide were brave, Crouch IMO best, Dangerfield outstanding but backing out of packs handballing over his nead to nobody isn't of any real benefit. Hard to be critical of the bloke with how he plays, but he might need to take a step back every now and then because he will not be able to play like this forever. He needs to get smarter when picking the times to go in and not go in, but that will be based on the help he gets.

For mine, Crouch, Sloane, Jenkins and Dangerfield can hold their heads high. Henderson, Lynch, Otten, Walker, Betts, Douglas, Smith and Thompson all had nights to forget.

Tatts were offering $4 for either side under 15.5 points. Glad Adelaide got two in junk time.