R3 - Adelaide v Melbourne & North v Port

We roll on to Round 3 of the season with Adelaide flying and Port starting to struggle a tad.

A long season though so no need to get ahead of ourselves on either count just yet.

Adelaide has Melbourne at home in what should be a regulation win in front of the home crowd - but - errrr - I have thought that before.....

Port have another tough gig this week, up against the Kangaroos. The Roos got pumped by Adelaide in R1, but turned it around to inflict an 80+ point flogging on Brisbane last week, so very hard to get a gauge on them at the moment. Port a chance to register their first win I reckon.

Post away ladies and gents.

Port will be DESPERATE to avoid a 0-3 start. The Roo's should be desperate to address their Round 1 stinker, and against a quality opponent, this is the game they have the opportunity to do it in. Two decent, desperate sides makes all the ingredients for a cracking match, especially as both generally enjoy the indoor conditions (Presuming its at the Dome). Port look classier to me, so Im sticking with them to win by about 3-4 goals.

Melbourne will be desperate to atone for last weeks fadeout, and will have a degree of confidence after last years excellent showings at Adelaide Oval. The Crows would be mindful of that match last year too though and I don't think they'll lower their guard this time, to win by 6 or 7 goals.

Adelaide must destroy Melbourne. Embarrass the hell out of them.

Adelaide by 85
Port by 29

Paul wrote:Adelaide must destroy Melbourne. Embarrass the hell out of them.

Adelaide by 85
Port by 29

Yes and no.

It should be a comfortable win no doubt - however after last year's debacle I'd be happy with a 5 goal win and the 4 points to be honest.

Melbourne are an improving outfit with a lot of youngsters. Sometimes they will turn up and sometimes they won't. Add to that Paul Roos as their coach, and every 3 or 4 weeks I can see them engineering a win/upset this year.

Expecting to flog them is the mistake we made last time IMO.

Well I watched the first half of this game before going outside to attend to some urgent tasks (sadly things won't paint themselves!!) and listened to the second half on the radio. The first quarter highlighted that Adelaide has to be completely focused to deliver their current game plan. Melbourne came out with a lot of aggression and it really unsettled the crows for a while. Dangerfield continues to be subjected to tactics which border on illegal. I don't mind a hard tag but being slammed to the ground after every tackle, slung into the fence, stood on and kicked is beyond the pale. Unfortunately for him, he's visibly struggling with it and unless umpires start paying a bit more attention or he actually manages to brush it off and play through it then I can only see it getting worse. The good thing for the crows is that the focus on Danger means that others (Rory Sloane and Scott Thompson yesterday) are free to win the game for us. It's also allowing Cam Ellis Yolmen to develop with a bit of freedom as he learns the speed of the game. Of what I saw, Talia was fantastic as usual and debutant Jake Kelly looked well worth his elevation to the senior list. Anyway, a win's a win and I'm happy with the way we're going. Melbourne have showed that they're improving and while they'll lose more than they'll win this year they'll get a lot closer in a lot more games than they did last year.

IATW, the easiest way for for a class player to shake a tag & unsettle the opposition match ups is to play him as a half back flanker or more importantly as one of the key forwards............as for tactics used on Dangerfield i'll bet if he was a Collingwood player Eddie would have the footage showed on tv & make a big noise in most of the media

Or send him to tail the oppositions chief playmaker.

I reckon Walsh will rip into a few of them this week - Wasn't too many teammates looking after PD yesterday when he was a clear target .. OK there was a scrap at 3/4 time, but should have been some carnage earlier than that.

Just on PD, the coach needs to have a word to him about his theatrics when he's been infringed .. He's getting worse at going down like he's been shot.

I agree with that Scrunch, if Dangerfield keeps up those kinds of reactions he's just inviting that sort of treatment every week.

I don't have a problem with what happened to be honest - in fact I am quite pleased with the way the rest of the team didn't let the Dangerfield/Vince sideshow distract them from the task of winning the game (apart from a couple of minor flash points).

Dangerfield is just one player, and if opposition teams want to put all their eggs in his basket then all the better for Sloane, Douglas, Thompson and co.

Ultimately we won a game reasonably comfortably in the end in the face of hard pressure and aggressive tactics without Dangerfield having an impact, and this is a good thing.

I don't think Vince did anything over the top .. I go back to the 80's so have seen MUCH worse lol.

He probably could have been pinged for a free or two, but really he was just persistant with his harassment, good stuff and great to see there's still a place for it in football.

Being open minded about it, Walsh has made a lot of sense about the players keeping their heads and not getting distracted. Thats why he's an AFL coach and Im an armchair expert

Dangerfield is going to miss out on legitimate free kicks if he doesn't cut out his JFK impersonations.

That is a good point too Scrunch, umpires aren't going to pay frees to someone who is sooking to them all the time, and fair enough too.

On the positive side of the game - how about Cam Ellis-Yolmen's development this year?

His 2 goals on Saturday were top shelf.

CAY would have to be a big win for the Crows to this point in the season. I know they've invested a lot of time into him, but from where he was last season to where he is presently is a rapid rise. Will be hard to sustain as it is for most first year players, but he looks a gem. Ginger where do you see Charlie Cameron being at presently?

As much as I loathe the two AFL clubs and their conditions in the SANFL, it really does look as though it's providing a lot of benefit for them at AFL level.

Adelaide simply got the job done, years past that wasn't said too often about them, clearly a more professional unit under Walsh. Walker pretty well held, not the conditions for Jenkins to flourish and Betts in and out the game. Still, Adelaide win comfortably.
Ellis-Yolmen, from people I know at the Eagles locally, was a slow developer under age, but was always improving year after year. He has taken a year or two to build up his frame to the point he has confidence to crash in at this level, he's in front of Matt Crouch and Grigg now, easily.
As for the Vince/Dangerfield battle, was right on the edge for mine and never went beyond what would be termed crossing the line. Rightly noted above, Dangerfield needs to just get on with it. He's a gun, he extracts the ball from packs like nobody I've ever seen play the game and Sloane, IMO, should be the skipper with his on field actions. Inspiring stuff.

Port got some run from the back half, Broadbent, Hartlett and Pittard had 75 touches between them. We got some pressure applied by our forwards,Schulz, Westhoff and Monfries had 16 tackles between them. Ryder had 35 hitouts, 15 to advantage and as such Gray and Boak had 16 clearances between them. That's enough of a recipe for Port to get a win over most, I say most sides.

The more I see of the post match presser from Walsh, the more I feel he was off the mark.

His comment "you'd go off on a stretcher" back in the dark days is rubbish, absolute rubbish and while he's proclaiming what Vince was doing as not being "tough", neither is belting a bloke and sending him off "on a stretcher". He contradicted himself throughout that little discussion. Almost a smirk when he said about the stretcher, sort of giving a little bit of an insight that, IMO anyway, he'd have liked one of his players to be able to have done that.

I think he'd like that presser over again.

Yea I think he'd take back the stretcher remark if he could. I think it was meant to be just a bit of a throw away remark / joke but it didn't come across that way.

Later in the press conference he basically said he preferred that his players get on with winning the game rather than flying the flag.

I think he was right with the 'toughness' call though.

Despite all of that I really enjoyed the contest personally, and Chris McDermott has an article in the tiser today that indicates the same.

All in all it's been blown out of proportion IMO. Let's just get on with the next game.

Booney wrote:The more I see of the post match presser from Walsh, the more I feel he was off the mark.

BTW - Watching Phil Walsh press conferences on repeat is a weird hobby Booney, especially for a Power fan.

Gingernuts wrote:

Booney wrote:The more I see of the post match presser from Walsh, the more I feel he was off the mark.

BTW - Watching Phil Walsh press conferences on repeat is a weird hobby Booney, especially for a Power fan.

LOL - With no Fox, I watch Talking Footy Monday night and record Footy Classified to watch over the coming days, now I've watched both shows analyse the presser I've drawn these conclusions.

On Walsh, Mrs.Boon was trapped next to the fire last night ( too cold to move, apparently ) and watched, I couldn't believe it myself, some of Footy Classified.

One, she noted that "That woman is odd". Yes, she is dear.

Two, she noted ( on Walsh ) "Is he always that wound up? Looks like he about to burst". Yes, he is dear.