R10 - Melbourne v Port & Adelaide v GWS

Port Adelaide trek up to Alice Springs for a hit out against a Melbourne outfit that's starting to become half decent.

Adelaide host a red hot GWS at home on Saturday night in what will be (another) blockbuster affair.

Post away.

For those following Eleni Glouftsis' rise up the AFL umpiring ranks, she'll be the emergency umpire for the Adelaide v GWS game on Saturday.

As for the game itself, it's yet another big test for Adelaide. They've failed most of their big tests so far this year so if they want to be considered serious finals contenders Saturday's game is a must-win.

I can see a couple of losses for our teams this week.

GWS are on a roll and have classy, speedy players on every line. Adelaide will not get away with sloppy disposal this week. Turnovers will really hurt them. They can win but need big games from the forwards and need the midfield and link players like Thompson, Smith, Seedsman etc to be better with the ball.

Given Ports' away form I can't see them beating a resurgent Demons. if the Power can't keep Carlton at bay they will not beat the Dees.

Melbourne v Port -

Racking up some decent scores in the last few weeks against weaker opponents gives the Demons the look of a side going the right direction, still have some work to do on the defensive side of things. This week they play a side down on man power and well down on form and confidence, Port missing plenty and just not firing on all cylinders, moving in the right direction though.

Big week for Max Gawn coming up as he’s been a little down in the last fortnight, with Port missing #1 and #2 ruckmen Gawn could have a return to form, he monstered Matt Lobbe in the NAB match at ‘Lizbef Oval and it was the first sign of things to come for Lobbe, and Gawn for that matter. On the day he set up Viney and Jones who now have Bugg, Stretch and the impressive Petracca around the place to help. Like the look of Bugg, he’s a tough in and under, likes the clearances, tackles and knows how to get outside to create when it’s his turn. Averaging over 100 points for, nearly 100 against, tidy up the back half and they’ll be harder to beat for the top sides. Is Roos or Goodwin leading the way at the moment? I think Goodwin might be having a more attacking influence on them. One of the home games the lower income clubs “sell off” to get some extra revenue and dropping a home game away from home isn’t ideal.

It goes from bad to worse, Tom Jonas made a rotten decision and in the blink of an eye left Port’s back half another soldier down when they can hardly afford to lose anyone over 6’2”. He’s had Tom Clurey snapping at his heels for over a year and he might have just taken himself off the white board at the worst time for him. Port still scoring ok, the Bulldogs just behind them on that number. Wouldn’t have thought that Port are scoring more than the Dogs. Mid table defensively, Adelaide concede the same. There’s the problem. Not all doom and gloom, the numbers suggest a side that’s just off the pace, but it looks much worse on the park. Trengove is battling but can’t keep this up all year and some support for him and some structure forward is needed badly. Howard or Butcher might be needed to give Trengove some support in the middle to avoid losing Westhoff or Dixon from the front half structure.

One of the real hard ones to pick this weekend. All of the numbers for both sides are middle of the table, so form will be crucial. I think Melbourne around the ball will be hard to beat, Gawn should give them first look at it, but I think Port’s forward half can trouble the Demons who leak. Heart wins here, Port by 9 points. ( Melbourne $1.78 Port $2.05 )

Adelaide v GWS

Like taking candy from a baby for Adelaide last week, the Suns are a rabble and Adelaide needed a soft one after a rough first 8 weeks and they don’t get much softer than Gold Coast at the moment. Talk of the town the Orange boys, well, not the west of Sydney anyway as just 9,162 are on hand to watch GWS beat the Dogs in a top 4 clash. How is this experiment going? Lots of work to do off field!

Adelaide pretty much did as they pleased last week, captain Walker got back into some form taking advantage of the smaller Gold Coast back half and bagging 5 majors, Sloane continued his excellent form and for the third week in a row Ricky Henderson has given the selectors something to think about. He came in to replace Rory Laird 3 weeks ago and hasn’t put a foot wrong since. Laird might be back this week but Luke Brown will miss with an ankle so Henderson gets another week to prove his worth, across half back against the Giants he’s likely to get plenty of opportunity. He might be close to pushing Cheney out of the side. Another Rory, Atkins, is also showing some solid development in his game, getting more contested ball as he becomes familiar with this level of footy. Betts two goals in 3 weeks after a solid start.

Lots of people asking can these guys win the whole thing, lots saying they can’t ‘coz of their age profile ( which they still have the second youngest list and 17th ranked for average games played ) and some say it’s because they are just a young club, it’s all bollocks. They can win it. The midfield is strong, classy and runs hard. Coniglio, Ward, Shiel, Scully, Whitfield and Kelly ( how smooth is this kid? ) can match it with the best of them, Mumford runs around like the school yard bully looking for someone to pick on. Patton and Cameron lick their lips waiting for it, which usually isn’t a long wait, Haynes is rough looking but effective down back, Davis should come back from a hamstring to help out in the back half....they’ve got the mix that could just take a flag back to all their fans in Western Sydney. It would almost be a shame if they did, although it might then get bums on seats, fickle Sydney folk love backing winners.

On the back of 6 wins, outside pace, quality ruckman, form and confidence I’ll go GWS by 21 points. ( $1.92 each of two )

Real interesting game for Adelaide this week.

Each time I consider the game I come up with a different outcome.

I think realistically GWS are absolutely favourites for this one, and my head says that it will play out similarly to the Geelong game a couple of weeks ago. I'm very worried about the midfield battle in particular, and surprised that Matt Crouch didn't come back in. The only think I can think of is that it's a match up thing, and they're trying to keep some extra pace in the line up.

On the flip side this game is on our home deck, and it's also indigenous round. We traditionally play very well on indigenous round and it means a lot to Eddie Betts who is certainly an unofficial mentor and leader at the club, which means his team mate will be keen to give there all for him.

Last year the didge boys who played in this round all had cracking games and I would not be surprised at all if Betts and Milera put on a bit of a show again on Saturday night. I'm just not sure it's enough.

I think once again we'll lose the midfield battle, our defence and attack will do their best to keep us in it, but as the game wears on weight of numbers in contested ball and inside 50's will get us in the end and GWS will win by about the margin Booney predicted, 20 odd points.

That's about the crux of it Ginge, GWS will pile on the midfield pressure and have lots of F50 entries, this might help Adelaide with some ball to work with from half back, but that just gives GWS more opportunity to pressure the mids.

Should be a good game I think.

Top 2 highest scoring sides in the comp - will the interesting to see if we get a shoot out.

The game in Alice Springs could go either way as well. Needed Tom Jonas getting himself rubbed out for 6 weeks like a hole in the head. I reckon Melbourne might get the chocolates unfortunately.

Seriously struggled with the Port / Melbourne game trying to be as neutral as possible.

Obviously Gawn gives them first look at it, I think our mids match up on theirs, I think our forward half has more potency with Wingard and Gray back in after missing a couple of weeks. Wingard third game back, Gray's second.

They've beaten Brisbane, lost to the Dogs, smashed the Suns and got pumped by St Kilda, hardly a form line worth betting on, they've beaten the Queensland teams in the last month. Are Melbourne people and people talking Melbourne getting ahead of themselves? We'll find out tomorrow.

A good weekend for both teams in the end.

Very very happy with Adelaide's win. Was really going to the game expecting a loss to be honest - but they turned up to play.

It's the best they've looked for at least a month, and by half time even though we were only a few points up I was confident we would get the win just because I thought we had control of the contest.

Enough has been said about Betts and Walker in the post game reviews - one player I'd like to highlight is Jarryd Lyons. The midfield looks so much better/more even with him in it. Brad Crouch is going to have to do a fair bit right in the SANFL to dislodge him again this season IMO.

Overall I was super impressed with the Adelaide midfield. I had huge doubts that we could match it with GWS in there, but we did and then some. Tackling was also a real feature of the game, pressure was fantastic and they stuck the tackles and kept the ball in a most of the time. Defensively they stifled GWS' run and even shut down several rebound opportunities that I thought would be run in for goals.

Real chance to build towards a top 4 spot from here I reckon, particularly if they can keep reproducing that kind of footy.

The suburb to be renamed after Betts, because of that goal, do we know which one it is yet?

Whole city I believe. Eddilaide is what I've heard proposed.

Gingernuts wrote:Whole city I believe. Eddilaide is what I've heard proposed.

Can't be naming the city after a Carlton player.