Greater Western Sydney v Adelaide
The Showground
1410, Saturday 5 July, 2014.
Perky Girl needs to co-ordinate her hairdressing appointments with Monaros matches. We were later than usual. My first impression was of the Monaros being woeful. The Crows were haivng it too easy, there was a distinct lack of pressure. Strangely, the quarter time stats were almost identical. That was to change by half-time. The Monaros were clueless. Too slow to move the ball on. Adelaide’s defence had a lot to do with that, but this team scored ten behinds before their first goal. Then they’d kicked two goals and the margin was 22 points. Might they mount a comeback? No. The Crows, whose away jumpers look a lot like the Monaros’ away jumpers, kicked four goals. Their sheer size was telling, they’ve midfielders big in the trunk while the Monaros are slim of hip. Hampton and Shaw were sorely missed. The Monaros have bugger-all happening on the rebound without these blokes. By the beard of the prophet, this is worse than last week. Couple of quick goals to the Monaros at the start of the third, $300 per goal to ‘MyWestmead.com.’ Rules are explained on the scoreboard. Perhaps if our lads could quit making stupid mistakes… No, that aint gonna happen. They lead in the wrong directions, end up in bad positions. In a break from tradition, we heard Foo Fighters at the last break rather than Queen. Adelaide kicked a goal within 20 seconds, dead easy. When the Monaros got the ball they waited. And waited. And by then they’d waited too long. Adelaide’s seventeenth goal was a joke. They got the ball from another silly Monaros turnover, then seemed to try and make it easy for the home team, spilling it, dribbling it, eventually getting across the goal line despite their own best efforts to cough it up. While the Crows had an advantage in size and strength and made the most of it, the Monaros cruelled their chances with sloppy disposal and ignorance. If, f’rinstance, a Swans player gets the ball on the half-back flank, his teammates know where to go and he knows where they’ll be. It’s a formation drill akin to an NFL play. The Monaros don’t have that. Not yet, anyway. They seriously lack midfield grunt, too. GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY 0.8 2.10 5.14 9.18 (72) ADELAIDE 5.6 10.9 15.14 20.20 (140) GOALS GWS: Palmer 2, Mumford, Coniglio, Hoskin-Elliott, Bugg, Williams, Patton, Cameron Adelaide: Betts 5, Podsiadly 3, Wright 2, Jenkins 2, Sloane 2, Jacobs, Mackay, Smith, Martin, Lynch, Crouch BEST GWS: Mohr, Mumford, Palmer, Treloar, Shiel Adelaide: Sloane, Martin, Crouch, Wright, Betts Umpires: Hay, Foot, Jeffery Crowd: 8,383 VOTES 3 – Sloane; 2 – Mohr; 1 – Crouch.
About Earl O'Neill
Freelance gardener, I've thousands of books, thousands of records, one fast motorcycle and one gorgeous smart funny sexy woman. Life's pretty darn neat.
Thanks Earl good summary the bigger bodies are a problem at the moment , 2 more pre seasons for GWS a area where I like your chances is leadership wise the way the monaros handled , Greens stuff up was a lesson to several clubs . Ward and Davis are a v good duo . A couple more seasons and the rest of us will develop a dislike for GWS and Gold Coast ( c’mon perky girl co ordinate the hairdressing ) thanks Earl
A few things I noticed from the game:
– either the boys were confused by the Crows guernsey because there was an awful lot of direct kicking to to Crows players, and players left on their own or they completely forgot two basic rules of the game – kick it to your guys and defend against the others;
– the footy smarts aren’t there yet for some of them. They either took too long to make a decision and then have to kick to a contest or they didn’t take the perfect opportunity to stop, assess, and then kick for goal (yes T Bugg, I’m looking straight at you)
– The opposition has figured out Jeremy Cameron, he’s lost some speed with his ankle (so can’t necessarily outrun the opponent) and his teammates haven’t quite worked out how to deal with the new situation. Cameron’s confidence is down, but it doesn’t help if your teammates aren’t feeding you the ball when you’re the only viable option down field.
and plus one to everything you’ve said.