AFL Round 5 – Adelaide v Western Bulldogs: Selection Day

Selection day is generally the best day on twitter for the week. Discussion is had, people rant and rave and generally lose their mind when the perennial whipping boy is selected.

After a terrible performance last week against Port Adelaide, some hard decisions had to be made at the selection table. Bernie Vince’s gold pass had run out, Graham Johncock is no longer a defender and is hit and miss in the forward line and fan favourite Jason Porplyzia was well out of form.

Fans demanded action. The general consensus amongst the twitterati was as follows: Sam Kerridge for the injured Nathan van Berlo, Jarryd Lyons in for Vince and Brodie Smith in for Matthew Jaensch.

SANFL squads are tweeted about an hour before the AFL squads, so you can get a pretty good idea of who was in the team.

The SANFL seemed to notice that us Crows fans were desperate to see the ins and outs, trolling us at every opportunity. With just nine teams to release, it took almost an hour to release all the squads, with the most important left last.

With the selectors expected to wield the axe, and promote those who perform consistently well at SANFL level, the complete lack of changes puzzled the twitter community. Kerridge was basically a certainty to play, so him not being listed as an out was confusing to say the least. He was already an emergency last week for the Crows, so this clarified this situation.

Queries as to whether the SANFL account was OK, the SANFL replied with a simple, “yes”.

Glenelg named eight new players for their side against Centrals, almost confirming to us that the SANFL account was not OK. This was countered when the Bays were decimated with AFL recalls. The introduction of Lyons was welcomed, Lynch was confusing due to his lack of pace, and Shaun McKernan was pilloried to say the least.

Clearly the SANFL knew us tweeps were getting impatient, with another tweet reading “waiting…”.

Finally the Eagles squad was released, and this would give us a pretty clear indication to how the Crows would line up this week. Bernie Vince had lost the faith of coach Brenton Sanderson, greeting a round of cheers on twitter. Brodie Smith was given a run for the Eagles, instead of playing for the Crows.

I was so fixated with the SANFL squads, along with the hilarity that was occurring on twitter, that I almost missed my tennis lesson at 5:30pm. So I rushed from the computer, put my tennis top on and hopped in the car as quick as I could.

Being the huge footy nut that I am, as well as fantasy football addict, I’ll check my twitter feed during a drinks break to see who the ins and outs are this week. As it was a Sunday game, we wouldn’t know the full team until the following day.

The official team was released on Friday afternoon. and I wasn’t entirely happy. Jarryd Lyons was left out once again, despite dominating for Glenelg every week. He was the ideal replacement for Vince in my eyes. Lynch, while he was in good form for Glenelg, didn’t seem to fit the structure of the squad. Rory Laird was given his debut, and considering Smith required another run in the SA, Laird’s selection was a winner. Vince and Van Berlo were both out as expected, but the other casualty was Graham Johncock, who failed to take his opportunities.

Onto game day, and it was probably the wettest, coldest day in Adelaide for 2013. Dad and I have a season ticket in the members stand, and there are two spots we can see the game in. There is a wheelchair bay just to the left of the Crows coaches box, and it is generally full well before the game starts. Considering the horrible weather, we took a punt to see if there’s any room. To our extreme delight, there were a number of spots available.

Despite the Bulldogs offering up very little resistance, it was a vastly improved performance on last week. The effort and attitude returned to a high level. Dangerfield broke the game open playing as a high half forward, collecting 21 disposals and kicking 4 goals. The team defence strangled the Bulldogs attack, limiting them to just four goals, 4 behinds. The Crows had 99 tackles for the game, a club record. Douglas continues to prove the doubters wrong, collecting 25 disposals and nine tackles. The most pleasing aspect of the game was the form showed by Andy Otten. Otten has never recaptured his form from 2009, since doing his knee in the 2010 pre season. He looked composed, won a lot of the ball and used it very well.

Andy has his own fan club on twitter, carrying the hash tag, “#AOFC. It was a proud day for its members, after a couple down years. The same people who form the AOFC, also show some affection to “The Kedge”, who kicked a goal on the siren. Kerridge did an excellent job quelling Griffin’s influence, tagging him out of the game. “The Kedgettes”, as they’ve been self described, were delighted with the day, and would be hoping for another great performance next week from Sam against Carlton. In only his 3^rd game of his career, he’ll be given the task of tagging one of Judd or Murphy. This could mark the beginning of a long career at the Adelaide Football Club.

Adelaide                     2.3, 4.5, 9.7, 12.8 (80)

Western Bulldogs      2.2, 2.2, 2.3, 4.4 (28)

Best:

Adelaide Otten, Sloane, Douglas, Dangerfield, Thompson

Western Bulldogs: Cooney, Liberatore, Boyd, Morris

Goals:

Adelaide: Dangerfield 4, Douglas, Crouch, Henderson, Mackay, Lynch, Jenkins, Kerridge, Walker

Western Bulldogs: Cooney 2, Boyd, Macrae

Our votes: 3 Dangerfield, 2 Otten, 1 Sloane