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Hawthorn three-time premiership player Terry Wallace says he would hatch a plan to take out Fremantle tagger Ryan Crowley if he was guiding the Hawks into Saturday’s AFL grand final.
Wallace, who coached the Western Bulldogs and Richmond, taking the Dogs to preliminary finals in 1997-98, predicted Crowley would get a stopping job on Hawthorn ball magnet Sam Mitchell.
Crowley has already blanketed Geelong star Steve Johnson and Sydney onballer Kieren Jack so far in the finals series and Wallace said he was also capable of blunting the influence of in-form Mitchell.
Wallace’s Hawthorn premiership teammate Peter Knights said the teammates of Mitchell, or whoever Crowley was tagging, needed to help him out with legal bumps and shepherds.
But Wallace said if he was coach, he would pick a specific moment early in the game and instruct his players to try to put Crowley out of action.
“If I’m the Hawthorn coach I’m going after Ryan Crowley,” Wallace told Melbourne’s SEN radio.
Wallace said he would instruct Mitchell to run wider than usual at a stoppage, in the expectation that the trailing Crowley would be in enough space to be left exposed.
“We’re going to get you a little bit wider where there’s a bit more room perhaps for somebody to be charging the other direction and we’re going to go after him,” Wallace said he would instruct the Hawks.
“This is grand final day, we are going to do what we need to do to win the game and we are going to try to put him out of contention in the game.
“You may only get one shot.
“We can’t be spending all our time and all our focus levels on this but we’re going to go after him.”
But Knights told fans that whoever Crowley targeted, that player should expect support from teammates, but needed to back their own ability.
“They’ll rely on their ability, their speed, their skills, to get the ball first,” Knights said as an on-stage guest at Hawthorn’s final training session at Waverley Park on Thursday.
“The second thing is you have your mates helping you out.”
Knights tipped the Hawks to win and their skills to hold up under Fremantle’s defensive pressure.
“We’ve always survived that fierce kind of pressure. That’s what you need to get to the grand final,” Knights said.
“So we’ll accept that. But I’m really confident we can break them open.”
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