There were two ways of viewing Round 3’s clash between Melbourne and Adelaide.
Dees fans were incredibly impressed with Bernie Vince’s ability to deny Patrick Dangerfield any real impact on the game. Crows fans were incredibly frustrated by the way Vince went about antagonising Dangerfield.
Even though Vince’s efforts were not enough to earn his team a victory, they did reveal five key points in Adelaide’s game – two strengths and three weaknesses.
Strength No. 1: Adelaide can shut down a team in a hard grind even when their superstars are not firing.
The game started out drastically different from the Crows’ previous two matches, in which the powerhouses of Taylor Walker, Rory Sloane and Dangerfield were ripping apart their opposition.
However in Round 3, Dangerfield was subject to a hard tag, and Walker and Sloane were well held, and to Melbourne’s credit they came out firing, scoring the first three goals of the game and keeping Adelaide scoreless for a good part of the first quarter.
It was a week of unlikely heroes, with Ellis Yolmen stepping up and kicking two, and David Mackay showing how good he can be.
Strength No. 2: Adelaide have a tough mentality.
This mentality allowed them to grind away and recover the lead when the crowd was shut down and moral was low. It can be easier to regain moral when you have a player stand up and do something courageous that turns the game around. Yet Adelaide revealed a new tough-nut mentality that allowed them to overcome considerable opposition efforts without a big-name player displaying leadership, a credit to Phil Walsh as a coach.
Weakness No. 1 Patrick Dangerfield became flustered.
This is a pretty small problem at this stage, however if he is getting shut down and not having a considerable impact upon the game, the Crows lack an explosive edge over the competition. It can damage confidence in games where they are matched all over the ground.
Weakness No. 2: Dangerfield did not receive enough team support.
While Patrick has come out and said that he would gladly take a hard tag every week if it mean the Crows won every game, if another player had played more of a team game by getting himself between Dangerfield and the tagger, the explosive midfielder would have had more time to cleanly dispose of the footy.
Weakness No. 3: Taylor Walker was sucked in to focusing too much on his man and not enough on the game and lifting his team.
Dalgety Carrington
Roar Guru
That "if it happened in my day the bloke would be in hospital" argument is a bit bogus. You don't think the guy doing the niggle wouldn't be employing something a bit more than niggle to stop players back when it was more of a free for all? Instead of a constant niggling, you had things a la Leigh Matthews' coat hanger on Neville Bruns.
slane
Guest
Have to agree. Who cares if your best player is tagged out of the game yet you win comfortably? I was saying the same thing about the Carlton-Richmond game a few weeks ago. The Blues tagged Cotchin, Martin and Deledio well but got beaten comfortably by the rest of the team.
Lamby
Roar Rookie
"Weakness No. 2: Dangerfield did not receive enough team support." I think Walsh addressed this well. He said that a side can focus too much on freeing up a player from a hard tag and forget about the game plan and winning. He said he was happy to have Vince negate Dangerfield as Vince was also taken out of the game so the Crows focused on winning the other contests. I think it was a great move as it said to the rest of the team 'I believe in the team, we don't rely on 1 player, we can win without him'. It is also a great negotiating tactic for keeping Dangerfield (we don't need you to win, if you want to stay it will be on our terms and it will not be at the detriment of the team).
Damo
Guest
A couple days later I saw an interview with Malcolm Blight who was asked about Vince's tactics and he joked (paraphrasing here): 'It was never really a problem in my day because if you tried to do that, you'd wake up in a hospital'. Though he said it jokingly I think he was having a shot at what taggers are able to get away with these days. It was never an issue in previous eras because players used to be able to 'protect themselves' and as such, everyone played the ball. I'm not saying guys should be allowed to biff they're way out of trouble, we've moved on from that (hopefully) but there needs to be some greater protection from these kinds of tactics. When a player is wrestled to the ground to be deliberately kept out of the play on a continuous basis, it's not a good look for the game and as a paying customer - removes the competition's best from showing their skills. What's the answer? I don't know. Maybe the reserve umpire needs to be more involved or it's something that match review panel needs to look at but it would be a fine line to tread.
Katfish
Roar Guru
Sloane was probably best on ground against the Dees
Ronnie Burns
Guest
Rory Sloane was best on ground......
Winston
Guest
It's early days and we can't read too much into it. Your weakness 2 would be a problem if it starts costing them games, but if part of the game plan is for Dangerfield to get the best tag so that Sloane and Thompson can run free AND they keep winning games, you'd have to say it's a masterstroke.