Sleeting rain and sublime ground skills helped the Indigenous All-Stars thump Adelaide in Darwin.
Adelaide was on a hiding to nothing in this game. With the Indigenous All-Stars usually pumped up for this game in front of an adoring (if sparse) home crowd, and the constant rain meaning that the All-Stars’ major structural weakness – a lack of talls, with Shaun Burgoyne lining up at centre half forward – meant that the All-Stars’ concentration of pace and ground pressure came to bear with predictable results.
Not much can be gleaned from a game like this, but let’s try! First, the injuries. Promising back rookie Greg Gallman has either a dislocation or a break in his collarbone, with results from hospital scans not publicised as yet. Either way he’s probably out of calculations for round 1 given the hot contesting for spots in the Crows backline, and thus he’s out of fantasy calculations too. Patrick Dangerfield left the field early after a clash of heads underneath a pack, though the concussion is not thought to be serious. Andrew McLeod had his nose bloodied late in the game, and Taylor Walker and Trent Hentschel were both held out of the game with quadricep problems.
One thing we can focus on is that this was a battle in the ruck between two Crows, with Ivan Maric comfortably beating Jonathan Griffin to the tune of team totals of 44-14 in the hit outs. Griffin was supported by non-ruckman Warren Benjamin of the Kangaroos, while James Sellar was used as the pinch hitter for the Crows. While we don’t have individual stats as yet, you’d imagine Maric had the lion’s share of those 44 sharing with Sellar, and shapes up as getting the lion’s share of ruck work for Adelaide this year. I’m not sold on him being a great fantasy option as yet, though. On Sellar, it was interesting to see his name mentioned as one of four talls that the Crows will use, sometimes all at once, in their forward line this year in a story in the Adelaide Advertiser by former Crow legend Chris McDermott. If he can add ruck duties to his schedule to allow Kurt Tippett to sit in the square more often, his TOG might not suffer as badly as some other “fourth talls” have done in that structure previously (more on that subject in a future post).
The Crows were playing a lot of kids, but few of them shone. Jarrhan Jacky and Jared Petrenko suffered for TOG, while Aaron Kite, Rory Sloane and Shaun McKernan didn’t impress. Perhaps it’s a bit harsh to judge rebounding half-backs in a game where every forward is a small Cyril Rioli type who can and will chase you down from behind at every opportunity, as Rioli did himself. Kite and Petrenko, in particular, will have some more chances to show they can make the round 1 cut in the absence of Gallman. There may also be another aspect in play here: Crow fans have a tendency to talk their youngsters up to ridiculous levels, even more than at most other clubs. We’ve been hearing a lot about these Crow kids but maybe it’s just that the fans are more vocal than a lot of others, and perhaps we should be looking more closely at rookie backs from less heralded teams, like Levi Greenwood from North Melbourne or Matthew Broadbent from Port Adelaide.
One set play I noticed once or twice from the Crows that I liked was the long kick from defensive hotspot to the wing, where usually it was Nathan Bock on the end of it running two metres ahead of his chasing forward – a play that was prominent in last year’s grand final. Bock looks like a solid back premium, who on current popularity levels would be considered a “unique”. He’ll rack up plenty of +6s doing that this year.
On the All-Stars side, there was little in the way of structure for obvious reasons, so few conclusions can be drawn. Rioli looked all class, and Austin Wonaeamirri showed he can be a mud rat with the best of them. The sharing around of the goals means that none of the forwards, not even Polly Farmer Medal winner Matt Campbell, had their fantasy stocks significantly raised. The best news was the complete lack of injuries! The main thing that I took out of the game is how pace can destroy any AFL side.
How about you, what did you see that you liked or disliked in the Top End? Does this game mean anything at all? How much stock do you put in these highly hyped Crow kids? Tell me in the comments.
Dan
February 8, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Adelaide Crows overrating their own kids?
There’s a revelation lol
AFL blog - contestedfooty
February 8, 2009 at 1:31 pm
good to hear that Wonaemirri is being a mud rat, always thought that should be the role he should play 🙂
Porps_is_HOT_loz
February 8, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Um.. Dan obviously we dont over-rate our kids.
Who didnt play well last night who got more then 10% gametime.
OHHH BURRRNNNN
MYKE COOK YOU STAR.
And yep Wonaemirri is very fit and played very well last night.
Brendan
February 8, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Chris McDermott is not a legend.
m0nty
February 8, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Well, he’s a hero of the Adelaide franchise. They don’t have much club history to hang onto Brendan, don’t deny them what little they have. 😉
Ryan
February 8, 2009 at 3:31 pm
What did people make of Yarren’s game? he was hardly sighted, maybe lack TOG.
Chad
February 8, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Greenwood looks like a great prospect, but can he get into the kangas 22 monty? can’t see how he can at the moment. Same with broadbent.
Simon
February 8, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I don’t barrack for the Crows but I reckon McDermott was a legend. He was past his prime by the time the Crows came in. Was an absolute hard-nosed gun for Glenelg.
Chook Raffle
February 8, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Yarran was a mystery in the first half – bobbed up with some involvement in the second – a few tackles. Not much.
I was impressed with Cruize Garlett, no. 29.
Dan
February 8, 2009 at 8:58 pm
‘Dan’ is not the normal well mannered Dan 🙂
XztatiK
February 8, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Nah the first Dan’s a prick!
There are so many Dans around.
Lakey91
February 8, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Monty, is there anywhere we can find stats for this game?
m0nty
February 8, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I don’t think so, Lakey91.
Kennyrocks
February 9, 2009 at 12:13 am
You really don’t like the crows do you m0nty? Hahaha. Why is that?
Kennyrocks
February 9, 2009 at 12:18 am
As far as over-rated kids go, I’ve been hearing about the Baby bl00dy Bombers for the last eight years and how good they’re going to be.
Suits me fine anyway, from what I remember of the pod casts it took you a while to pick up on Porplyzia last year 😉 and so it follows that a number of DTers would have waited longer than was ideal to get him, benefiting those not caught up in the Victorian haze (Nick Maxwell, what a champion!) 😛 Lets have it happen again then shall we…
m0nty
February 9, 2009 at 12:23 am
It’s not that I dislike the Crows, it’s that they frustrate me.
Kennyrocks
February 9, 2009 at 12:43 am
You’re running a great site and all, its just that in alot of articles of yours that I read there are often snide remarks or comments in the vein of Sheahan, Walls (Demetriou?) revealing your distaste for Adelaide.
Fair enough, everyone has teams they dislike and that’s fine, I’m just wondering why. I’m *only just* too young to properly remember the bad old days of the big SA vs Vic rivalry (the “kick a Vic” type thing), which most seem to have moved on from, but this dislike for the crows in Melbourne seems to remain from it. Maybe its just me but Port seem to avoid this, is this because the crows were first into the AFL with state colours and seem to represent SA?
They frustrate you in terms of fantasy football you mean?
Apologies for going off DT topic by the way.
m0nty
February 9, 2009 at 1:20 am
Kenny, I get where you’re coming from. I don’t think it’s necessarily just the state vs state thing. There’s also an element of the Crows and Eagles being franchises, not clubs, that rubs Victorians up the wrong way. Port and Sydney were always clubs, Brisbane was mostly, and Freo we give a pass because they’re hopelessly pitiful. 😉
Dan
February 9, 2009 at 10:00 am
Are we going to see some stats for this game one day?
I can’t find any stats on any websites.
Like how did Yarran go? I barely heard the commentators mention his name, and I probably couldn’t pick him up in that game anyway, it was like a blur.
The QbQ stats are good for NAB cup… I like that format because it shows why certain people underscored.
Jazzman
February 9, 2009 at 10:51 am
The commentators barely mentioned anyone’s name except the bleedin’ obvious. It was nice to have some coverage but they could’ve done some research re the lesser-known players.
And lets not get confused about Chris McDermott the player and Chris McDermott the past-player. The former was and is a legend for his tenatious and loyal attitude. The latter is an absolute knob who makes outlandish comments for a headline. He absolutely ruined North Adelaide as a coach and performs the odd stint on 5AA where he constantly and consistantly confirms his standing as a moron. I must doff my hat to him, though, for his work raising money for sick kids.
There, spleen vented!
Big Jim
February 9, 2009 at 11:47 am
@ monty – reckon Kite is ahead of Petrenko at this stage? No Gallman narrows that race down a bit, but still not clear!
@ Jazzman, that differentiation between Macca the player and Macca the media tart is right on 🙂
Rupe
February 9, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Jim, different sort of players. They will not be competing against each other for a spot.
At this stage Kite is competing with Moran and Stevens and is a little bit behind those two. He is more of a third-tall while Petrenko is a sweeper.
Petrenko will be competing with guys like Dangerfield, Mackay and Otten for a spot.
Neither will play round one IMO.
Lakey91
February 9, 2009 at 11:58 pm
OK monty (to not finding stats). Knowing the ABC, theyd probably assign stats to the players they didnt identified – “That lookes like…petrenko, maybe? Oh well give him 6 for the kick and mark!” lol
Chad
February 10, 2009 at 11:10 am
The stats are available at the DT Talk website
http://dreamteamtalk.com/2009/02/10/afl-indigenous-all-stars-vs-adelaide-crows-stats/
freosteve
February 12, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I am liking Varoce this year, but at 270k it’s a stretch
C Garlett took a blinder
L Thomas looked greedy
Motlop was his jerky self too
all star
May 8, 2009 at 1:19 am
Cruise Garlett and Cyril Rioli where there standouts out of the young boys