The final game of a pretty crazy round of footy played out on Sunday evening between the Dogs and the Crows.
The Dogs had won four in a row coming into this game, and a win would keep their hopes of finishing in the top 4 alive. The Crows came in with some mixed form, a couple of wins and a narrow loss to Geelong, while also celebrating Rankine’s return from suspension and the fact he re-signed until 2027. They were also celebrating Darcy Fogarty’s 100th game.
In line with some of the surprising results this round has thrown up for us, the Crows would walk away 39 points winners against their highly fancied opponents, and the Bulldogs end up back in the pack of about 4-6 teams vying for a spot in the eight.
The Game:
The first quarter started almost to script for Adelaide, with Rankine winning the first clearance which ended up in Ben Keays’ 30th goal of the season. The Bulldogs had the run of the play for the next few minutes and while they were getting the ball inside 50, the Adelaide defence simply refused to be beaten. Up the other end the Crows nearly got a second, but Soligo failed to convert after intercepting a switch kick from Rory Lobb.
Jamarra Ugle-Hagan got the Dogs on the board with a snap from the pocket after being paid a mark that he probably juggled over the boundary. A nice bit of tap work from O’Brien in the centre hit Berry, which would eventually result in Keays getting a toe on a lose ball on the goal line for his second. Darcy Fogarty then took a beautiful pack mark to convert for Adelaide’s third of the quarter. When Rankine hit up Tex on the lead (after Lobb had switched off assuming Rankine was having a shot) and he converted for the Crows fifth of the quarter, the Dogs looked like they were in trouble. The quarter would finish with five goals to one in favour of the Crows.
Adelaide’s pressure was immense in the first quarter, Reilly O’Brien was owning the ruck, and the Dogs entries seemed to be picked off by the Crows defenders at will. Although the Dogs would have more inside 50’s for the quarter, it was Adelaide’s forward line that looked the more dangerous of the two.
The second quarter saw Sam Darcy unable to convert after a good contested mark. Rankine then produced a piece of briliiance straight out of the dodgeball handbook! He dodged, ducked, dipped, dived and dodged again before lacing out Fogarty for this second of the game. Up the other end Sam Darcy saw another chance go begging before the Dogs managed a few repeat inside 50’s which saw Ugle-Hagan make a contest in the air (one of the few contests from him in this one) allowing Treloar to goal from the crumb.
At this point the commentators began waxing lyrical about the Dogs, and how they deserved to be closer in this one, and I couldn’t have disagreed more. Sure to this point Sam Darcy had missed couple of set shots, and they had 4 or 5 behinds on the board (2 or 3 of which were rushed behinds). While the commentators were spruiking that all of the major stats pointed to Dogs being closer than they should be, the eye test told me that the Crows were well on top.
This was a game of contests, and the Crows were simply winning more of them. The Crows defenders were winning their contests against the Dogs forwards, Reilly O’Brien was destroying English in the ruck and, more often than not, giving the Crows midfielders first use. The Dogs midfielders couldn’t lay a hand on the Crows, and up forward the three talls were bullying their opposite numbers, and were atleast halving contests to allow their smalls to go to work.
The Dogs clawed a goal back via Williams after a great pass from McNeil, before an almost comical passage of play of handballs in the Crows forward line resulted in a long goal to Dawson.
As though the Crows had seen my notes on the game so far around the contest, Soligo would win a contest on the wing with brilliant use of his body, before kicking to Thilthorpe who beats his opponent on the lead and puts it to the square where Keays had escaped out the back for the easiest of goals. Three contests in one passage of play, all won by the Crows players.
The Dogs continued to get the ball forward to little avail, until right on the halftime siren Bont earns a free kick after a brilliant tackle on Laird and converts where some of this teammates had failed to and the Dogs go into the halftime break with their tails up.
The third quarter began with another Bont goal before Darcy Fogarty outmuscled Khamis and then Dale for his third and fourth goals of the game, and suddenly the lead was out to 31 points and the commentators were less bullish on where the Dogs “deserved” to be in this one. Fogarty then provided another great contest resulting in a goal to Rankine; before we then got to see the two sides of the Rankine coin as he gave away a silly 50 resulting in a Richards goal.
The rest of the quarter became a bit of an arm wrestle between the arcs, however, the Crows defenders were still well on top, so much so that Naughton was subbed out having had little influence on the game. The deadlock was broken when Fogarty showcased his brilliant field kicking to pinpoint Rachele for Adelaide’s 13th goal of the match. Thilthorpe would then outmuscle Liam Jones to kick the Crows 14th goal of the match on the three quarter time siren, resulting in a 41 point lead and the Dogs found themselves in a position even the commentators couldn’t will them out of.
The 4th quarter saw three goals apiece for each team, but the heat was well out of the game by now. The Dogs continued with poor goalkicking accuracy, and the highlight was young Daniel Curtin getting his first and second ever AFL goals.
It was a pretty comprehensive win by the Crows, and honestly they just looked like they wanted it more. There were a few other points of interest in this one.
A tale of two forward lines:
Almost like a head to head battle, but at opposite ends of the ground we saw Fogarty, Thilthorpe and Tex go up against Ugle-Hagan, Naughton and Darcy. Throw in Rachele and Keays vs Weightman and West and you could put together an entire main event fight card!
The Western Bulldogs forward line has been much celebrated, sometimes I think undeservedly though. Are Ugle-Hagan and Naughton both worth the massive dollars they are reportedly on? Based on this game you wouldn’t say so, but also based on their respective seasons I’m still not sure they are worth the hype or the million dollar deals they both have. While they very rarely had one on one opportunities in this one, they were well and truly shown up by the big boys at the other end, and when I say big, I mean BIG.
Tex is a big unit, we all know that, but today Fogarty tossed aside Bulldogs defenders like used wet wipes, and Thilthorpe mauraded around the forward 50 looking like a pissed off lumberjack who happens to be the same size as the tree’s he has clearly spent the last 12 months cutting down by hand!
While they did not win every contest they were involved in, they were atleast able to halve the vast majority of them and were able to create mismatches with their movement inside 50. Between them the three big boys had 8.2, 16 marks and 23 score involvements – not bad considering Adelaide had 26 scores!
At the other end, the much talked about trio of Naughton, JUH and Darcy combined for 2.6, 10 marks and 18 score involvments – 11 of those were from Darcy alone. In truth, Darcy had a decent game, the only thing stopping it from being a very good game was his goalkicking – five of those six behinds came off his boot as well as one out on the full – but the inability of the forward line as a whole to generate one on one opportunities for these guys, meant they were often going up against multiple Crows players and were often unable to even halve their contests, giving their smalls no chance. West didn’t kick a goal for only the fifth game this year, while Weightman was also unable to convert the one opportunity he did get in the last quarter.
While the forward 50 entries by the Dogs midfield certainly played their part, just consider the seasons of 2 players for a moment. Fogarty kicked five today, bringing his season total to 39 goals. He has been held goalless in four games this year, in a side that has struggled. Jamarra has now kicked 40 goals this year, one more than Fogarty, and has taken 84 marks for the season compared to Fogarty’s 96. I know they are different sorts of players and this is a simplistic comparison, but maybe it’s timed we started talking about Fogarty in the same gushing way everyone talks about Ugle-Hagan.
I’m sure I’ll be made to eat these words in a few years time as JUH matures, but for now, to paraphrase Shania Twain “he don’t impress me much”, he certainly doesn’t impress me to the tune of a million dollars a year.
The Ruck Battle:
This was really death by a thousand cuts. ROB amassed 58 hitouts today to English’s 16! English just could not move the big fella.
While not every single ROB tap was a hitout to advantage, let’s say just 10% of them were. That means that nearly six times, ROB was able to hit one his midfielders and get them moving up the field. If we judge English by this time same ratio, it’s one! Two if you want to round up!
I don’t know if English was carrying a knock or something but he was also unable to contribute around the ground as well as he usually does. A look at his stats after the game might say he did okay, 16 touches, four tackles and a goal (in junktime) are not bad numbers for a ruckman, but make no mistake, English was absolutely pantsed in this one.
Other Bits:
Really liked the game of Sam Berry today. He was hard at it and I was pretty surprised to see he had only 14 disposals for the game. He attacked the ball with ferocity and was seemingly unable to be tackled. I believe he is out of contract at the end of the season, and today’s performance would have a few rival clubs asking some questions. Likewise Matt Crouch who wound back the clock with a classic contested game (and very few metres gained).
Bailey Dale was non-existent today. I wasn’t able to tell if the Crows played a defensive forward on him (maybe Lachie Murphy?) but he was well down on his usual output, not that we was alone there. There was none of that trademark run and pinpoint kicking at all today and he might find himself on Bevo’s naughty list again.
Hats off to the under-rated Crows defenders in Keane, Worrell and Michalanney today. A combined 26 intercept possessions for the match, they were a huge reason why the Dogs forwards just could not get going. At the other end, only Lobb was able to get close to their output with nine intercepts of his own and then daylight to the next Dogs defender.
Bont probably misses out on Brownlow votes today. While 26 touches and 2.2 is nothing to sneeze at, I honestly don’t think he was a factor in this one. He tried hard but unfortunately too few of his teammates were willing to join him.
The Wrap:
The Dogs have North next week which they should win, and then come up against the Giants in Ballarat – that could prove to be a very interesting game when it comes to shaping the top 8!
The Crows will finish up the season with a showdown next week, followed by the Premiership favorites, Sydney, in the final round. Given how the Crows have been playing of late, and the form of their big guys up forward, they could still have a huge say in the top 8 also.
What a crazy round of footy this was with yet another result not many would have picked. For Adelaide it leaves them lamenting what might of mean were it not for their poor early season form. For the Bulldogs I think there are even more questions – are they just downhill skiers? Outside of Bont and Libba do they have any players that can turn things around on the field when they are not going their way? I guess we’ll find out in that Giants game which is going to be massive!
