For the first time in a while I sensed a real strong dissatisfaction among Crows fans after our debilitating lost to the Demons last weekend, and rightly so. That performance was nowhere near up to the standard we expect from our team.
Neil Craig has copped the brunt of the criticism with many questioning whether he would last beyond this past weekend if we were to lose to the vastly inexperienced Gold Coast. For Craig’ sake, and for my sanity’s, we sailed over the Suns by a comfortable 57-points.
However it wasn’t all one-way traffic, as we would have hopped it to be. Gold Coast kicked the first four goals of the game, including three in a row from Gary Ablett Jnr, as the ball spent the majority of the opening term in our opposition’s half.
Only two of our seven first quarters this year we’ve won. That needs to improve. Needless to say I was getting a feeling of impending doom as the Suns marched to a 14-point advantage at quarter time.
Much to my relief we switched on in the second term and quickly quashed the deficit. Not only did we catch up to Gold Coast, we surpassed them by a comfortable five goals.
I couldn’t have been more relieved! We were heading in the right direction again.
The second half was a welcome change of football as we maintained momentum of the match and didn’t let the Suns back into the contest.
We piled on 11 majors to their five notching up a total of 20 goals for the game. Six of those coming from Patrick Dangerfield who scored his greatest goal tally at AFL level.
My favourite of the day without a doubt was his running shot at the southern end of the ground. Only the Dangerman could use his own face as a springboard for the ball, maintain his composure and still nail the goal running as fast as his legs would take him. Now that takes some skill.
Other Crows to impress me were Rory Sloane who brings some real hardness to the side, Nathan van Berlo with 36 disposals, Scott Thompson as always, Matthew Wright a promising up and comer, and Sellar looked content at half back.
The win was good. Let’s face it; I’m sure most of us would be happy with our performance following last weekend’s lack of performance but we still have many areas to improve on.
Most notably we managed to get smashed in the clearances with the final tally at 28-53 in Gold Coast’s favour. Anyone would think by looking at those numbers that we lost the match. The stats also show Jacobs got his hand on the ball 11 more times than the Suns’ Zac Smith. So what’s going on at ground level?
We’re really going to have to turn this around if we want to be in with a chance against the reigning premiers, the Magpies, on Sunday.
I think the question on everyone’s lips going into the game will be whether Taylor Walker will come back into the side. Having kicked seven goals for Norwood on the weekend the key forward certainly did little to harm is case for a call up.
Surprisingly we can usually match the Victorian giants, only falling short in our last two losses by less than a goal.
It will take a mammoth effort to trump Collingwood at Etihad Stadium especially if we’re going to get smashed in the clearance count again. Unlike the young Suns the Magpies will hurt us if we fail to get first use of the ball.
As I’ve said before a strong and committed effort will satisfy me even if we can’t pip the Pies on the scoreboard.
