It’s a brave man who takes a bounce at full throttle with one of the league’s legendary quick men after him. Dangerfield did, and the gap between the two never closed. Geelong might have a bloke with exceptional leg speed, but so have the Crows.
Geelong also has one of the league’s best aerialists - Podsiadly. His hands are the size of baseball mitts and he took some ripper marks on Sunday night. But so did his immediate opponent. McKernan loves a contested mark, and he wasn’t afraid to test himself against the best. He outmarked the Pod several times and quelled his influence.
Geelong has some handy midfielders, like Bartel, Ling, Chapman, Corey and Selwood. But the most influential midfielder on Sunday night was Rory Sloane. This lad will soon be one of the league’s elite - he is quick, brave and clever. He is also good overhead and his kicking is accurate, despite the awkward style. He was prolific against Geelong; he didn’t lose a contest.
To be successful in the AFL you need some fast-running forwards able to hound the opposition as they take it out of defence. The Crows have found at least a couple of these. One of them is Henderson. He didn’t get huge stats on Sunday night but he ran hard to harass Geelong runners; he set a good example early when he overtook Enright. Another is Petrenko, who may be the quickest Crow of all. He didn’t have a big night, either, but his long chase in the second quarter to bring down Corey showed that he is prepared to work hard for his team.
There were many other positives, such as Talia’s command of centre half back; he has the strength to bust a pack while picking up the ball and offloading it to teammates. The group had the wadding to staunch some second-quarter bleeding, after Geelong kicked five goals in a row. Armstrong has a cool head, despite his nerdy moustache, and his kicking is superb. Wright is proving to be a good decision-maker and, with his brilliant mark over Wojcinski, he showed he’s not bad in the air either.
But there was one overwhelming negative, which cost the game. Turnovers. Especially inside the forward 50. Time and again the midfield would pound the ball into attack, and time and again it would go to a Cat rather than a Crow. The Crows had five more inside-50s than Geelong and lost by eleven points.
The Crows have long been sloppy in attack, and it is costing games. In five of their losses (and all of their wins) this year, for example, they had more inside-50s than the opposition. If they had been able to match the efficiency of their opposition in converting forward-50 entries to scores, the Crows would have won eleven games and would be sitting sixth on the ladder.
A challenge for the new coach, whoever that may be, will be to fix this problem. I think the talent is there, or almost there, but the forwards need to provide more options and convert more of their set shots, and the midfielders need to smarten up their delivery. The team needs to improve its communication skills. Players need to understand each other better so they can transfer the ball more efficiently from the midfield to the forward line. When they do that, they will be a team on the rise.
