Sarrey calls on the playing group to find their inner resolve...
There were times during the game against Melbourne when I was reminded of the Monty Python skit of a soccer match between the Bournemouth Gynaecologists and the Long John Silver Impersonators. The Gynaecologists had a great game, running circles around the Long John Silvers, who couldn’t move because of their wooden legs. They scored at will and then celebrated with ridiculous enthusiasm.
If only Sunday’s game had been that funny. Perhaps what grated most was how no Crow seemed able to stick a tackle. Melbourne made the Crows look like impersonators, brushing off tackles and evading others, side-stepping or fending off or simply ignoring their half-hearted opposition.
It’s fair to say the midfield was disgraced. It was baloney the way Maloney was able to charge away from stoppages, time after time.
There was an episode in the last quarter when Moloney, who doesn’t seem that quick, dodged a couple of midfield tacklers, seemingly without moving, and shrugged off another gnat-like pursuer to set up a Melbourne goal. He was slow but the Crows were slower. It was possibly the most humiliating moment of the game, although there were many.
The problem is the midfield. The Crows will only become a premiership threat when they develop an elite group of marauders in the middle. At the moment only Thompson can be considered in that class. Vince and Douglas have come close at times, but they haven’t shown the consistency that is perhaps the defining characteristic of elitism. Van Berlo is close, too, but he needs to have more impact. Dangerfield, Sloane and Otten must step up, and step up fast, but they also have to stop getting injured.
So how did the Crows change from Saint-slayers one week to one-legged impersonators the next? Some people say it was an ‘over-correction’ after last week’s aggression, a consequence of Craigy telling his players not to get reported. I think that’s too simplistic, but neither do I have an explanation for such a dismal display. I wish it could be put down to the inconsistency of youth, but it was too appalling for that. We know that the new Crows play in fits and starts but against Melbourne there weren’t even any fits, and they never got started. There was no intensity, no spirit and no response.
When a humiliation like this occurs there are really only two credible courses of action. One is to move to a deserted island in the middle of one of the larger oceans, preferably without any modern means of communication, and the other is to use the sense of shame as motivation. Curl up and die, or fight.
Sometimes before you can climb to the top you have to hit rock-bottom; you have to discover for yourself the bitter taste of failure before you find your inner, immutable resolve. You have to lose all your pretentions, all your illusions, all your cockiness; the entire structure must be razed to the ground before you can properly rebuild. Perhaps this is what must happen at the Crows.
I cannot recall the Crows playing worse than they did on Sunday. Does that mean that this is as bad as it will get? Have we bottomed out yet? Only time will tell. Perhaps the group will wallow in self-pity, lose their fire and lose their way. Maybe I’ll have to refer to Monty Python’s dead-parrot skit next week.
On the other hand it is possible that this will be a turning point, the line in the sand that will not be crossed no matter what. From the disgrace could emerge a much meaner, a much harder unit that cannot stomach humiliation, that can hold tackles and that will always make a stand.
There is one good thing about Sunday’s result: now we will see how strong and cohesive this group really is, because individually and collectively they have never been tested like this before. They must forge new steel in the heat that will be put on them this week. They must use the pain to find their mettle. They must respond with courage and spirit. The real Crows must stand up.
Sarrey’s first novel, Prohibited Zone, featuring a fictional ex-Crows player, is now available at Wakefield Press and in bookstores.
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