Crows 2016

[Wedgie]

The first three stats are irrelevant to my point, it's more about the choice once you have it but you ended up agreeing with my point by the end of your post despite disagreeing with it in your first line. So kudos there, you got further than most but its now not "Bruise Free Football" when tryingn to avoid contests more than others once you have possession, it's "sexy funtime football".
I think Adelaide's style is either going to be a huge advantage of a huge disadvantage come finals time, not in between which in all honesty is a pretty good place to be as it almost gives you a 50/50 chance of winning the whole thing. I'm still leaning towards disadvantage from what I've seen but that might not even cost games, just margins. Interesting times.
How about the macadamias and lemon juice?

[MW]

The first three stats are irrelevant to my point, it's more about the choice once you have it but you ended up agreeing with my point by the end of your post despite disagreeing with it in your first line. So kudos there, you got further than most but its now not "Bruise Free Football" when tryingn to avoid contests more than others once you have possession, it's "sexy funtime football".
I think Adelaide's style is either going to be a huge advantage of a huge disadvantage come finals time, not in between which in all honesty is a pretty good place to be as it almost gives you a 50/50 chance of winning the whole thing. I'm still leaning towards disadvantage from what I've seen but that might not even cost games, just margins. Interesting times.
How about the macadamias and lemon juice?

Can you explain this further?
Do you think it is wiser to look for a one on one contest rather than an open player?

[Wedgie]

The first three stats are irrelevant to my point, it's more about the choice once you have it but you ended up agreeing with my point by the end of your post despite disagreeing with it in your first line. So kudos there, you got further than most but its now not "Bruise Free Football" when tryingn to avoid contests more than others once you have possession, it's "sexy funtime football".
I think Adelaide's style is either going to be a huge advantage of a huge disadvantage come finals time, not in between which in all honesty is a pretty good place to be as it almost gives you a 50/50 chance of winning the whole thing. I'm still leaning towards disadvantage from what I've seen but that might not even cost games, just margins. Interesting times.
How about the macadamias and lemon juice?

Can you explain this further?
Do you think it is wiser to look for a one on one contest rather than an open player?

That's a good question and a big part of the point being made.
Do I kick it to a 50/50 contest 50 metres down the line where there's a 50% chance of turning it over but no immediate chance of a score against me?
Do I kick it to a 70/30 contest in the midfield where there's a 30% chance of turning it over with a chance of a score against me?
Do I kick it to a 90/10 contest (100/0 if I'm pinpoint) in my own back lines where there's a small chance of turning it over but if I do there will more than likely be a score against my team.
The Crows love the last option and attacking of the half back line.
Every team will have a mixture of the above but different percentages of each.

[MW]

Ok I get what you are saying.
I think most clubs switch the play when there is contests or one on ones further up the ground, not sure Crows do it more than most?
I think the crows handball through the midfield to players under pressure quite often, but keep handballing to the next option until they get out. Trust me, as a Crows supporter it is noticeable how many handballs I think are risky but seems to pay off lately.
But when they get the "slingshot" out of defence, that's when it can look uncontested as they stream forward.
Anyway only time will tell if the game plan holds up in September.

[hollywood7477]

Just got an email from Adelaide Oval, offering Members Guest passes for this weekend's Showdown. I can't recall them ever offering Guesties for these games before??

When it has been Ports home showdown I have been able to get Guest passes. You cant for Crows games.

[Wedgie]

Ok I get what you are saying.
I think most clubs switch the play when there is contests or one on ones further up the ground, not sure Crows do it more than most?
I think the crows handball through the midfield to players under pressure quite often, but keep handballing to the next option until they get out. Trust me, as a Crows supporter it is noticeable how many handballs I think are risky but seems to pay off lately.
But when they get the "slingshot" out of defence, that's when it can look uncontested as they stream forward.
Anyway only time will tell if the game plan holds up in September.

Yeah I wondered if it was only because I'd watched 2 Crows B grade games and half a dozen A grade games this year but it was very noticeable to me.
There was a Dwayne Russell article about a week and a half ago interviewing Pyke insinuating the same thing especially about the attacking from the half back line and if there was a Plan B.
Thank you for having an intelligent conversation with me about a topic I find interesting.

[Wedgie]

SMART people always think they don’t know enough.
Engage Adelaide Crows coach Don Pyke in a discussion about his game plan and his thoughts have a paradox. His answer now might not be his answer next month. Because what he knows now, is not what he will know tomorrow.

Pyke called it “the circle of coaching”. Having set principles and teaching them, but also having the ability and desire to evolve them with a coaching staff and player group that needs to continually adapt.

“The game constantly changes and adjusts” Pyke said. “I’d like to think the style we are coaching and playing and teaching will hold up in finals, and how we will move the ball; but we will have to adjust, and some of that, we will glean through experience,” Pyke said of the coming two months.

Pyke, in an exclusive interview for theSunday Mail, was happy to admit what the core element of his game plan is.

It’s not a secret. Opposition coaches know, and Champion Data numbers confirm, that Adelaide is winning games via its ball movement from half-back.

The Crows’ ability to score heavily from the opposition turnovers they cause at half-back is their biggest asset, especially if they can move it swiftly through an un-set opposition defence.

So in September, when the good teams trot out a plan designed to stop Adelaide’s A-Game, Pyke will be ready to make his own in-game progression.

“Status quo and do it better, or do we have to change?” Pyke openly admitted will be the key question he will constantly need to answer.

In Adelaide’s last loss against Geelong, Pyke at least tested the “status quo and do it better” option to its fullest degree, which as a learning tool, was a small win.

Ball movement is king this season. The deliberate out of bounds rule has led to a 10 per cent reduction in stoppages, which means the ball is motion more often this year.
The turnover game is just as massive. Not simply forcing turnovers, but where you force them, what you do with the result, and how set, and how solid your own defence is when you turn the ball over.

Forget much of what you see in this last month of AFL and much of yesterday. Blowout games taint facts, and bottom team coaches who touted attacking styles pre-season are now coaching all-out defence for self survival.

Come the fine weather in September, when the best teams are up against the best, ball movement, higher scoring and the turnover game is expected to be pivotal again.

Opposition coaches know what Pyke’s Adelaide will prefer to do in September. But they don’t exactly know what Pyke has up his sleeve next as he plans for the evolution.
For example, Pyke has tended not to tag opposition match-winners, but rather drop a spare man back behind the ball to help win games by protecting his whole defence and launching from there.

And yet Pyke admits in a cut-throat final, against a Sam Mitchell or Patrick Dangerfield, he could adopt a tag. “I’m not saying we wont do it. But it’s what that one individual is doing, versus what the game impact of that one individual is” Pyke said.

He is also ready to adjust how far forward or back he applies his “press”. Because Hawthorn, for example, kill teams by getting it inside its forward 50m and not letting it out.

“It’s whether to protect your back half, or pressure and keep it in your front half,” Pyke admitted was a fluid part of his structure.

“And I’m coming from more of a pressure viewpoint (than Phil Walsh did). When we are playing our best footy we are not conceding too many inside 50s.

“You have still got to win your share at the cause; at the contest …. You’ve still got to win your own ball,” Pyke revealed, as he drifted toward the more set-in-stone principles of his game plan.

But he also admitted he has the luxury of leaving room for instinct. To allow for the genius that is Eddie Betts to clear his mind of any game plan parameters and just go for it. Because it’s almost impossible for an opponent to hatch a plan to stop a player who doesn’t stick to one.

“Eddie is really instinctive and he brings so many elements and so many other players into it. And at times I say ‘mate, just go, just go yourself’,” Pyke said.

Finals results will decide the postscript to Pyke’s season. Genius if he wins the flag, and perhaps the easy default for fans and journalists will be to accuse him of being an outcoached first-year learner if he fails.

But rest assured the Crows have unearthed another guru. He walked into a club that just lost the undisputed, outright best player in the competition.

And yet Pyke will now certainly coach Adelaide to a better home and away finish than last season’s 13 ½ win seventh place.

[MW]

Good article. He seems to understand what can get you to September doesn't necessarily mean it will get you wins in September.
Unfortunately the only time in the last 12 weeks the game plan has been tested seriously, it faltered.

[JK]

Just got an email from Adelaide Oval, offering Members Guest passes for this weekend's Showdown. I can't recall them ever offering Guesties for these games before??

When it has been Ports home showdown I have been able to get Guest passes. You cant for Crows games.

Ah OK, cheers mate. I just figured Showdowns, regardless of who's hosting, would always be near enough to capacity that they couldn't offer guesties. No biggy, Im sure there'll still be 50k or close this weekend.

[Booney]

"Engage Adelaide Crows coach Don Pyke in a discussion about his game plan and his thoughts have a paradox. His answer now might not be his answer next month. Because what he knows now, is not what he will know tomorrow."

Well, what he knows now he will know tomorrow, he'll most likely know it forever, but what he knows as best method today might not be what he knows as best method tomorrow.

Dwayne, twit.

[stan]

Good article. He seems to understand what can get you to September doesn't necessarily mean it will get you wins in September.
Unfortunately the only time in the last 12 weeks the game plan has been tested seriously, it faltered.

True but in the first 10 weeks it worked well. So you could say there are some good aspects regardless.

Port will give you a run this week for a bit. But you Should break this open easily enough.

[bennymacca]

Good article. He seems to understand what can get you to September doesn't necessarily mean it will get you wins in September.
Unfortunately the only time in the last 12 weeks the game plan has been tested seriously, it faltered.

Although we have lost twice to Geelong, we also beat Sydney, GWS, west coast away, and really should have beaten hawthorn and the dogs (I don't think our game plan faltered in those games)

The two Geelong games are probably the only times we have played really poorly all season.

[Dogwatcher]

Not 2016, but Crows related - did Lucas Herbert, who was on the Crows' list during the premiership years, become a police officer?

[Wedgie]

Not 2016, but Crows related - did Lucas Herbert, who was on the Crows' list during the premiership years, become a police officer?

Yeah mate, he's been a cop since 2002. He got drafted after their 2nd flag via North via Glenelg.

[stan]

Good article. He seems to understand what can get you to September doesn't necessarily mean it will get you wins in September.
Unfortunately the only time in the last 12 weeks the game plan has been tested seriously, it faltered.

Although we have lost twice to Geelong, we also beat Sydney, GWS, west coast away, and really should have beaten hawthorn and the dogs (I don't think our game plan faltered in those games)

The two Geelong games are probably the only times we have played really poorly all season.

You actually got touched up a bit by the dogs under the roof. It was only a few goals because they didnt kick straight.

Im not sure if you can class that as one you should of one.

[cracka]

Not 2016, but Crows related - did Lucas Herbert, who was on the Crows' list during the premiership years, become a police officer?

Yeah mate, he's been a cop since 2002. He got drafted after their 2nd flag via North via Glenelg.

Has been playing at Blackwood for a few years now. I reckon I was still playing when he started there.

[LaughingKookaburra]

The first three stats are irrelevant to my point, it's more about the choice once you have it but you ended up agreeing with my point by the end of your post despite disagreeing with it in your first line. So kudos there, you got further than most but its now not "Bruise Free Football" when tryingn to avoid contests more than others once you have possession, it's "sexy funtime football".
I think Adelaide's style is either going to be a huge advantage of a huge disadvantage come finals time, not in between which in all honesty is a pretty good place to be as it almost gives you a 50/50 chance of winning the whole thing. I'm still leaning towards disadvantage from what I've seen but that might not even cost games, just margins. Interesting times.
How about the macadamias and lemon juice?

It's ironic that you correct people when they pick and chose information out of your debate but ignore other points you make just to suit their own argument.

Takes one to know one I guess

[Wedgie]

The first three stats are irrelevant to my point, it's more about the choice once you have it but you ended up agreeing with my point by the end of your post despite disagreeing with it in your first line. So kudos there, you got further than most but its now not "Bruise Free Football" when tryingn to avoid contests more than others once you have possession, it's "sexy funtime football".
I think Adelaide's style is either going to be a huge advantage of a huge disadvantage come finals time, not in between which in all honesty is a pretty good place to be as it almost gives you a 50/50 chance of winning the whole thing. I'm still leaning towards disadvantage from what I've seen but that might not even cost games, just margins. Interesting times.
How about the macadamias and lemon juice?

It's ironic that you correct people when they pick and chose information out of your debate but ignore other points you make just to suit their own argument.

Takes one to know one I guess

It not a debate or an argument, it's a discussion on if a gameplay will be successful come finals, the coach himself has had similar thoughts. I'm not fully convinced either way but thanks for your interesting input on the matter, you've brought a lot to the table.

[LaughingKookaburra]

No problems just an observation mate.

Play on.

[Dogwatcher]

Not 2016, but Crows related - did Lucas Herbert, who was on the Crows' list during the premiership years, become a police officer?

Yeah mate, he's been a cop since 2002. He got drafted after their 2nd flag via North via Glenelg.

Has been playing at Blackwood for a few years now. I reckon I was still playing when he started there.

He'll be in the news tomorrow. For good reason.