Adelaide vs Collingwood

A thriller at Adelaide Oval saw the Pies get up over the Crows in a hot game of footy. Tim Hunt has the Four Points review.

Nevertheless, Laird is missing something, and looking at his kicks and handball ratio – he averages 13 kicks and almost 20.5 handballs per game – the answer seems to be that he needs to trust his teammates – other than Ben Keays and Sam Berry – to win clearances so he can get forward of the play and hit teammates inside 50. If they’d played this way for the first three quarters, I wonder if they could have saved everyone a lot of stress. He doesn’t seem to have the tank, nor necessarily the desire, to venture too far up the ground, and as long as his strength in the air and goal kicking accuracy remain around where they are, this won’t be a problem. However, beyond the first quarter, Fogarty only managed two more kicks – one being a goal in the second quarter – highlighting the work he needs to do on his game. This means that he should be covering more ground than under 10 metres per disposal, particularly when we compare him with other similar midfielders – Zach Merrett is at 15.4 metres per disposal, Callum Mills is at 16.2m, Clayton Oliver is at 13.5m, Lachie Neale is at 12.0m and Sam Walsh is at 10.7m. For those asking, Matt Crouch comes in at 8.9m per disposal and the question becomes whether their midfield is best served with Crouch performing his normal role, or if Matthew Nicks is right in prioritising Laird’s defence over Crouch’s ‘defence’. Walker consistently takes the best defender, will always draw a crowd, and will take a heap of pressure off the two youngsters, allowing them to develop on their own. As with last season, Taylor Walker continues to show that age is just a number, kicking five goals for the day from 13 disposals and five marks. If we were to extend that bar to 90 points, five teams managed that against Collingwood in the first nine games, but none have been able to since. Picture this, dear reader – it’s quarter time in a round nine Friday night match-up between the Western Bulldogs and Collingwood. The ‘Dogs have started the season disappointingly, following up their grand final appearance from last season with a 3-5 opening to 2022. But sure enough, by the midway point of the season, the game plan had clicked into gear, and that’s exactly what has happened with Collingwood, post-their loss to the ‘Dogs. But two late goals to second-gamer Josh Carmichael and 350-gamer Scott Pendlebury cut the margin back to just four points at the final change, before two early final quarter goals to phenom Nick Daicos gave the ‘Pies a lead they would never relinquish. In one of the most thrilling games of AFL footy that season 2022 has offered us, Collingwood saw off a late challenge by a valiant Adelaide side, winning by just five points.