Interesting, insightful post.
What did the Crows do to beat them?
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I haven't seen that one besides the last few minutes but from the post match analysis, it seemed like Adelaide were really effective going forward by hitting up short targets and kicking goals from further out than teams usually do. Similar to how Sydney broke down Richmond.
For Melbourne, the Adelaide loss was probably an unlucky one where both sides played well but they were just on the wrong side of the ledger. Yesterday, they were comprehensibly beaten all day and the final margin flattered them. I'd imagine there would be some red lights flashing internally after that sort of performance.
The shape of the grounds may have a bit to do with how Melbourne were broken down.
You can spread the defence length wise well at Adelaide and transition into the corridor on the diagonal/ laterally. It doesn't seem like much, but a bit like at Geelong or the old Subiaco if you got it right transition can be quick and you can break a line.
The SCG is short, so if you manage to get it into the corridor you can break lines and get the ball deep really quickly. It's also wide enough to chip laterally and diagonally if you need to go slow between the arcs.
I really rate Viney as an out. It’s similar to Libba, Dunks for us. Shut down Oliver they don’t really have a really decent grunter in their current system.
Harmes/Brayshaw can play that role and they have a young guy whose name escapes me but Viney is a superb player IMO at ground level with contested ball.
Yesterday he was missed.
It’s interesting I have a really high opinion of Viney and the opposite of Harmes. Whenever I see him play he seems the heartbeat of that team, and really set a standard of work rate in times when they had many one way runners. Maybe I’ve got an unconscious bias because I like that type of player but I’d have Viney any day and I thought he should’ve been their captain when they announced Gawn.
I think the biggest difference between Melbourne 2021 and Bulldogs 2021 is the fact we are winning the games we are expected to win whereas Melbourne would have penciled their two losses in as win at the beginning of the season. They're having brain fades, we are playing more consistent football.
I would say Melbourne have easily played more bad quarters than we have, but have played well enough in their good quarters to win games. In fact, we haven't come close to playing as badly as Melbourne did yesterday, even in our loss to Melbourne (which was a shocker but was really 1 horrible quarter and a couple of average ones).
IMO, their ceiling isn't as high as ours and their floor is lower based on performances so far, they've just been able to get closer to their ceiling for long enough.