Classy Cats win at AAMI

The final margin against the Cats was 48 points, but that definitely doesn't tell the story of the game. The Crows put in a solid effort for 3 quarters, but appeared to be unable to contain the Cats any longer. The game was quite similar to the Round 2 clash with St Kilda in that regard. The key difference in this game is that the Crows looked like they deserved to be close to the Cats. 

Geelong were clinical. If any team is able to play them at that level for four quarters and still come out with a win, they will win the Premiership this year.

When Mark Thompson took over as Geelong coach, he started rebuilding the team and was a firm believer in bringing through young talent. Neil Craig is doing something similar with Adelaide. You can see some of the rewards already with young players shining every week. It was particularly good to see the youngsters really contribute to keeping the Crows on par with Geelong.

It seems like every week on this blog you will see a mention of Otten, Dangerfield, Tippett, Walker or Petrenko playing well. It's great to see. It's also nice when you have the previous generation of Van Berlo, Knights, Mackay and Vince all racking up the disposals. It's a great position and something that makes the future look bright.

One issue that I do have with the Geelong game was that Adelaide allowed the Cats best players to have too much of the ball. Geelong had 5 players with 30+ disposals (including 46 for Gary Ablett Jr) while the Crows did not have one. This could just be due to the rolling zone that the Crows have been using this year. It is however not very accountable and a team like Geelong will punish you if you give them the football. So it will be interesting to see in the next few rounds if anything is done to counter this.