Nothing to Crow about
May 10th 2009 06:39
I am a supporter of the Adelaide Crows Australian football team. I might not be for much longer. It is not that I would ever switch allegiance — it is that I age so much each time I watch the Crows play that I fear I am destined for an early exit from the stadium of life.
Adelaide has been for some time a team of promise. This means that, year after year, we finish mid-table — either the best of the worst, or the worst of the best. The one recent exception was 2006 when we finished fourth — the worst of the very best — and then put in a post-season performance which did nothing to change our long-term moderate achiever status.
I am not an expert in the finer points of modern Australian football strategies. Adelaide coach Neil Craig supposedly is an expert. He has formal qualifications in all those things you need to be an expert in these days — sports psychology, motivational speaking, what's cool and what's not in tattoos, how to spit accurately and how to kick inaccurately.
This last appears a crucial part of the Craig plan for Crows creditability. It is possible, based on the evidence of on-field performance, that they practice poor kicking. This is especially so when attempting to score. The last time Adelaide kicked more goals than points in a match, Tchaikovsky wrote the 1812 Overture to celebrate.
Craig's Crows employ a sophisticated zone defence structure which, for those who do not fully appreciate modern football tactical theory, can best be described as: huh?
The system demands that, when Adelaide is not in possession of the ball, every player crowds into opposition territory. If you can see your own goal posts, you are too close and must move further away. The Adelaide players now stand around and dare the opposition to approach. Outnumbering their opponents' offensive players by about 50 to one, the theory is that the other guys will cough up the ball. Sometimes they do, at which moment an Adelaide player takes possession and streams away down field in one of those exciting football moments of counter attack.
Then he stops, turns around, and kicks the ball backwards, because it is only in this direction that any of his team mates are to be found.
I am a supporter of the Adelaide Crows Australian football team, but it's killing me.
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