Nick's Collingwood Bulletin Board

Mugwump wrote:Adams was routinely among our best in the latter half of last year. After the dreadful errors he made in the QB game he pulled his head in on the Hollywood passes and majored on his grit and hard running. He was a deserved second (iirc) in the Copeland.

This year he has struggled with injury and reacclimatisation after it. This is not unusual, and given more game time he will be a big part of the further improvement i expect from us in the second half of this year.

This

I'm not his greatest fan and sometimes I think he's just a horrible footballer but last week in the 2nd half he showed his value to the team. If he can keep the trying to be a little adventurous aspect out of his game, he'll do just fine.

To be honest I'm struggling to remember what a good game from Adams looks like. I've never been a big fan, but some thought he should have won the Copeland last year. This year? He'd be lucky to be bottom 3 let alone top.

I don't see a place for him as anything but a centre square extractor and don't think he's even elite in this. The fact that we don't play him there permanently is a pointer to this and a problem, because play him anywhere else and he's a liability. Greenwood was better on return than Adams has been all year and has better running capacity in his favour.

Adams is supposedly an "enforcer" but missed a number of tackles last game. His angry man behaviour often results in dumb frees against than anything positive. His panicked disposal from defence where he snaps the ball out of a pack, instead of inviting contact and finding a handball like a true quality extractor, gave up at least two goal scoring opportunities last week. His second half was better, mostly because we saw him less in defence, but it had to be.

He's better than he has been this year, but right now he's struggling to find a role in the side. At times, Brown and Aish have looked better playing his role and De Goey looked much better when given time in the centre square last week. If Brown continues to develop and add strength he will be the better player (smarter with cleaner hands) and I'm not sure both will play together too much. This is a big year for Adams and he's going to have to start adapting his play or perfecting his role as an extractor to remain a confirmed best 22 player.

Great game by Tay today, in everything. That's the contested possession game and leadership he can bring and why a good deal of the previous analysis was so far off the mark. We need that player, we have enough runners, players like he and Greenwood are important to our balance.
Back it up next week and I suspect he might be over his injury niggles. + great team effort overall.

28 disposals. 18 contested.

Fantastic game today

Could be warming up for a big game against Viney and Co. Haven't watched the his game against Freo as yet but looking forward to Queens birthday.

^ A few people need to have patience with our players. Adams disposal is his weakness, but we need players who are hard at the contest too. He competed well in the air yesterday as well. Vital part of our team until guys like Wills or Sier prove otherwise.

Adams is gaining form at just the right time. I was very good yesterday and I expect he will be better next Monday.