The Game Plan - Adelaide Crows and Australian Cricket Team (against NZ)

The Game Plan will be a segment where I dissect/ridicule the game plan of a sports team.
First up, the 2009 model Adelaide Crows:

The plan, as seen in last night's game against the Indigenous All-Stars is to chip the ball around the side of the field, taking as many possessions as possible and hence, improving Neil Craig's Dream Team score. For Fuck's Sake, play a proper Centre Half Forward like Nick Gill at CHF and direct the play through there. The chipping style works straight into the hands of the new zoning style defence because they can set up perfectly while you dilly-dally around the wings. Robert Shirley is not a lead-up forward. The structure of the side looked much better back when we had Ian Perrie in that role (becuase it was the only thing he was good for). However the convincing loss was due to more than the game plan. The Adelaide players refused to go in and get the hard ball or lay tackles onm the opposition, Myke Cook being one of the few who had a red hot go. Kurt Tippet showed glimpses, but against defenders giving away 15cm he should be able to monster them.

The Australian Cricket team's game plan against NZ seems to assume that NZ are completely incompentent batsmen. They are mostly incompentent, but when you presume that 220 will be a winning score and are satified with 3.5 runs an over batting first, you won't win many games.