Lachie’s AFL Round 22 Preview: Brisbane Lions v Adelaide Crows | Betting Preview
Two of the most offensively minded and productive sides face off in Brisbane today in what we hope will be a cracker of a game. Both sides rank high in terms of scoring output and as a result, come into the later part of the year with hopes still well and truly alive. A win for both sides is crucial today as we’re just a few weeks away now from the Finals. Read below to see how I believe the game will play out and where the value lies today.
Brisbane To Bounce Back To Form
Join NowA top game this one should be, for a game so late in the season there can often be sides who have thrown in the towel or are just biding their time until the calendar flips over to September. But not today.
The motivation will be strong for both sides with the Brisbane Lions still harbouring aspirations for a top 2 spot, and most importantly a home final in the qualifying final. Not to mention they’ve been poor by their standards for a few weeks now and would like to get back into some form before the truely big games arrive.
The Crows on the other hand will be playing today to try and stay and September, should they lose their chances are almost completely done. They’ve had a very strange season where they’ve beaten some of the best at home, fought the best away from home but just narrowly lost, but then stunk it up against the middle tier sides interstate. What this says to me is they’re just not mentally mature enough just yet to keep that consistency up every week, especially when their motivations for a ‘lesser opponent’ arrive. But they’re still extremely well coached, if not the best in the league at that department, and hold some of the best talent in the league especially in the front half & are better than their ladder position suggests.
What we can learn from the past match up this year in Adelaide?
Well, the Crows did win that match up at home, with in the end a comfortable-ish margin. But to be honest, it seemed like the lions lost that match more than the Crows won it. The Lions killed horribly infront of goal that day, in the 1st qtr they failed to make the most of their chances and domination with the ball almost livin inside Brisbane F50. Then the 3rd quarter they kicked 1.9 (with an out of bounds on the full too), before the crows counter punched with late (and to be honest, freakish goals) to break the lions spirit which got them the win in the end.
As we look forward to today I can see a comfortable Lions victory. One obvious reason is the ladder position showing Brisbane to be the better side over the year, another obvious reason is the home record of the Lions, having not lost all season there and have smacked even the best sides in the competition there. Not only that, the Crows were probably lucky to win last time even at home, so we can see Adelaide don’t have a specific match up based advantage they can hang their hat on either. In terms of injuries, the Crows have had the worst of it too between the sides here, they’ve lost a lot of their key tall defenders that were having a great break out year, also they go in to today with the freakishly talented small forward duo in Rankine and Rachelle. The reason I described the goals that broke the Lions back last match as “freakish” was due to these two being the ones kicking them! Almost any other players and i would have called it lucky. So without them today, I don’t see how the Crows will be able to match it with the Lions today at the Gabba with so much to play for. Whilst the Crows will probably not get smashed due to their professional and well coached nature, I still feel very comfortable taking the Lions to cover the -20.5 handicap today.