Matt Crouch was in a lot of fantasy teams at the start of the year but this would have been the week where he started leaving them in droves... if there had not been selection carnage elsewhere. He has always been more of a Supercoach play with a game predicated on handballs and tackles rather than kicks and marks, leaving many disappointed with high disposal totals and relatively low basic fantasy scores. He will survive only as long as he is needed from here, especially going into the bye period when he will be upgraded to a rolled gold premium.
Matt Crouch was in a lot of fantasy teams at the start of the year but this would have been the week where he started leaving them in droves... if there had not been selection carnage elsewhere. He has always been more of a Supercoach play with a game predicated on handballs and tackles rather than kicks and marks, leaving many disappointed with high disposal totals and relatively low basic fantasy scores. He will survive only as long as he is needed from here, especially going into the bye period when he will be upgraded to a rolled gold premium.
Matt Crouch is coming off a long-term injury and so is discounted in price in fantasy competitions, making him a popular pick in salary cap competitions. His best is very, very good, with the capability to push his disposal count past 40 on a good day with a role firmly ensconced in the engine room. His predilection for handballs is balanced out by his prodigious talent of accumulation, making him a strong bounceback candidate in a midfield that sorely needed him last year. He may not be a keeper but he should last until the bye period.
Matt Crouch has shown that he can put up premium scores as a traditional inside midfielder at senior AFL level. Persistent groin injuries cruelled his 2021 campaign and the question for fantasy coaches is whether they can trust that those problems have completely disappeared. He looms as a classic bounceback candidate if his body is right, and today's game will be a big test of that proposition.
Matt rates are flat, mate
Apart from a hip muscle tear in the middle of 2019, Matt Crouch delivered much the same output as he has for the past three years running: 14 kicks, 18 handballs, five clearances and just over 300 metres gained, a stat line fairly similar to Clayton Oliver with less hurt factor. He failed to reach a fantasy ton only four times during the year, one through injury, with three of his five 120+ scores coming in August fantasy finals time. This is an impressive if limited set of figures, and the team has averaged about the same number of clearances over that time (38-39) though its ranking has dropped from second to mid-table. It's not his fault that Adelaide has dropped out of finals contention, as he keeps on delivering stellar levels of basic stats without the quality of the truly elite. Fantasy coaches love his high floor, and should pick him early.
Failure to launch from Crouch
Adelaide lost two clearances per game last season to drop from second to fifth in the team rankings, partially due to the absence of Brad Crouch but also because Matt Crouch didn't take the final step to joining the elite extractors. His personal rank still hovered around 20 despite largely avoiding the tag, which usually went to Rory Sloane who beat Crouch in clearance rate on ten less touches per game. It was all set up for Crouch in his fifth season, the one where normally a midfielder reaches his ceiling, to bust through a 110 average. He has fallen into the trap (for fantasy purposes) of lacking more than one particularly good string to his bow, like Patrick Cripps. It is hard to see this pattern changing in the short term to add more outside work like Matt Priddis and Sam Mitchell managed before him.
Matt Crouch spent much of the first half of the year on the sidelines with injury, but has slotted back into the Adelaide midfield without much fuss. His fantasy scores haven't set the world on fire as he has had to build form, but he would be an interesting point of difference on the run home as we know he is capable of humongous numbers when fully fit and in form. If the Crows are to make a charge to finals it will be on the back of workhorses like Crouch, so it's a gamble on the team as much as the player.
Matt finish for Crouch
Thirteen times last year Matt Crouch racked up 30 possessions and a fantasy ton, and he improved from a flat ton in fantasy average pre-byes to an elite 114 as the Crows won the minor premiership largely on the back of him and his brother. He tackles less and gets more ball than fellow inside beast Brad but his ranking in inside 50s is outside the top 100, indicating his role as a distributor rather than a launcher. The polish on the Crouch engine casing is so good, you can see your face in it. He seems to be more of a limited Matt Priddis type than a Patrick Dangerfield inside-outside threat, though Priddis proved that role can still produce elite fantasy numbers in the modern game. This is his fifth year, which is traditionally the one where midfielders come into their full powers. He is worth a serious look in the first round.
