The Fremantle tagger has been the premier shutdown player in the AFL, and the job he gets on Saturday could go a long way towards determining which side advances to a home preliminary final.
Crowley completely shutdown Cats captain Joel Selwood when the teams met at the Cattery in round 14 this season. While Selwood had only 13 disposals, Chris Scott’s side still dominated the midfield in a 42-point win.
The options for Crowley are aplenty with Geelong, but the choices can be narrowed down to Selwood, brilliant playmaker Steve Johnson and midfield hard-nut James Kelly.
Crowley has history on each.
He played on Kelly in last year’s elimination final win at the MCG, while his usual opponent in past games against the Cats has been Johnson, who was unavailable through suspension in the last two Freo-Geelong games.
Kelly is still a major cog in Geelong’s midfield, but his form has not been as strong this season as it was entering the 2012 final.
Selwood, however, has arguably been the competition’s form midfielder in the latter part of the home and away season, while Johnson is a proven match-winner when given too much latitude.
Crowley said each posed a different threat and that he’d be ready for whomever he got.
“They’re different sorts of players, so I’ll have to do my homework on all of them and Ross will give me one closer to the game,” he said.
“Joel is a real driver of their team, a great player inside.
“Steve Johnson is one of those guys who can do both, he can go inside and win his own ball, and he can beat you on the outside.
“He’s smart and can take you forward.”
Crowley said it wasn’t just the obvious Geelong midfield stars that Freo had to be mindful of on Saturday.
“They’ve brought a few young blokes in and their outside run has got better,” he said.
“That’s something we’ll have to try and counteract.”
The 29-year-old reigning Freo club champion also admitted the two clubs were forming a rivalry.
“It’s hard not to when you’ve played three finals against each other in the past four years,” Crowley said.
“We’ve had a few big games, and even when they were up and running and we weren’t a few years ago, we had some good games against them then, as well.”
