Adelaide Crows coach Don Pyke has warned the Suns’ midfield is no easybeat

ADELAIDE Crows coach Don Pyke believes the Gold Coast midfield is the Suns most dangerous group and his platers will need to treat them with respect.

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ADELAIDE coach Don Pyke has singled out the Gold Coast’s midfield as an area that must be respected as the Crows face the Suns at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.

Nobody gives the Suns much of a chance of an upset: bookmakers have adjusted their markets to pay $8.50 for a win while the Crows are $1.08.

To make matters worse, the Crows’ midfield will be closer to full strength.

The Crows will be boosted significantly in the area by the return from injury of club champion Matt Crouch (hamstring).

But Pyke has warned that it is in the midfield that the much-improved Suns had made a rapid charge this season. And if Gold Coast gets first use it had significant targets in their forward line.

“From a coaching viewpoint they’ve changed,” Pyke said. “They bring in Stuart Dew, who’s clearly brought a methodology and style of play. And they’ve got some more maturity into their players.

“They’re playing some good footy at the moment. They’re sitting on 3-2 and as I keep saying – in this comp there are no easy games.

“They’ve got threats across the lines.

“They’re pretty strong in the ruck – (Jarrod) Witts is a pretty effective ruckman and they’re a strong clearance team.

“And they’ve got some dangerous forwards with (Sam) Day and (Tom) Lynch down there as well as some small forwards who can hit the scoreboard.

“They’re a side that’s won some games this year and played some good footy.

“They’ve had one bad game but as we’re seeing in the comp this year there aren’t too many teams yet who haven’t had a bad day.

“We’ve got to prepare for their very best and they’ve got a good strong forward line and midfielders who can generate the ball and win clearances.”

Adelaide coach Don Pyke talks with Josh Jenkins. Picture SARAH REED

Pyke’s next mission is to find some consistency in the ranks.

He was chuffed with the club’s response to the Collingwood loss – the Crows defied the odds to beat Sydney at the SCG – but now it was about finding some evenness of performance.

But he predicted this would be a year of more upsets – a likely result of the expansion teams becoming more settled and an uncompromised draft now that they have been established.

“As we’re finding, this game is a demanding game,” Pyke said. “It’s week-in, week-out, it’s constant.

“You look at the results over the weekend ... I’m pretty sure last week we were sitting there thinking, ‘What happened there, following a good couple of performances?’

“I’m think that’s just going to be the flow of the year. The quicker we can get some consistency around those areas the better, which allows us to play our style, play our way and build some real confidence.

“For us it was more about returning to the style we want to play.

“We understand quite clearly what creates winning for us.

“We were disappointed in ourselves against Collingwood.

“(It was) really pleasing with the response that the players produced – it just goes to show the pride they have in their performance and what they expect.

“It was great to get a quick response. Now it’s about building on that and actually moving forward with a win this week to consolidate playing good footy.”

Gold Coast is yet to beat the Crows from 10 matches and was outclassed the last time, with that game under lock and key by half time.

The Suns are also winless at Adelaide Oval, having lost to the Crows twice and Port Adelaide once.