AFL 2022: Where is Adelaide’s rebuild at after horror loss to Hawthorn?
If you had to describe the Crows as an ice-cream flavour they would be vanilla. Where is the rebuild at? The tough questions are coming.
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And just like that the questions about how Adelaide’s rebuild is tracking are going to resurface for Matthew Nicks and the Crows.
A 57-point win over the cellar dwelling North Melbourne, followed by running the reigning premiers Melbourne close had the Crows looking like they were back on track, or at least starting to look back on track.
But then Nicks’ side serves up the first half it did against Hawthorn, and like that the patience of the Crows fans will be getting just that little bit thinner.
With Collingwood at Adelaide Oval, Sydney at the SCG, Carlton at home, the improving West Coast in Perth, the Kangaroos at home and then the Showdown against Port Adelaide there is a real possibility that the Crows – who have five wins so far – will win less games than they did in 2021.
Key club figures have said throughout the season that there could be a scenario where the Crows win less games than they did last year, but progress their rebuild in 2022.
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Making this argument is lot more difficult to do when the side is serving up first quarters like they did at Marvel Stadium on Sunday.
Hawthorn hadn’t won a game in its last five after a bright start to the season under Sam Mitchell.
Yet they played the Crows off the park in the first quarter, kicking 39-points in their second best start to a game in six and a half seasons.
For Adelaide you’d be hard pressed to find a worst quarter by the Crows this season.
They couldn’t hit targets by foot, which they have struggled with this season.
But the biggest concern for Nicks and his coaching staff was that the Crows were getting outworked at the contest.
Nicks consistently says that the “DNA” of his Crows side is bringing the contest.
The Crows might lack skills and polish at times but you can generally rely on them to bring the contest and have a crack.
Yet in that first quarter against the Hawks Crows players were walking to the contests, while their opponents were running.
It even had the usually positive Nicks saying he was more glass half empty than half full.
“Everything that we pride ourselves on week-in-week-out we left somewhere,” he said.
“They were harder at the footy, they were harder in the tackle and we just coughed the ball up which is something we don’t do.
“Even though we have some guys who don’t have the experience of other clubs that’s an area we enjoy, we embrace the physicality in there.
“For whatever reason we didn’t do that in the first quarter.”
It didn’t get all that much better in the second quarter.
“If I was in the Crows coaches box I would be really disappointed with the effort over the first 40 minutes, the first quarter and a bit,” Hawthorn legend Dermott Brereton said on Fox Footy.
“I thought they were pretty average.
“It was real effort stuff I thought was lacking. They are a team that has to bring effort.”
Former Fremantle and St Kilda coach Ross Lyon was savage.
“This is embarrassing,” he said on Triple M of the Crows first half.
“This is witches hat stuff.”
Brutal? Yes, but that first quarter especially will leave a sour taste in the mouths of many Adelaide fans for a while.
Last week, after the Hawks lost their fifth game in a row, former Port Adelaide record AFL games holder Kane Cornes questioned whether Hawthorn were the “irrelevant team of the competition”.
“They are a bit nothing aren’t they, they are a bit bland,” he said on Footy Classified.
The Crows won’t be irrelevant given their size and the fact they are in a two-team town in a passionate footy state.
But while the “bland” Hawthorn attacked the corridor time and time again in that first quarter, the Crows went to kick along the boundary far too often.
They had more dare in the third and fourth quarters, when they made a game of it.
But the Crows might just be a bland team themselves on the field right now.
Rory Laird had 42 disposals but had just 298m gained, an average of 7.09m per disposal.
Ben Keays was only slightly better with an average of 7.1 gained for his 30 disposals.
Back in the side, Matt Crouch had 28 disposals but 98m gained.
Can those three play in the same midfield? Nicks said on Friday that he had told Crouch that he wants him at West Lakes next season.
But the Crows midfield right now just doesn’t cause enough damage.
If you had to describe the Crows as an ice-cream flavour they would be vanilla.
And any sprinkles on top are few and far between right now.
Taylor Walker, at 32-years-old, is still their best forward by some way.
Riley Thilthorpe had a patch in the second half where he took some impressive contested marks, but his decision making let him down at times.
Ned McHenry also had a good second half.
Jordan Dawson is Adelaide’s most dangerous player – probably the Crows best.
And worryingly for the Crows the Hawks were able to negate his influence in the first half by sending Finn McGuinness to him.
Who knows what North Melbourne coach David Noble was thinking when he sent his best tagger Kayne Turner to first-year player Josh Rachele in Hobart two weeks ago.
Because he should have been targeting Dawson.
It’s not a case of no Dawson no Crows, but Adelaide needs the recruit from Sydney to have an influence on the game if it is any chance to win matches.
Against the Hawks he had a season low 15 disposals.
He was at seven going into three-quarter time before he was moved forward and was able to get away from McGuinness.
Surely other coaches would have seen the influence this had, so could the gun recruit now be in for a lot more attention in the Crows’ run home.
Nicks said there was “so many positives coming through with our group” post game.
And yes the Crows third and fourth quarters were much better when they actually began to challenge Hawthorn.
But will the Crows fans share Nicks’ thoughts about how the rebuild at West Lakes is tracking.
CROWS NEEDED TIME-OUT TO RESET HORROR START
Nick D’Urbano
Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks has lamented his side’s costly first-quarter effort, describing it as the “most disappointing” aspect of their 32-point loss to Hawthorn.
The Crows were jumped by the fast-starting Hawks, who booted six goals to one in the opening quarter and established a 31-point lead at the quarter-time interval.
After falling behind by as much as 38 points at halftime, Nicks’ charges fought back in the second-half as they got within 20 points early in the final quarter, but ultimately the early deficit proved too difficult to overcome.
“We will find the positive in probably the second half, but the most disappointing part was the way we started,” Nicks said.
“We coughed the footy up, we didn’t stick tackles. Everything we pride ourselves on, week-in, week out, we left somewhere and it took us a time-out at quarter-time to actually come together and actually put that back at the level it needed to be at. Then I guess it got us back in the contest.
“That’s against any team, doesn’t matter who you’re playing against. If you don’t bring the contest at the level then you’re going to be found out.
“To their credit, they punished us in the first quarter. So more disappointed than glass half-full but we will always look at what we’re able to do from that point on and we’ll take a lesson out of both.”
Nicks believes there were still “a lot of positives” out of his side’s second half, particularly with their effort around the contest and disposal.
However, the Crows coach said the fightback, which he described as “fatiguing”, came too late in the game.
“It was getting the basics right,” Nicks said.
“We started putting our head over the ball and we started basically treating that ball like gold rather than just giving it away.
“Sometimes, it’s fatiguing when you get that far down at quarter time and you spend the next two quarters working your way back into the game. They knock a couple through quickly on you and the fatigue sets in, the mental fatigue of what it is to try to fight back into a game.
“We were grinding, we were giving everything we had but it was too late.
“What I can say is the boys are sitting in there at the moment just extremely disappointed because we know you can’t start games in that manner.
“We’re able to talk through that as a group and in fact at quarter-time I believe the players met before I got there and talked through exactly the same issues. Unfortunately, at that moment, it took us until that time-out or that quarter break to get it right.”
The Crows sit 5-11 heading into the final six games of the season and will now switch their focus to hosting a red-hot Collingwood outfit next Saturday at Adelaide Oval.
Tex blunder that ended Crows’ comeback
Hawthorn is back on the winners list for the first time since late May after surviving a second-half fightback from a resilient Adelaide outfit to run out 32-point winners at Marvel Stadium.
In a game of two halves, the Hawks looked to be on their way to a comfortable victory at halftime, booting nine goals to three in the first half to open up a 38-point lead at the major break – with five of those coming off the boot of Mitch Lewis.
Adelaide had other plans and refused to lay down, upping the tempo around the ground and putting Sam Mitchell’s side under enormous pressure as the margin was cut to as low as 20 points early in the final term.
Ned McHenry had the chance to cut the margin to 14 points but opted to handball to Taylor Walker, who missed the shot which in turn led to Hawthorn going back the other way and ending the Hawks’ second-half dry run as Jaeger O’Meara kicked a much-needed steadier.
The resulting goal helped wrestle the momentum back in the Hawks’ favour as they booted another three more goals to secure their fifth win of the season.
While the contest was ostensibly a dead rubber with both teams’ finals hopes all but extinguished at this point of the season, there were still moments of promise from both teams – particularly for Hawks fans from the boot of Lewis.
Seven days after being held goalless for the first time in 25 games, Lewis laid out the blueprint on how to respond perfectly from a tough day at the office with a sensational showing from the onset.
Lewis set the tempo early, making the most of the established territorial dominance by his teammates early in the piece and booting all of his five goals before halftime.
Blake Hardwick also ended up with a career day, registering 32 disposals from defence, to go with eight marks and seven intercepts while defensive partner in crime James Sicily (23 disposals, 13 marks) continued his All-Australian calibre season.
Meanwhile, Rory Laird’s and Ben Keays’ sensational respective seasons rolled on – registering 42 and 30 disposals each while the returning Matt Crouch had 28 of his own.
BIG BOY RETURNS
It’s been a long time between drinks for Hawks captain Ben McEvoy, who returned for only his second game this season after months on the sidelines with a serious neck injury.
McEvoy had been out of action for 13 straight games after suffering a neck fracture at training following his solitary appearance in Hawthorn’s big win against Port Adelaide all the way back in round 2 – which came only a week after missing the season opener as a result of entering health and safety protocols.
The 32-year-old ruckman had seven disposals along with 19 hitouts to cap off his return game.
BERRY BREAKOUT
Adelaide fans have a lot of reasons to get excited about Sam Berry, who continued his brilliant patch of form with yet another impressive showing.
The second-year midfielder has won plenty of admirers since arriving at West Lakes for his tenacity around the contest, and has slowly become a handy option at the coalface to compliment the already outstanding work from Ben Keays and Rory Laird.
When the Crows needed a response after halftime, it was Berry who got to work in the middle and helped push the tempo, ending up with 18 disposals and seven tackles.
BRING BACK THE TORP
It was the old fashioned hack kick out of defence to nowhere but it turned out to work a treat late in the piece when the Hawks were under the pump.
With Adelaide pushing into their attacking half, Jai Newcombe got the ball and launched a massive torpedo which sent the Hawks into attack as Jacob Koschitzke found himself on the end of it and one-on-one inside the Hawks’ forward 50.
In the end, the ball found its way to Luke Breust, who was able to make the most of it and slam home the sealer.
SCOREBOARD
HAWKS 6.3, 9.4, 9.7, 13.8 (86)
CROWS 1.2, 3.2, 5.5, 8.6 (54)
D’URBANO’S BEST
Hawks: Lewis, Hardwick, Sicily, Moore, Jiath, Newcombe, Morrison
Crows: Keays, Laird, Berry, Smith, Doedee, Crouch
GOALS
Hawks: Lewis 5, Breust 2, Reeves, Morrison, Nash, Impey, O’Meara, Koschitzke
Crows: Thilthorpe 2, Fogarty 2, Walker, Milera, Keays, McHenry
INJURIES
Hawks: Nil
Crows: Nil
UMPIRES
Wallace, Williamson, McGuinness
VENUE
Marvel Stadium
NICK D’URBANO’S VOTES:
3. Mitch Lewis (Haw)
2. Rory Laird (Adel)
1. Blake Hardwick (Haw)
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