“You can’t be too slow out of the blocks,’’ warns premiership coach Matthew Clarke as Adelaide prepares to unfurl the 2019 flag
“Given it’s an eight-game season you’ve got to get going, you can’t be messing around, so it’s an important day for us,’’ says Adelaide AFLW coach Matthew Clarke.
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Matthew Clarke concedes it already is nearly make-or-break time for the Crows.
After an upset, first-up loss to Brisbane in Queensland, the Adelaide coach has put the heat on his players to bounce back hard in their first home game of the season against St Kilda at Richmond Oval on Sunday.
“It’s an eight-game season, so you can’t be too slow out of the blocks,’’ premiership mentor Clarke warned.
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“The beauty of the AFLW is that every game is critical. There’s no rolling in and hoping you can sneak into the finals.
“You’ve got to be up and about right from the get-go.
“We lost our first game last year and that meant that every week we were on edge and it’s a similar scenario now.
“Given it’s an eight-game season you’ve got to get going, you can’t be messing around, so it’s an important day for us.’’
The addition of four new teams means there are seven clubs in two conferences this year, with the top three sides in each conference qualifying for finals.
The injury-hit Crows, who will be without star co-captains Erin Phillips and Chelsea Randall (knees) and fellow ace Courtney Cramey (groin), will unfurl their second premiership flag at Richmond at 4.15pm.
The game will start at 4.40pm.
Clarke said that while injuries had undoubtedly hurt the club they would not be used as an excuse for the team not again being a force to be reckoned.
Adelaide remains flag favourite despite its shock 13-point loss to the Lions.
“Injuries are a part of the situation but the reality is we had plenty of talent on the park last week, enough talent to win a game of football and we didn’t do it,’’ Clarke said.
“It’s really not about the ones that aren’t playing but the ones that are.
“We’ve got great confidence in the players that are going to roll out on Sunday, we’ll give our best effort and I’m very confident we can get a win.
“This game is going to be a great opportunity for us to get going.’’
The Crows had enough of the ball to beat Brisbane in the wet, winning the inside 50 count by 12.
But Clarke said they paid a heavy price for a slow start, conceding two early goals, and not adapting to the wet conditions with too many wasted inside 50s.
“We had a bit of a look at last week’s performance and clearly it wasn’t quite where we wanted to be, particularly our ground ball work,’’ he said.
“And our tackling pressure was a little below what we wanted. Perhaps in the second half we played the sort of footy we wanted to play but we didn’t play the conditions particularly well and our lack of intensity at the start proved pretty costly.’’
Clarke is wary of AFLW newcomer St Kilda, which lost its first game last week to the Western Bulldogs 25 points, noting it has pace to burn.
“Like us, they were a bit slow to get going last week, but their back three quarters were really strong,’’ he said.
“They’ve got some talent, some genuine speed and outside run, so on a big deck at Richmond it should be an open, freewheeling game.’’