Adelaide needs to show ruthlessness, brutality it was missing in Grand Final loss

HOW much of the 2017 Grand Final was about Adelaide having a bad day? Adelaide must show the ruthlessness and brutality it was missing on the big stage to beat Richmond, writes DERMOTT BRERETON.

Rory Sloane after the 2017 Grand Final.

HOW much of the 2017 Grand Final was about Adelaide just having a bad day?

Richmond outplayed the Crows, out-worked them and went harder for longer.

The Tigers in reality, gave the Crows a bad day.

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Adelaide started well, kicking four goals to Richmond’s two.

The Crows held, and even prospered, against Richmond’s pressure game in the first term but just couldn’t hold it for long enough thereafter.

Many people talk about the scars after losing a Grand Final and many teams make it back to the top again the following year.

Dejected Adelaide Crows captain Taylor Walker. Picture: Phil Hillyard

But does a bad loss, such as a 48-point loss like the Crows suffered last year make you retreat and second guess yourself?

The truth is, a player knows when his opposition is simply too good. But he also knows when and where there is an opening, a different track, or whether with a slightly different makeup there is a thin yet hopeful light of success that is shinning through the door that shut upon them the last September.

My teammates and I suffered three Grand Final defeats — 1984-85 against Essendon and again in 1987 at the hands of Carlton.

In ‘84 Sheedy’s Bombers over ran us after half-time. Yet the belief after that match was still that we were a better team than them but they had seized the moment better than we had.

Little were we to know that they were still getting better.

Their 1985 premiership team was the best team I ever played against.

So, much to my shame, I admit that going into the 1986 season, I thought that our very best football was not going to beat Essendon.

Richard Douglas gang-tackled by Bachar Houli and Dustin Martin. Picture: Sarah Reed

In the end Essendon had their own problems that season and it was the beginning of a dramatic fall away for them, winning only 12 games.

But we still feared them. And we have never barracked for another team as hard as we barracked for Fitzroy in the 1986 Elimination Final.

In the 1987 Grand Final we felt that we were the best team, but we were pretty wounded by the time big day came around and Carlton ambushed us in the end.

Carlton did the competition no favours that day, because the next season was all about payback for us.

So what will Adelaide’s mindset be?

Will they believe they are truly the better team? Or will some within the side believe they cannot physically stand up to the Tigers pressure for four quarters again?

There is so much that Adelaide can do differently this time.

They’ve lost a couple of key players, but they are still aware of just how good they can be.

Roger Merrett and Dermott Brereton have words during the 1985 Grand Final.

For one, they can be more brutal towards their opposition.

I’m sure Taylor Walker would love the Grand Final moment again where he had a vulnerable Nick Vlastuin stationary and trapped under the ball.

He could have put his knee into the dead set middle of his shoulder blades while legally attempting to mark the ball. This would have had the brave Tigers defender on a stretcher within seconds.

It sounds harsh, but it is a Grand Final and sometimes brutality, even legal brutality, is part of the recipe for success.

It didn’t matter though, big Tex glided by him and barely made contact.

Similarly, I would dearly love the moment from the 1987 Grand Final when two Carlton players were roughing up my teammate Russell Morris off the ball. My team needed me to play the ball if it came in my direction, so I didn’t go and assist him.

What a mistake, the Carlton players’ tenacity and ferocity grew thereafter because no challenge came.

I pledged to never turn away from a skirmish like that again.

Taylor Walker and Rory Sloane watch post-match presentations. Picture: Sarah Reed

Some people will not want to read about violent acts that sit outside the rules of the game, but Grand Finals can be swayed by convincing your opponent that his physical safety is in jeopardy. And sometimes it will turn out that way.

But that day Carlton felt safe, so it could never happen again.

Perhaps that moment will haunt Walker like that moment did for me and still does some 30 years later.

Adelaide is aware that its best football can beat Richmond.

If the Tigers don’t give the Crows the same pressure, especially in the forward half, the Crows will not only believe, but they will be confident.

The bonus for the footballing public will be the game where the Tigers are again just as relentless with their style of pressure and the Crows are more physically ruthless and better equipped to absorb the Tigers pressure. Because that game won’t have a 48-point margin. Single figures at best.

And with the home ground advantage tonight, the Crows will believe in themselves.

Originally published as Adelaide needs to show ruthlessness, brutality it was missing in Grand Final loss