Why Adelaide and Port Adelaide must bring consistent effort or miss finals
Port Adelaide and Adelaide have had inconsistent form to date this season but finals football is still possible — although not probable — for both, says Chris McDermott.
Chris McDermott
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At the start of this round, with 11 games down and 11 to play in the 2019 season, the Power and Adelaide were neck-and-neck on the premiership ladder — six wins and five losses.
Port Adelaide was seventh, and Adelaide eighth, before the Crows met GWS at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.
Finals are possible for both — rather than probable.
Each club has can improve the team it puts on the park.
Hamish Hartlett, Charlie Dixon, Brad Ebert, Tom Rockliff and Ollie Wines are close to returning at Alberton. It’s Sam Jacobs at West Lakes, with the Crows close to a clean bill of health, bar young gun Tom Doedee.
With its best team on the park, each can beat most rivals, maybe all, but neither has earned that trust this season. They have won games they should have lost, and lost ones they most surely should have won.
Now it’s time to examine whose list is better, whose game is better and whose run home is better.
If either misses out on a place in September, it will have no-one to blame but itself.
The time for excuses and words of wisdom are over. The big guns await.
Geelong is clearly the team to beat, but that can be done.
The 2019 premiership race is as open as it has been for years.
But there is doubt over Richmond, and the Power and the Crows are still to prove themselves.
To look forward you must look behind first and see the errors of the journey so far.
Port has beaten just one top-four team this year. Its five other successes have come against bottom-10 opponents.
It has been better than some but not as good as the best.
Port’s 42-point win over West Coast at Optus Stadium has been its highlight. Losses in games it should have won — against Brisbane and Richmond — have been the low points.
The Power’s most recent victory, over St Kilda in Shanghai, was a confidence booster but it was St Kilda … an unhealthy, undermanned and under-prepared St Kilda.
The Power’s run home is favourable. Seven games at home. Just two against top-four teams and another three against the current top eight.
All of those on its home deck, except for one against Richmond at the MCG. Its four games before the finals are against Essendon, Sydney, North Melbourne and Fremantle. A record of 15 wins and a fifth-place finish are Port Adelaide’s for the taking.
Charlie Dixon holds the key.
The Power gets the ball inside 50m more than any other team (60 a game), up from sixth place a year ago, but it has not played out on the scoreboard. The Power ranks fifth for goals kicked (12.4 a game).
Robbie Gray (36 goals), Charlie Dixon (26) Justin Westhoff (24), Chad Wingard (22) and Sam Gray (21) all hit the scoreboard last season.
Only Sam Gray is on track to beat his 2018 total. It’s not about how much ball you get inside 50 but how well you get it there.
The Power’s hurdles are obvious. Fix them, or fail.
It’s not quite as simple for Adelaide.
Of its six wins this year, five have come against bottom-10 clubs. The other success was in the first Showdown.
The Crows have lost all three games against the top six as well as falling to Hawthorn and North Melbourne.
Twelve wins looks achievable and that would secure an elimination final.
Ruckman Sam Jacobs is the potential saviour. Reilly O’Brien has been good but he is no Sam Jacobs just yet.
With the veteran big man missing since Round 3, the Crows have struggled for clean hit-outs and clearances.
Rory Sloane and the Crouch brothers have been stars in this department in recent years but have dropped out of the top 20 in Jacobs’ absence.
Winning clearances especially from the centre square is a must.
Unless those numbers improve, the goals will remain hard to get.
The Crows’ premiership window has not closed but the gap is narrowing fast. It’s chances are slim this season, unless consistency on and off the field can be found.
Second chances rarely pay off for AFL coaches
History suggests strongly that if you miss out on a premiership at your first try as a coach, you should not get another chance — unless you’re Mick Malthouse or Malcolm Blight, writes Chris McDermott.
When two tribes go to war
It was the game that stopped a state — the first Showdown between the Crows and Power on April 20, 1997. Chris McDermott shares his memories for Part 1 of The Greatest Showdowns series.