Adelaide Crows need to imrpove at the centre bounce, or might go through 2020 season winless
The equation is simple at West Lakes. Adelaide needs to win the battle at the centre bounce, or go through the 2020 season without tasting victory.
Mark Bickley
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Until Adelaide sort out its centre square issues, the Crows won’t win a game of football.
Ranking last in clearance differential, the Crows, on average, concede nearly seven more centre clearances than their opposition every week.
The raw numbers are damning. Adelaide has 48 for the year, its opposition has 100.
Not once in the first eight rounds have the Crows finished on the positive side of this ledger.
The centre clearance is so important because it is one of the very few scenarios where the environment is controlled, four on four in space, and if you win it, you get the ball deep into an even number contest, no loose defenders.
This gives your forwards a great chance of scoring or at the very least creating a stoppage, giving you strong field position.
When the ball enters the forward 50, it enables defenders to press up and lock the ball in.
Teams can then create repeat entries and score through this method.
Last Sunday in the first half Adelaide won only one centre clearance, Essendon had seven.
So for the Crows to take the ball inside their forward 50 arc, apart from the singular clearance, they are having to start their attacks from behind centre, and more often than not inside their own defensive 50.
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Is it any wonder they only had 14 forward 50m entries in the half. A number that makes it very hard to win.
Much has been spoken of lion hearted ruckman Reilly O’Brien’s centre square ruck craft and how he doesn’t have the touch of some of the leading ruck exponents.
This may be true, but he is always competitive and only concedes one less hit out to advantage at the centre bounce per game, compared to the eight opponents he has faced so far this year. So that’s not the issue.
That only leaves two things, the personnel attending the centre bounces or the structure that is being employed. The problem is a combination of both.
Rory Sloane earlier in the season, and more recently the Crouch brothers have been present at most centre bounces, the make up after that has been a mixed bag.
In the early rounds there were high rotations and players like Paul Seedsman and Rory Atkins were used to try and add some run to the area, which didn’t work.
Youngsters Chayce Jones and Ned McHenry have been given exposure, which isn’t a bad thing, but it does come at a cost.
Jones attended more centre bounces than any other Crow on the weekend, 17 of the 20, without winning a clearance.
Ben Keays is often there as a negating midfielder, and on the weekend Brodie Smith attended more frequently in the second half, which made Adelaide more productive.
The Crows’ problem right now though, is there is no dynamic or imposing figure among them.
Who is Adelaide’s go to player when you desperately need to win a clearance?
The Crows don’t have one player in the AFL’s top 50 for centre square clearances.
I think everyone understands that with the absence of injured skipper Sloane and the departure of big bodied clearance specialist Hugh Greenwood, the numbers might take a hit, but not to this extent.
This is where the structure around the stoppage is so important. You aren’t going to win every tap, and sometimes you come up against better clearance players, so you need a system in place that gives you protection.
A system that at worst gives up pressured exits, not a player running out of the centre directly at the goals.
Whatever Adelaide is employing, it hasn’t been effective thus far.
Brisbane were a great example on Sunday when they beat Melbourne.
Without their No.1 ruckman Stefan Martin, Max Gawn dominated the Lions’ two inexperienced big men, Oscar McInerney and Archie Smith, winning the hit outs 44-18. Of the 44 hit outs, 17 were to advantage compared to just two for Brisbane.
However, the Lions won the clearances 35-22, including 11-6 in the centre square.
This is an example of what is possible even when facing a dominant ruckman.
Of Gawn’s 15 centre bounce taps, over half were sharked by the Lions on-ballers and of the six clearances the Demons did win out of the middle, none resulted in any score.
That is what Adelaide should be looking to emulate.
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The Crows look one dimensional and reactive. When they don’t win the tap they rarely win the clearance and they aren’t aggressive enough in owning the key areas around the stoppage. That is, where the opposition want to hit it, and also where the ball is going to drop if your ruckman wins the hit.
O’Brien won both hit outs, and hit outs to advantage in the centre square against the Bombers. But again lost the clearances.
North Melbourne’s Todd Goldstein looms large on Saturday, but with the absence of midfield bull Ben Cunnington, the Crows should be able to match it with the Kangaroo midfielders at ground level.
Adelaide are not the most efficient ball movement team at present, so winning their share of centre clearances looks like the most effective way to get the ball into their front half.
There were some signs of progress against the Bombers, with youngsters Will Hamill, Andrew McPherson and Tyson Stengle all starting to look more comfortable.
The run of Smith and Seedsman returning and in the second half the supply of inside 50s finally started to flow.
An enormous opportunity presents itself for Adelaide this week against a struggling Kangaroos outfit. Get it right in the middle and you can create real problems for the opposition, if you don’t, you resign yourself to attacking from the back half of the ground again, which has proven unsuccessful in every game this year.