Adelaide Crows start reflections on an AFL campaign that failed at the worst possible time

WHAT will the Adelaide Crows learn from grand final week to be better prepared next time?

BEATEN. And searching for answers. The Crows’ review of their AFL grand final preparations and performance will require strong questions to be asked internally. Picture: Sarah Reed

DON Pyke’s review of why Adelaide lost Saturday’s AFL grand final will never deliver certain answers to explain the Crows’ staggering fall as the premiership favourite.

And there is no certainty Adelaide will be back at the MCG in 12 months to test a new set of hunches from West Lakes on high performance.

The most bizarre note from the 48-point loss to Richmond was how unsettled the Crows appeared as soon as they hit the MCG. The team that arrived in Melbourne on Thursday with a steely resolve to not be distracted from its mission to win the club’s first AFL flag since 1998 froze when the Crows could least afford to get stage fright.

How far Pyke - and his coaching and football staff - get in answering why the Crows failed will depend on how hard they are prepared to challenge themselves.

Did the Gold Coast retreat - after the qualifying final - truly work to avoid the Crows going stale in Adelaide? Yes, for the home preliminary final. But did this then make the 16-day stay in Adelaide a problem?

Did the Crows stare during the national anthem really put off the opposition? Yes, for the qualifying final against Greater Western Sydney. Perhaps with the preliminary final against Geelong. But by the grand final, the Richmond players’ stare on the AFL premiership trophy that was between them and the Crows could not be broken by the so-called “power stance”.

Sport often has moments that seem a stroke of genius one week and folly the next.

All those “one percenters” the Crows were chasing certainly were creative and pushing the boundaries. But the grand final performance - as with the semi-final loss to Sydney at the SCG a year earlier - brings into question core issues about the Adelaide team and game.

Did the Crows really “embrace the excitement” of AFL grand final week? There was a stark contrast in the way Adelaide and Richmond took on the “out of the bubble” demands of the week - and these were increased on the Tigers by Dustin Martin’s triumph in the Brownlow Medal count on the Monday before the grand final.

Media Street is more and more challenging in Australian football today, more so when the AFL and its 18 clubs are running their own media (or publicity) programs.

Richmond did not fear having its players and coaches talk day after day in grand final week - and some, such as key forward Jack Riewoldt on breakfast radio on Thursday, took to the airwaves in the same way as any other week.

Adelaide had its players away from the microphones after Tuesday with some interviews “banked” for delayed airing. Why club chief executive Andrew Fagan became the “talking head” after the last open training session at Adelaide Oval on Wednesday - when there were so many football questions needing to be posed to either football chief Brett Burton or an assistant coach - was a mistake.

The Crows’ internal review of its week - and preparation - will be critical to making Pyke’s men sounder and wiser for their next grand final, whenever it is. But getting the right answers also involves asking the right questions.

[e-mail]