Collingwood made Adelaide pay for its mistakes last week but, if given the opportunity, the Bulldogs will do even more damage in Ballarat
The numbers show this Adelaide side will lose when it concedes three or more goals in-a-row at any stage in a match. And they’re facing one of the biggest momentum sides in the Bulldogs.
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If West Coast takes care of Hawthorn on Saturday night, Adelaide’s season will be well-and-truly alive as the lunchtime clash with the Bulldogs gets underway in Ballarat on Sunday.
But if Luke Beveridge’s men can get a run-on — just like they have in the past two weeks — it will be goodnight for the Crows in 2019.
After booting 21 unanswered goals in the 104-point drubbing of the Bombers, the Bulldogs kicked 10 on-the-trot against the Giants last week, setting a competition benchmark.
Of all the sides to go on 10-plus-goal runs in consecutive games, the Bulldogs cumulative total is the highest on record.
Ahead of Sunday’s clash with the Crows, Beveridge said the increased output offensively was from a combined effort across the board, as well as a “ballistic nature” of football he asks of his side at times.
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“It’s a combination of the skill and decision-making but also the decision-making and work-ethic in the running patterns of our forwards,” Beveridge said.
“And the willingness of our defenders and midfield to run, some of the overlap side of things has been really impressive.”
If Crows coach Don Pyke was worried about the way Collingwood scored so freely in Round 22, vision of the Bulldogs scoring power will be keeping him up at night this week.
In the 66-point loss, Adelaide struggled to move the ball from its back-half, kicking short, sideways and backwards before coughing the ball up on numerous occasions.
And the Magpies made the Crows pay, scoring 74 points from turnovers, the most in any match this season.
“We are working on how we effectively move the ball. Some of it is confidence to be honest. You see some of the skill errors tonight, especially coming out of our back-half,” Pyke said after last week’s loss.
“Sometimes it’s about speed and other times it’s about owning the ball and protecting the ball. We probably haven’t got the balance right, it’s fair to say.”
In another worrying stat for the Crows, the Mapgies are only the seventh-best side in the competition for scoring from turnovers.
The Bulldogs are third, scoring, on average, 52.3 points from turnovers per game.
But, while turning the ball over coming out of defence has been a problem of late, Adelaide’s ability to stop — and counter — sides kicking multiple goals in succession is an even bigger trend in the second-half of 2019.
Adelaide has conceded at least four consecutive goals in losses to Geelong, Port Adelaide, Essendon, Carlton, West Coast and Collingwood since Round 14.
In Round 18, the Bombers booted five on-the-trot — and 12 of the last 15 — to bury the Crows in the second-half, while Port Adelaide kicked nine unanswered goals in the Showdown demolition.
Put simply, the numbers show this Adelaide side will lose when it concedes three or more goals in-a-row at any stage in a match.
“In that third and fourth quarter, there was consistently ball just coming on with speed, which is going to make it hard for anyone to defend, to be honest,” Pyke said of the avalanche which his defence was under against Collingwood.
“When they are getting overlap and there able to have those uncontested-mark chains and create speed on the ball, you’d want to be real good defender to get that done consistently.”
If Adelaide allows the Bulldogs engine room, led by Jack Macrae, Josh Dunkley and Marcus Bontempelli — the 10th-best midfield trio, by Champion Data ranking points, since 2003 — that much space in Ballarat, the defence will be under even more pressure this week.
And once they are up-and-going, it’s unlikely the Crows will be able to do anything about it.