Warren Tredrea: SA AFL clubs need to stand up after poor effort in round four
PORT Adelaide 2004 premiership captain Warren Tredrea says both SA AFL clubs have to get hungrier after shocking defeats last weekend.
Warren Tredrea
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IF you don’t want to get your knees dirty you may as well not show up.
That’s my message to both Adelaide teams after a disastrous round four which saw Adelaide thrashed in the wet by Collingwood by 48 points and Port Adelaide beaten up by Essendon by 22 points.
Heading into last week’s round, Collingwood were battling form issues with a 1-2 record, while Essendon had lost their past two matches.
Coach John Worsfold labelling their round three 21-point loss to the Bulldogs as “the poorest performance in my time at Essendon.”
Anyone with any football nous could have seen Adelaide and Port Adelaide were going to be hunted with targets on their back and they had to bring their best.
Adelaide’s early season form shouldn’t come as a surprise, they’ve barely got going.
After poor pre-season form and a disappointing 12-point loss to Essendon in the opening round, the Crows notched their first win over grand final nemesis Richmond off the back of a highly emotive week.
Following that an unconvincing 49-point win over the hapless Saints.
All isn’t well at Adelaide right now, they lack the ruthless edge that made them the most feared team of 2017.
Questions must be asked of their high performance team with the clubs medical room filling up with top notch talent.
Brad Crouch is once again nursing Osteitis Pubis the same issue he carried throughout last season.
While his reigning best and fairest brother Matt headlines a list of first choice Crows nursing hamstring injuries alongside Eddie Betts, Sam Gibson and Lachie Murphy, while skipper Taylor Walker appears to still be carrying a foot injury.
Throw in the fact they’ve only won two last quarters this season off the back of being overrun in their last two preseason games — questions are coming thick and fast if they’re fit enough?
But the biggest issue facing Don Pyke is his team’s lack of consistent effort.
It’s an indictment when you’re ability to compete is being questioned — that’s how far Adelaide have fallen in 2018. Too many players are below their best, only Rory Laird, Bryce Gibbs and Daniel Talia can lay claim to having performed at an elite standard — very different to last year when the words “no passengers” described the Crows.
This is without doubt Don Pyke’s biggest coaching challenge since taking over at West Lakes. When your team wins and plays with confidence life is easier for a coach.
But when you lose and several players are battling form issues, that’s when you’re truly tested, that moment is now.
At Alberton, Port have once again failed to kill the notion that they can’t perform when the favouritism tag is applied.
Ever since that narrow preliminary final loss in 2014 to eventual premier Hawthorn, Port has wilted under the weight of expectation — it happened in the last year’s elimination final loss to West Coast and it happened again on the weekend.
Port wilted under Essendon’s suffocating pressure — and while they got within three goals early in the last quarter, they were never really in the hunt.
But this wasn’t a performance out of the blue, eight days earlier they fell in by five points against the lowly Lions — they didn’t come 100 per cent ready to play.
Last weekend Ken Hinkley’s men didn’t want to get their knees dirty, something ruthless, professional teams always do.
Horrible skill errors, and who could forget seeing players drop easy uncontested marks and comically handballing straight to the opposition resulting in a goal against.
On the field senior players need to realise quicker when the team is off the boil and the opposition is on top.
They must lift their workrate and wrestle back control without taking millionaire risks and turning the ball over.
Last weekend was a shocker for SA footy.
If the Crows and Power want to be premiership contenders they must bring their best effort and get their knees dirty every week.
They can’t afford to pick and choose.
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