Adelaide coach Don Pyke apologises to supporters for second-half Showdown capitulation
While Ken Hinkley and his team celebrated their big win in Showdown 47, Don Pyke was left to pick up the pieces as the Crows look to regroup for a trip to the Gold Coast.
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Adelaide coach Don Pyke has publicly apologised for his club’s “embarrassing” Showdown loss to Port Adelaide which broke all the wrong records.
The Crows’ 5.14 (44) was their lowest ever Showdown score and the 57-point loss their second-worst Showdown defeat. Their worst loss was 65 points in Round 3, 2001.
“Where do you want me to start? I thought we didn’t take our opportunities early, I thought we had some good field position and were peppering away but at half-time it was a tight game but I thought we had conceded some easy goals,” Pyke said.
“We kicked the first goal of the second half and from there we were embarrassed. We were outplayed by a side that worked harder than us, inside 50s were 42 to 13 in the second half, it’s nowhere near the level that’s acceptable and I apologise to our members and fans who turned up to watch because we were badly beaten.
“We were miles off, miles off in terms of what we would expect of ourselves, players and coaches, we’re all in it together and we’ve got some work to do, that was really disappointing.
“We were just beaten everywhere, the contest stuff was OK but from there, their ability to get out onto the loose ball was superior to ours and they outnumbered us at contests and that allowed them to take and create the field position, and that puts our backs under pressure.
“Tonight is just not going to get it done at any level at any time in this competition.”
Adelaide was smashed in clearances by -18 in their worst performance since last year’s 56-point loss to Hawthorn at the MCG. But that night they had half a team in with several big names sidelined by injury.
Aside from Tom Doedee who is gone for the season, the only big name missing against the Power in Showdown 47 was Tom Lynch while Cameron Ellis-Yolmen is also suddenly being missed in the midfield which has lowered its colours for the second week in a row after last week’s loss to Geelong.
“We’ll assess all that (potential changes), there are obviously guys tonight who are disappointed with how they performed,” Pyke said.
“So we’ll go through all that and see what the best team looks like going forward.”
Pyke said there were no issues with Josh Jenkins playing just three weeks after hyperextending his knee and he had no regrets about playing him with the key forward held goalless.
“He was fine, he was 100 per cent,” Pyke said.
“He was confident and we back him in.”
Jordan Gallucci didn’t play the second half after suffering a concussion while Alex Keath (knee) and Daniel Talia (ankle) had minor ailments but were able to play out the game and Pyke is confident all three will be right to play Gold Coast next weekend.
HINKLEY PRAISES PORT’S DOMINANT TEAM PERFORMANCE
By Liz Walsh
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley has declared the Power’s thumping 57-point win over cross-town rivals Adelaide as the club’s most dominant Showdown performance.
Hinkley was pleased his side was able to play such a strong game that held the Crows to their lowest Showdown score on record in front of more than 50,000 people.
“We saw the best parts of Port Adelaide tonight,” he said.
“I think defensively we were really strong, and when we talk about the pressure we put on and the heat we put on, we were really good in that and all the other stuff comes off that: our contest stuff and then our defensive heat and pressure allows us to run at opposition and when we get those things together, obviously we can put together a really strong performance.”
With Travis Boak out early after he suffered a back spasm that was triggered after picking up a ball off the ground during the warm up, Hinkley also praised Sam Powell-Pepper who came in at the last moment as his replacement.
“It was more important how good Powell-Pepper was to be able to be sitting around doing not much and all of a sudden he’s out there playing and he had a really strong start to the game,” he said.
But Hinkley also saved praise for his midfield, including co-captain Ollie Wines whose form had been questioned during the week, saying simply: “Good on them”.
“Good on them, because the pressure was put on them and rightly so they accept that pressure, led by Ollie I thought,” he said.
“They responded, and every week’s like that, that’s why we can win and lose.
“When our midfield is as strong as that, we get the territory game that we want, we get the battle we want — we were plus 18 in clearance, it was a significant event for them to do it, but they’ve got to continually do it.”
However, Hinkley also said that as the time ticked away in the last quarter, he turned to the others in the coaches’ box and wondered who would be best on ground between the likes of Robbie Gray (who won the Showdown medal), Justin Westhoff (who came back into the side after one game in the SANFL) and Scott Lycett who shrugged off a knock to his knee and kicked a vital third-term goal.
“The team performance was really even across the board. I actually said in the box ‘Who wins the medal?’ I wasn’t convinced it was anyone in particular, perhaps I could have rattled off four or five or six (names) that I would have been pleased for them if they’d won it.
“Rob (Gray) gets the votes, good on him, he’s a fantastic player.”
Hinkley summed up his team’s performance with: “I’m not sure we’ve played a more dominant Showdown, that’s really pleasing for tonight, but we’ve got to get on with it”.
And that “getting on with it” starts with the Power hosting Brisbane next Sunday afternoon.