Adelaide coach Don Pyke says every component of his club’s football program will be looked at in the wake of 11-goal loss to Collingwood
Crows coach Don Pyke says “all components” of club’s football program will be under the microscope after loss to Collingwood, and has his say on playing two rucks against Brodie Grundy.
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Adelaide coach Don Pyke has forecast a detailed review of his entire football program after an 11-goal loss to Collingwood left its finals hopes in the lap of the god’s.
Pyke described Saturday night’s loss as “super disappointing” and said the Crows had let themselves and their supporters down and regardless of whether they play finals, things needed to change.
“We came here with so much to play for and not for the first time this year we weren’t able to elevate to the level required so we’ve got some searching to do in terms of looking at all components of our program,” he said.
“There are some things we need to look at in terms of the way we are playing because clearly against the better teams, and we played a good side tonight, we haven’t been able to elevate consistently to play at that high level, so yeah we need to have a look at it.”
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There has been speculation of major list changes at the end of the season but Pyke said those discussions with players wouldn’t happen until post-season.
“We’ve still got one game to play so we’ll do that at the end of the season, it’s out of our control now, we’ve got to rely on other teams and get it done,” he said.
“We’ve got one game to go and whatever presents but clearly tonight was nowhere near the level and it’s disappointing.”
Pyke said he saw some positives in the Jacobs/O’Brien ruck tandem but he was undecided whether that would be in place for the Bulldogs in Ballarat next weekend.
“It was interesting because at the end of it Grundy probably got the honours, the numbers would suggest that, but we felt it was worth a try,” he said.
“What did we gain out of it? We got a look at it, we got to see what it was, there were some positives out of the down forward stuff at times, it was something we had a go at.
“We’ll look at it for next week, obviously the Bulldogs will be a different make-up so we’ll assess what that looks like and decide from there.”
Asked whether that would impact Jacobs’ decision to play on at Adelaide next year, Pyke said “I wouldn’t have thought so”.
“Sam is very keen to stay, so we’d like to have him around and we’ll see how that plays out,” he said.
“It was disappointing for everyone, disappointing for Sam and Paul (Seedsman), milestone game you want to register a win and enjoy it with your teammates but we’re all in it together and the reality is we just weren’t good enough and we’ve got some work to do.”
reece.homfray@news.com.au