Adelaide Crows’ injury curse continues as club keeps close eye on Eddie Betts’ hamstring

A HAMSTRING injury to star Eddie Betts has heightened concerns at Adelaide, whose midfield — missing Crouch brothers Brad and Matt and having a ginger-looking Rory Sloane tagged out of the game — was swamped by Collingwood on Friday night.

Eddie Betts with medical staff at three-quarter time. Picture SARAH REED

• Collingwood produces upset of the season at Oval
• Finding ‘on’ switch is still footy’s big power play
• Significant win to give Magpies belief

THE injury curse of 2018 is hovering as a dark cloud over West Lakes with Eddie Betts feared to be the next victim of soft tissue injury and requiring scans to his hamstring after the club’s 48-point loss to Collingwood at Adelaide Oval on Friday night.

Injuries are starting to get to the Crows, whose midfield — missing Crouch brothers Brad and Matt and having a ginger-looking Rory Sloane tagged out of the game — was swamped by the Magpies in contested ball and never looked like getting the upper hand.

Eddie Betts grabs at his hamstring on the sidelines on Friday night. Picture: Sarah Reed

David Mackay received a head knock, his second this season, on a bad night for the Crows. Picture: SARAH REED

Crows coach Don Pyke will now have to consider another forced change ahead of the club’s match against Sydney next Friday night but was holding out hope Betts’ injury wasn’t the traditional hamstring that keeps players out for three to four weeks.

“From what I’ve been told from the docs it’s just precautionary (that Betts was treated on the sidelines),” Pyke said after the game.

“He just felt a bit of tightness.

“At that stage there was no real point risking him — not that they were keen to risk him.

“They just iced it up and we’ll get it assessed during the week.”

There wasn’t much to like about the Crows in the loss to Collingwood. They were a long way behind in contested ball in the first quarter and never clawed it back.

But Pyke was quick to note that it went deeper than that; Adelaide was beaten in every corner and every aspect of the game.

“It was a really disappointing night for us,” Pyke said. “Reality is that for the guys we had out there, I think we only was only one change from when we were here two weeks ago against Richmond and played really well.

“It was a very disappointing night. We were just not at the level and credit to Collingwood — they were too good.

“It wasn’t impossible. Even at half time we felt like the game was still there for us.

“But the reality was that we never got ourselves fully into the game.

“We had a little burst in the third quarter, kicked a couple of goals.

“But it was all three phases, for us.

“It starts in the contest, and we were beaten badly in that area all night.

“I thought they’re pressure was really good early and it didn’t look like we handled that as well as we have in the past. So our ball use suffered.

“And then our ability to defend the ball was off as well.

“When you’re off in all three phases it makes it really hard.

“I thought our work rate was down … we had a really bad night.”

Pyke played down criticism he had gone too tall at selection with five players taller than 190cm in attack.

It didn’t help the Crows lock it into the forward half, but the game had broken down on several other fronts.

“It’s one piece of the jigsaw but I think there are a lot of areas that were more influential on the game on how we went down forward,” Pyke said.