Adelaide has struggled in clearances in recent weeks but Matt Crouch says the Crows beat the Saints in other ways
Matt Crouch says the Crows have shown it isn’t clearances or bust, but they need to improve in that area against sides like the Eagles after being smashed over the past month.
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Adelaide has been getting smashed in clearances for more than a month, but midfielder Matt Crouch says the win over St Kilda shows the statistic isn’t vital for a Crows’ victory.
But it’s still an area they are desperate to improve on.
Champion Data, the official statisticians of the AFL, has the Crows ranked 17th in the competition for clearance differential since Round 16 — getting outdone by 7.6 clearances on average in their past four games.
This could have been even worse, the Crows were 18 clearances up on the Bombers at Adelaide Oval last month.
And stats from Champion Data show this is impacting on the Crows scoring, with their total scores from clearance differential now ranked at 13th in the AFL.
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Despite winning against the Saints to put their season back on track after losing three out of their past four, the Crows finished 11 clearances behind St Kilda.
Crouch, who surprisingly didn’t have any clearances himself against the Saints, said the Crows were able to get on top of St Kilda in other areas at Adelaide Oval.
“I just think it’s the way the game panned out on the weekend, obviously I would like to have more clearances and get involved at stoppages but that’s just the way it panned out,” he said.
“It’s something that we always work on, it’s a pretty important part of the game winning clearances.
“The Saints got us on the weekend around the ball but I think around the ground and with our ball movement we got them there.”
The Crows have also been well beaten in the pre-clearance contested possession count, again ranking 17th in the competition according to Champion Data.
But despite giving up field position from losing these clearances, the Crows have been able to score from its defensive half — ranked sixth on the competition since Round 16 — while their post-clearance contested possession count of plus 32 is the fourth best in the AFL.
It comes as Crouch said the Crows could look to play more patiently and hold onto the ball longer after the plan worked against the Saints, even though a section of the Adelaide Oval crowd at one point booed because of it.
“I think we got opened up against Essendon and scored against pretty easily when we tried to go quick from our back half, we spoke about trying to control the ball more,” he said.
“The main thing is to hold onto the ball and make them defend … once we get in the front half we can really attack them and score that way.
“In the past we have gone a bit quicker.
“You see West Coast and Collingwood do it really well, they kick mark out of their back half really well, the trend in the AFL is to go down that route.”
The Crows take on the Eagles on Sunday in Perth and Crouch said they could again employ the slow build-up game style.
“Around the ball they are still really solid, they have (Elliot) Yeo, (Luke) Shuey and (Andrew) Gaff … but if you play into their hands and just kick it to (Jeremy) McGovern, (Shannon) Hurn and (Tom) Barrass they will just mark it.
“So we need to come with a clear plan to find our way forward and not just kick it to those guys.”