Adelaide star Rory Sloane says team defence will be the cornerstone of the club’s 2018 campaign

ADELAIDE vice-captain Rory Sloane has a message for his team. If the Crows want to go one better in 2018, they must defend as a team, something they didn’t do in the Grand Final.

Sam Gibson and Bryce Gibbs will play their first games for the Crows. Picture: Scott Barbour/Getty Images

ADELAIDE vice-captain Rory Sloane has singled out team defence as one of the key areas the Crows want to perfect ahead of the regular season.

Sloane said the players were hungry to atone for the bitter end to last year, when they lost to Richmond in the grand final in one of their worst matches for the season.

Along with contested ball — another important key performance indicator — Sloane said team defence, or defence in every part of the ground, was a big let-down in the club’s losses.

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“We’ve certainly looked to improve this pre-season,” Sloane said. “We can’t wait for games to begin to put what we’ve practised into action.

“There will be some changes. We’ve had a couple of personnel changes and we still want to ramp up our team defence, which is a crucial part of the game.

“But you always want to practice what you’re good at, too.

“Our ball movement has been pretty solid over the last couple of years but the games that we lost, especially the last one of the year, a bit of our defence all over the ground let us down a little bit. We’ve tried to rectify that a bit this pre-season.”

Adelaide recruits Sam Gibson and Bryce Gibbs. Picture: Getty Images

Sloane, who had to overcome some heavy tags last season, will have more help in the midfield this season as the Crouch brothers, club best and fairest Matt and Brad, will be joined by former Carlton star and Bryce Gibbs and durable ex-Kangaroo Sam Gibson.

Gibbs, who was recruited from Glenelg, will slot straight into the Crows’ line-up after 231 games for Carlton while Gibson comes across after being surprisingly cut from North Melbourne after 130 games in succession.

The Crows will bring out eight players without a senior Crows game in their practice match against West Coast at Strathalbyn – Tom Doedee, Matt Signorello, Paul Hunter, Lachlan Murphy, Myles Poholke, Harry Dear, Gibbs and Gibson.

Taylor Walker (foot), Riley Knight (ankle), Jordan Gallucci (foot) and Brodie Smith (knee) are unavailable because of injuries while Sloane, Eddie Betts, Brad Crouch and Richard Douglas have been left out of the first pre-season match.