Don Pyke declares Sunday’s clash with West Coast as an exciting opportunity for the side as it looks to extend its season
Crows coach Don Pyke has declared Sunday’s crucial clash with West Coast as a good challenge, as Alex Keath spends a third weekend on the sidelines with an ankle injury
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Don Pyke has declared Sunday’s twilight clash with West Coast as “as good a challenge that’s out there”.
As an extended squad of 26 prepares to fly to Perth — with some leaving Friday and others Saturday morning — Pyke said his players were relishing the opportunity to face the Eagles at such a crucial point of their season.
“It comes at a perfect time, we sit here, three games from the end of the season, with a spot in the eight up for grabs,” he said.
“We’ve come off a couple of disappointing weeks, had a solid win last week (against St Kilda), played some good footy, got back into the space we want to get in terms of our contest work and sort some things with our ball movement and the way we defended and we play last year’s premiers on their home deck.
“If you’re not excited by that I’m not sure what’s going to get you excited.”
The Crows will travel without their solid defender Alex Keath, who has still been unable to overcome ankle soreness.
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Pyke said he backed defenders Kyle Hartigan, Daniel Talia and Andy Otten to do a good job on the Eagles outstanding tall forwards Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling.
“Harto, Tals and Otto down there will have their hands full, but it’s a great opportunity as well,” the senior coach said.
The Crows narrowly lost the Eagles by 12 points when they last played in Round 10 on May 25 at Adelaide Oval and Pyke said there were some positives to take from that match.
“I thought we played well the first time around and we lost that game, it was pretty much dead level with four minutes to go, so I think that gives us some confidence and belief that we can match it with them and play at that level,” Pyke said.
“We know we have to play really well against a high-quality opposition.”
Veteran Adelaide ruckman Sam Jacobs is in line to play his first AFL game since round two — and 199th overall — after being named lead ruckman ahead of Reilly O’Brien who the club has indicated might need a rest.
Midfielders Hugh Greenwood, Paul Seedsman and first-year speedster Chayce Jones have also been added to the team.
As for a strategy to combat the Eagles star-studded midfield, with players like Elliot Yeo, Andrew Gaff and Luke Shuey, Pyke said he backed his midfield to compete with them.
“They’ve got good players across that line, so we’ve just got to be careful we don’t over emphasise or focus upon what we need to do to stop them, versus being able to bring what we can bring … it will be a good test for our mids, but I’ll back our mids in, because they’ve been a really solid strong group and performed really well last week and I’m confident they’ll get it done.”
The Crows midfield is expected to include Bryce Gibbs, who collected 29 disposals and had six clearances in Saturday’s 22-point win over St Kilda in his comeback game.
“I was really happy with what he did last week,” Pyke said.
“Really pleased and proud of Bryce about the way he’s gone about his footy. It would have been easy for Bryce to get a bit disillusioned about where he was at and not playing, but to his credit he went back and worked on things he needed to work on, had a great attitude around it and we saw the result of that last week, the way he came in and played.
“It gives him another chance this week to build on that and we know he’s good enough and he’s always known that, it’s just been getting him into that space where he can play the way we need him to play. It was a good start for Bryce back in the side.”