Brad Crouch says the Crows have made enough changes to their game to avoid another Grand Final disaster

ADELAIDE midfielder Brad Crouch is confident the Crows have made enough tweaks to their game to avoid another disaster like last year’s grand final. But what have the Crows changed?

ADELAIDE midfielder Brad Crouch is confident the Crows have made enough tweaks to their game to avoid another disaster game like last year’s grand final — but they’ve been minor rather than wholesale changes.

Crouch said the Crows were happy with their preparations and ready to have another tilt at the premiership.

And as much as the grand final loss was the lasting memory from 2017, Crouch said it was important for the players to remember the winning ways which took the club to the minor premiership while also deconstructing the loss to Richmond.

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The pre-season had also been more compact — a result from making it to the last day of the AFL season.

“It’s been a little different to other pre-seasons — we started a bit later because we made the grand final,” Crouch said.

“But it’s been a good pre-season.

“You’re still working on things that you weren’t that great at in the grand final but, at the same time, the things that make us good we’ve worked on as well, because that’s what got us there.

Brad Crouch is in a race to play in Round 1. Picture: Sarah Reed

“Coming through the prelim final and into the grand final we were pretty heavy favourites and we knew we were a pretty good side.

“It’s about finding out why we lost on that day and what cost us when we lost the other times.”

Crouch, who alongside captain Taylor Walker missed the club’s practice matches, is in a race against time to recover from an abdominal injury to get his season underway.

Neither he nor Walker is likely to be ready for the club’s round-one match against Essendon on Friday night.

The obvious concern from the pre-season matches had been the club’s fade-outs — periods against both Fremantle and Port Adelaide when the Crows allowed the opposition to pile on unanswered goals.

Crouch said it had been addressed and was a work in progress.

“It happened to us at different times last year as well,” Crouch said. “We’ve just got to find different ways of stopping momentum and swinging it back our way.”