Crows defender Daniel Talia says Adelaide can get even better with Swans clash on horizon

ADELAIDE impressed the competition with its fast-twitch win against Richmond and it came with an added bonus: the Crows won comfortably despite feeling there is much improvement in the side.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - APRIL 9: Daniel Talia of the Crows and Jack Riewoldt of the Tigers in action during the 2016 AFL Round 03 match between the Richmond Tigers and the Adelaide Crows at the Etihad Stadium, Melbourne on April 9, 2016. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)

ADELAIDE impressed the competition with its fast-twitch win against Richmond at the fast track on Melbourne’s Docklands ground over the weekend and it came with an added bonus: the Crows won comfortably despite feeling there is much improvement in the side.

All-Australian full back Daniel Talia had a glass-half-full approach and the fact that the club sensed there’s better football to come has been jotted down as a positive in his assessment of the match.

His thoughts were similar to that of coach Don Pyke, who was getting frustrated when the Tigers owned the match for part of the second quarter before the Crows put the game under lock and key.

“If you start losing the ball around the contest and they get some momentum out of there, that just shows the areas we want to eradicate from our game if we can,” Pyke said.

“We’ve got to make sure we play at a higher level for longer against really good teams. Otherwise you give them an opportunity.”

Daniel Talia denies Jack Riewoldt at Etihad Stadium. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)

To Talia, it means the Crows can’t wait to prepare themselves for Sydney next weekend after a full week of seeking improvement. They’ll have their hands full, because the Swans are flying and are unbeaten for the season, but there’s a growing feeling that the Crows will be a contender this season, too.

“The exciting thing is that we’ve probably still got a lot of areas to work on,” Talia said. “At times it wasn’t pretty but I thought the way our pressure and effort was there for four quarters … that’s probably what got us the result in the end.

“So while it’s pretty exciting to go 2-1 at the start of the year, I think there’s a lot to work on and there are still areas of our game that we can really improve.

“That’s the really exciting thing for us. At different we turn the ball over, at different time we probably didn’t press high enough …

“But I feel like our ball movement is working well; it was pretty crisp.”

One of the best things about the club’s win against Richmond was that there’s a sense of evenness about the squad.

There was wide spread of goal kickers, the midfielders helped out both with goals and padding in defence and the backmen continued to absorb a heavy load without giving away easy goals.

Talia, who played a fine game on Jack Riewoldt, liked that there was no heavy reliance on any one player.

“That’s the really pleasing thing about our first two wins,” Talia said.

“We’ve had a really even contribution. Not just from the forwards; we’ve had guys in the midfield that have come in and played their roles.

“We saw Jarryd Lyons, Matty Crouch is going really well and then down back we saw what Kyle Hartigan did, Jake Lever and Kyle Cheney has come in and played a really important role.”