Daniel Talia says the Crows win over the Saints has gotten their season back on track
Adelaide now has ‘freedom’ to take it to reigning premier West Coast next week after its pressure-busting win over the Saints, senior Crows defender Daniel Talia says.
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Adelaide’s pressure-busting win over St Kilda will give the Crows “freedom” to take it to reigning premiers West Coast in Perth, key defender Daniel Talia says, as the Crows came out the other side of a rough week for the club with a big win.
After three losses in their last four to put their finals chances at risk, and intense criticism of the club and its current direction, the Crows bounced back against the Saints with a hard-fought 22-point win.
Talia, superb in defence against a Saints side that had more forward 50 entries than the Crows and finished with 15 disposals, eight marks, five one per cent efforts and two tackles, said the nature of the win could be the turnaround the Crows have needed.
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“We really needed that one,” Talia told The Advertiser.
“We know that we have to keep winning games of footy, we probably have to win two or our last three to stay in the eight and we have some pretty tough teams coming up with West Coast in Perth and Collingwood the week after.
“We are under no illusions we control our own destiny and we just need to play good footy like we did... really getting at the ball and the man and bringing that passion and hunger.
“It is the start of a good turnaround and we need to keep that going.”
The gutsy effort came after the Crows watched fierce rivals Port Adelaide and Fremantle recorded big wins earlier on Saturday, to ramp up the heat on Adelaide in that last finals spot.
“It was a terrific night for the footy club, we needed to win to keep our finals chances alive but just the even contribution and the way we fought for the footy it was a bit more like us,” Talia said.
“We’ve been copping a fair bit recently and we really needed to stand up and I thought they really did that lead by Tex (who finished with four goals) and a couple of others, they had great games and really put us back on the right track and we need to keep that going.”
Next up for the Crows is a trip to Perth to take on the second-placed Eagles, who are building nicely in the defence of their title.
“They are the benchmark, they have so much experience, an electric forward line and quality mids in (Luke) Shuey, (Andrew) Gaff and (Elliot) Yeo and their backline as well is able to intercept,” Talia said.
“So they have a really even spread across the ground, but you have to beat the best going into finals so what better way to go over there and have a real crack and play with some freedom and try and beat them.”
The Crows rediscovered their forward pressure against the Saints, but also were a lot more measured and patient with their ball movement - which at one point angered sections of the Adelaide Oval crowd.
Talia said the players were happy with how they moved the ball around the ground against the Saints.
“We knew that the Saints wanted to roll numbers down the line and they defend that way, so we really wanted to be patient with our ball movement and work it out the back half with kick marks and we thought we did that really well,” he said.
“That allowed us to get some speed on the ball at times and we were able to expose them, go through them and get some goals out the back.
“I thought we moved the ball really well, a lot better than we have for the last month, and that certainly helps us hit the scoreboard a lot more.”