‘Great signs’: Don Pyke full of praise for five-goal Fogarty, brave Adelaide Crows
Darcy Fogarty’s breakout performance for Adelaide will do wonders for his confidence, according to coach Don Pyke, who was proud of the Crows’ brave effort against the reigning premier but is sweating on Rory Sloane’s eye injury.
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Crows coach Don Pyke hailed teenage key forward Darcy Fogarty’s breakout, five-goal performance and his team’s effort against premier West Coast on Sunday but lamented nine disastrous minutes that might have cost it a finals spot.
Expressing pride at how Adelaide matched one of this year’s flag favourites for all but nine minutes in the third quarter on their home deck, Pyke, who has an injury concern over co-captain Rory Sloane (eye), said he “couldn’t question the players’ effort’’ in the 10-point loss at Optus Stadium that went down to the wire.
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“I thought they were outstanding and kept coming until the end,’’ he said.
“But we probably just lost the field position battle against a good team, they were more efficient going forward, but our effort was there, we gave ourselves every chance
but we just didn’t quite get it done.
“We were brave in the first half where there was a bit of an inside 50 balance against us but that 10-minute period where they kicked four goals (in the third quarter) turned out being the difference.
“There was a bit of a breakdown there with some fundamental skill stuff on our behalf and some defensive stuff behind it.
“That’s the trouble when you play good teams and make those sort of errors, they can be efficient and score heavily and that ended up being the difference.’’
Pyke was delighted with 19-year-old Fogarty’s 12th match — and just second of the season — saying “it was fantastic to see him come in and play the way he did’’.
Fogarty’s five goals — most which came from long range and strong marks — beat his previous best haul of two in his first 11 matches.
“We’ve always known he’s got that capacity, he’s been building his craft at SANFL level and came in and hit the scoreboard, kicked accurately and played with a real presence, so good signs from Darce,’’ Pyke said.
“It’s only going to help him in terms of his confidence, knowing now that he can not only play at this level but play really strongly.
“I’m super happy for him because he’s put a lot of work in, he’s worked on a lot of areas of his game since he started with us, he played some good under-18s footy, didn’t get much of a pre-season last year, so great signs, really promising.’’
Pyke said his team, which was thumped 63-41 in inside 50s but won the disposal count by 28 and clearances by two, would continue to fight for a finals spot despite sitting ninth with tough games against Collingwood and the Western Bulldogs to finish the home-and-away season.
“Our goal is to win our next two games, that’s all we can control,’’ he said.
“Next week against Collingwood is a must-win game to stay in the finals hunt.’’
But there are doubts over Sloane’s availability after he copped a knock to his right eye at the start of the third quarter and was ruled out for the rest of the game with blurred vision.
“He’s had a couple of issues previously with his eyes, so we took a really cautious approach and have to get that tested to find out,’’ Pyke said.
“Fingers crossed it’s nothing more than a scratch and he can continue to play, but it’s too early to tell.’’
Pyke was pleased with veteran ruckman Sam Jacobs first AFL game since round two but would not guarantee if he would play his 200th game against the Magpies.
“We’ll assess his performance in more detail and look at what that looks like with Reilly O’Brien, who has carried a fairly heavy load, and against (Brodie) Grundy and Collingwood,’’ he said.