Tom Jonas and Hugh Greenwood say Power and Crows owe it to their fans to win this weekend — despite finals slipping away
Tom Jonas and Hugh Greenwood say both teams owe it to their fans to turn up and win this weekend despite their finals chances slipping away. Listen to The Lowdown Podcast here.
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Adelaide and Port Adelaide say they both owe it to their fans to win this weekend despite the unlikelihood of either side playing finals.
The out-of-form Crows — who are 2-6 from their past eight games — must beat the red-hot Western Bulldogs who are 6-2 going into the clash in Ballarat on Sunday — and the Power would then need to beat Fremantle by a bigger margin and have Hawthorn lose to West Coast to have any hope of playing in September.
Port Adelaide co-captain Tom Jonas and Adelaide midfielder Hugh Greenwood on Monday told The Lowdown Podcast that regardless of what’s on the line, they must turn up and atone for shocking performances on the weekend.
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“I don’t like that talk about having nothing to play for and it being a tough week,” Jonas said.
“Even if you’re out of the finals race which we’re not, when you’re a competitive athlete and you run onto the field you don’t want to lose, it’s as simple as that.
“We could have not won a game for the whole year but you stand next to your opponent and you don’t want to let him beat you, so that should be motivation enough.”
Greenwood, who hasn’t been in the Crows’ senior team since Round 18, said “we owe it to the team and owe it to the fans as well after the weekend”.
“We’ve been harping on about it like a broken record but we are still a chance to play finals, we said that coming into Saturday night’s game and didn’t perform at the level, but we are a slim chance, at this stage of the year there are a lot of teams whose seasons are done, but we have a small glimmer of hope,” Greenwood said.
“We can only control what we can control and that’s coming out and winning this game of footy.
“The odds are a bit against us the way the Doggies are playing and our form has been and down in Ballarat, but when stuff like this has happened we tend to respond well so we’re hoping that will happen.”
Jonas said although Power players knew about Adelaide’s loss to Collingwood before their game on Saturday night, he denied it had impacted their mindset.
“I don’t think it had an impact but I feel like every time this year where we’ve had something big to play for we haven’t managed to get the result,” Jonas said.
“So every opportunity we’ve had to consolidate or take a spot in the eight we’ve self-sabotaged which is an interesting one, whether there’s something subconscious there I’m not sure.
“When a game goes that wrong, we got absolutely smacked in every single facet of the game, there are areas we’ve been pretty strong in all season — contest and stoppage — and even there we got absolutely annihilated.
“So it’s one of those ones where we are going to dissect the whole game and look at it pretty forensically and make sure we don’t miss anything, but at the same time keep things in perspective because we still have an opportunity to play finals footy should we get the job done this week and things fall our way.
“We’d be silly to just throw everything away, because we’ve shown at times this year we’ve put in poor performances and bounced back so we’ve got to treat it the exact same way.”
Greenwood had 20 disposals, one goal and 15 tackles against the Eagles in the SANFL on Sunday — taking his tackle count to 28 in two weeks — but doesn’t know if it’s enough to earn a senior recall to play the Dogs in Ballarat.
“That was the feedback I got a few weeks ago so I’ve been trying to go back and do those things, whether it’s enough to get selected we’ll find out later in the week but I’m trying to do all I can and finish the year as strongly as possible whether that’s at AFL or SANFL level.”
Regardless of what level he plays at this week, Greenwood won’t qualify for SANFL finals which he said he would have happily played if possible.
“Absolutely, I love playing footy and won’t be able to play it forever so the opportunity to play finals and with your best mates and at Adelaide Oval I wouldn’t have turned that down,” he said.
reece.homfray@news.com.au