Adelaide Crows season 2024: Where it’s all gone wrong for Matthew Nicks’ men

The Crows were given plenty of prime time fixtures following an umpiring mistake that likely cost them a finals spot in 2023, but that has backfired in 2024 as Adelaide slump to 1-5.

Matthew Nicks was surprised at what his side produced early on Friday night.

In the post-match press conference, he had few immediate answers.

Not for why his team was, as he put it, slow, reactive and off.

Why its pressure was well down compared to Essendon, which led the tackle count 27-18 at quarter-time and 52-36 at the main break.

And why it looked a long way from the side that, just a week earlier, recorded a breakthrough win with a free-flowing yet gritty display against Carlton at Marvel Stadium.

Whatever momentum the Crows hoped would roll on had not made the plane ride home.

“We’ll go back and look at the week and look at maybe what we got wrong there,” Nicks said of the first term after Friday night’s three-point defeat left his side with a 1-5 win-loss record.

“At the moment it’s a hard one to put a finger on what that is, other than our opposition and giving them credit where it’s due.”

Matthew Nicks and his Crows have some serious issues. Picture: Getty Images

Starts have become a problem for the Crows this year.

They have trailed at half-time in all six matches.

Their first-quarter goals tally is 14.

Sluggish starts to games has meant Adelaide is having to scrap to stay in them, which it is doing, but too little, too late and too often.

“It’s definitely something we’ll look at this week because it does feel like it’s a bit of a trend,” skipper Jordan Dawson told Triple M.

“Maybe we’re waiting to see what the opposition throw at us.

“I can’t put my finger on what it actually is.

“Especially at home, you want to put the opposition on the back foot … by starting your way and we haven’t been able to do that.”

Jordan Dawson can’t explain Adelaide’s slow starts. Picture: Getty Images

Emerging midfielder Jake Soligo told this masthead: “We didn’t win the contest in the first half and that’s what killed us”.

The Crows have lost all three of their Adelaide Oval games this year and five of their past seven, dating back to round 18 last year.

In all, they have dropped 10 of their past 14 matches.

Adelaide has been in most games but simply not been good enough to get over the line.

A little luck is required too, of course.

The AFL conceding on Saturday that the Crows “technically” should have been awarded a free kick at the siren would not be any solace for a team whose finals chances were now on life support and whose top-eight hopes last year ended after another umpiring mistake.

Adelaide requested and received more prime time matches from the league as redress for that Ben Keays score debacle against Sydney and as reward for being the highest scorers of 2023.

But the Crows have lost all four Thursday or Friday night games this year – three at home, one away.

The catch with getting prime time fixtures is they are typically against stronger teams.

Adelaide’s losses in those slots have been to finals contenders Geelong, Melbourne, Fremantle and Essendon.

The Crows’ next prime time match is a stand-alone Thursday night home Showdown in a fortnight.

Adelaide haven’t got it done on the big stage. Picture: Getty Images

Beyond that, they have just one more – against struggling Richmond in round 13 – before their round-15 bye.

Times for Adelaide’s last nine fixtures are yet to be announced, but on form the club may not receive any other prime time matches this year.

The quirky thing about the Crows’ draw is they play the four teams below them (15th to 18th) over the next seven games, starting with last-placed North Melbourne in Hobart on Saturday.

In three consecutive weeks from round 11 to 13, Adelaide faces reigning wooden-spooner West Coast at home, then Hawthorn at the MCG before hosting the Tigers.

That stretch could help the Crows get their season going, but that seems a long way away.

After the high of last week’s thrilling road victory, Adelaide is in autopsy mode after another familiar, error-riddled loss.

The internal reflections on what has happened to get here since the buoyant end to 2023 fuelled top-eight forecasts will have to wait.

Asked about Nicks saying last week that the club might have done things differently in hindsight given the higher expectations this year, Adelaide football boss Adam Kelly told ABC Grandstand: “Did we become too focused on outcome versus being focused on the process? They’re hard questions to answer.

“All I can say is there’s probably not a lot of value in spending time right now on the why, it’s more about the what and how we respond to the form that we’re in.

“Our focus 100 per cent goes into what we need to be doing right here, right now … and that is North Melbourne this week.”

Originally published as Adelaide Crows season 2024: Where it’s all gone wrong for Matthew Nicks’ men