Adelaide v GWS Giants: How Crows can bounce back after Round 7 thumping
Adelaide’s upcoming four-week block is among the hardest any club will face this season – meaning the return of Rory Sloane is perfectly-timed.
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Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks stands to learn plenty about his side during the month of May.
The Crows’ upcoming four-week block is among the toughest any club will face this season.
It starts against crosstown rival Port Adelaide next Saturday night, then next is West Coast (away), unbeaten Melbourne (home) and reigning premier Richmond (away).
The Crows will enter that difficult stretch off the back of three consecutive defeats and their worst performance in a long time – probably since the 69-point loss to fellow 2020 struggler North Melbourne last August – after a 67-point home defeat to GWS.
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It has become something of a cliche that form is irrelevant going into Showdowns and the games are always tight – the last two results are Port Adelaide wins by 75 and 57 points.
Nicks said it was also “very dangerous” to think his side would simply respond because it was facing its fierce rival next Saturday night.
“It won’t just happen,” Nicks said.
“We’ve seen enough of where Port Adelaide are at and you have respect for sides playing that style of footy.
“But what a great challenge for us.”
One of Adelaide’s top players on Saturday, Crows veteran David Mackay told The Advertiser the clash against the Power had “come at a great time” for a side needing to respond.
“They’re if not the best team then one of the best teams in the competition,” Mackay said.
“We haven’t had that lull yet but we had one today and we have to bounce back.
“It’s about going to work on how they play and trying to restrict and counter-attack the way they want to play.
“We’re capable of doing that, we’ve seen with (beating) Geelong and other points in the season so far that when we bring the level of intensity we can bring, we can put enough heat on teams and go back the other way and do some damage.”
Adelaide was a long way off its best on Saturday.
The Tex flex 💪#AFLCrowsGiantspic.twitter.com/laGluIfH6l
— AFL (@AFL) May 1, 2021
Smashed 41-17 against the Giants in clearances, 135-116 in contested possessions and 60-43 in tackles, Nicks was confident his side would get its “fight” back.
But he said to respond and take it up to the top teams, it also needed to return to being predictable by playing the way it trained.
He said taking only five marks inside 50 from 52 entries was indicative of its unpredictability against the Giants.
“If the pressure does come, as it does against the best sides – and we now come up against, as we did today, some of the best sides in the comp over the next month – we need to understand we don’t need to change the way we play and do more as individuals, we need to connect as a team more,” Nicks said.
“We want to hang in there in these contests and compete, and it’s hard to do that when we’re not playing the predictable way we want to play.
“When you’re unpredictable, you might as well put a random group of players on the ground.
“The contest is not a trend – we’ve been in the contest this year.
“But the inside 50s were shallow, were short, every now and then they were deep – it was all over the shop.
“We didn’t give our forwards a lot of opportunity and our forwards didn’t, unfortunately, compete like we asked them to.
“But it’s hard to do that when you’re not predictable as a team.”
Adelaide has lost three games in succession but Saturday’s loss is in a different ballpark, according to Nicks.
“Last week (three-point defeat to Hawthorn) was disappointing because we let one slip, this week’s disappointing but a whole different disappointing,” he said.
“We walked off the ground the last few weeks, we’ve lost the game, but heads are held high that we’ve gone out there to fight.
“We are a young group and we will have our challenges across the year at performing to the level we are after but that dropped off today.
“We’ll lick our wounds, go away, work really hard this week and get back to what was our trend – fighting.
“We’ll be looking to bring that (against) Port Adelaide and if we do, hopefully we’ll get a really good game out of it.”
Although the club was without a win since April 11 and had a tough month coming, Mackay was not concerned the season would suddenly fall away.
“Each week you try and bring what you’re going to bring, which we clearly didn’t bring the level we needed to today,” he said.
“If you let any team in this competition play they want to play, then it becomes really hard to get a result.
“Port Adelaide is going to be no different.
“If we let them play the way they want to play it’s going to be hard work for us, but if we restrict the way they want to play that’s going to be the key element.
“We saw a bit of response in the second half but it’s going to take more than next week if we want to compete and give ourselves a chance against Port Adelaide.”
SLOANE EYES SHOWDOWN RETURN
– Warren Partland
Adelaide is optimistic captain Rory Sloane will return for the Showdown next weekend after being sidelined for four weeks following surgery to repair a detached retina.
If the onballer has his way, he would front Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night, according to Crows coach Matthew Nicks.
However, while Sloane has returned to training and will push for selection, Nicks said the club needed to be mindful of the injury.
The absence of Sloane was emphasised on Saturday when the Crows were smashed around the ball by GWS Giants, the key factor in the poor 67-point loss.
Defender Luke Brown, missing due to an Achilles issue, is also a chance to return for the Showdown while Darcy Fogarty will play in the SANFL on Sunday after failing to get on the ground as the medical sub against the Giants.
What Nicks also wants to see return against the Power is the fighting spirit, claiming the Crows did not put on the gloves and enter the ring against the Sydney outfit in the first half.
He also described the performance as unacceptable and a big step backwards for the club in its rebuilding process.
“We were comprehensively beaten by a very good football side,” Nicks said. “We unfortunately helped them beat us up.
“In the first half we did not come to compete, we were a half metre off and that is too far when you are up against the likes of that midfield.
“That hurts our group because it is what we want to base our game on. We want to compete, and at worst when you play the best sides in that space, you want to at least break even and give yourself a chance in the contest.
“We got hammered in that stat to half time. Not only are we being beaten up in the contest, we are second to the ball as well.”
Nicks added the Giants deserved credit, claiming they were a very good midfield which showed the Crows up.
He said the Crows were a young group facing challenges across the year performing at the level the club was seeking.
“But that drop off today, there is no hiding from it, it is unacceptable at AFL level,” he said. “It does not take much and I talked a lot about that when we weren’t performing last year, the difference between playing at the level and not is not a lot.
“Unfortunately today it was across the board.”
AWFUL CROWS BELTED BY RELENTLESS GIANTS
GWS Giants sent out a warning to rivals they are a premiership force with an emphatic victory over a lack-lustre Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.
Claiming their third win of the season, the Giants reigned supreme in the engine room to dominate the home side with the 67-point triumph.
A bonus for the Giants was Jesse Hogan bagging four goals in his debut for the club.
The Crows were belted all over the ground and were never a threat, dropping their third successive game with an awful performance.
Wasted early chances
The Giants were kicking into the breeze for the opening quarter, but that cannot be used as an excuse for the sloppy kicking in front goal.
Given plenty of opportunities to attack on the back of a dominance in clearances, the GWS had some bad misses with Brent Daniel and Tom Green among the guilty party.
Toby Greene also had his chances to cause some damage on the scoreboard, only to add two behinds.
Just seconds before the quarter final siren, Giants’ Sam Reid finally found some accuracy with a terrific goal from the boundary. Unfortunately for Reid, his handball receive was ruled a throw.
"Sam Reid is going to be robbed of a goal here!"
— AFL (@AFL) May 1, 2021
A throw costs the Giants what would have been a great goal.#AFLCrowsGiantspic.twitter.com/O1OMnfrlOj
Under pressure
The pressure of the Giants around the ball was exceptional and their desperation created a flood of chances.
Their relentless tackling caused constant turnovers and skill error after skill error from the Crows and enabled them to smash the home side in the clearances.
Much of the second quarter was scrappy with missed targets by foot, dropped chest marks and poor kicking efficiency.
The work of both teams inside 50 lacked polish, but the Giants had so much possession they eventually started to find the goals.
No influence
Crows forward Shane McAdam did not have a stat in the first half of football. That is two quarters without touching the ball.
It didn’t take long into the third quarter for him to finally get a kick, but he had to roam well up the field to get into the action.
To sum up his day, and probably that of the Crows, McAdam missed from point blank range late in the third quarter when he tried to dribble the ball through.
Not that McAdam didn’t have a lot of mates failing to have an impact. Sam Berry, James Rowe and Riley Thilthorpe, highly impressive in his debut against the Hawks, could not get into the game in the first half.
The Tex flex 💪#AFLCrowsGiantspic.twitter.com/laGluIfH6l
— AFL (@AFL) May 1, 2021
Moving magnets
Looking for answers in the final quarter, the Crows moved Nick Murray from defence to attack and he nailed a goal after eight minutes.
There was a peek at the future with youngster Thilthorpe starting the final term on the wing, before being given a run in ruck against experienced Shane Mumford.
Thilthorpe immediately caused a mistake from the Giants.
SCOREBOARD
GIANTS 1.8 6.12 10.14 15.16 (106)
CROWS 1.1 2.4 3.9 4.15 (39)
BEST
Giants: Taranto, Kelly, Hopper, Whitfield, Mumford, Green, Keefe.
Crows: Keays, Doedee, Mackay, Seedsman
GOALS
Giants: Hogan 4, Himmelberg 3, Green, Reid 2, Greene, Kelly, O’Halloran, Hill.
Crows: Walker 2, Murphy, Murray.
INJURIES - Giants: Daniel (hamstring), Buntine (concussion).
UMPIRES Haussen, Stephens, Williamson
VENUE Adelaide Oval
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
PARTLAND’S VOTES
3: Tim Taranto (Giants)
2: Josh Kelly (Giants)
1: Jacob Hopper (Giants)
Originally published as Adelaide v GWS Giants: How Crows can bounce back after Round 7 thumping
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