AFL 2022: All the Adelaide Crows news ahead of round 12
Adelaide has lost five on the trot and while there have been some bright spots, coach Matthew Nicks has highlighted a key area his team must address.
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An inability to “finish our work off” is what is hurting Adelaide, senior coach Matthew Nicks says as the Crows seek to snap a five-game losing streak against cellar dwellers West Coast.
Adelaide hasn’t won a game since upsetting the Western Bulldogs by a point in Ballarat, to be 3-8 ahead of its mid-season break.
While there have been some bright spots in the last three losses to Brisbane, St Kilda and Geelong, the defeats have raised questions about how the rebuild at West Lakes is faring.
Nicks said the Crows knew exactly why they were not winning games.
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In those losses Adelaide has kicked 9.12, 9.15 and 7.13, which Nicks said needed to be better.
“There’s no doubts about what we aren’t getting done. We need more polish,” he said.
“We aren’t finishing our work off, we are working really hard but we just lack some smarts at times.
“We lack the ability to kick goals at crucial times, so scoreboard pressure and slowly that weighs on you across a game.
“It’s not only our goalkicking I’m talking about when I talk about polish, ground ball intercepts we need to improve on. It’s a crucial part of the game, we don’t hurt opposition when they make mistakes.
“Our goalkicking is an issue we will get on top of, we are doing everything we can.
“We are missing shots that we’d expect to finish though, it’s not like we are missing shots from the boundary.”
The Crows will get an ideal opportunity to break their losing streak with the struggling Eagles at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.
Adelaide has only been favourites eight times in Nicks’ tenure as senior coach.
The Crows are 3-5 in those games, and Nicks has previously said they need to be able to handle the expectations better.
The most recent was a poor performance against GWS in Round 7.
“You learn from your experiences don’t you,” Nicks said.
“We feel like we learnt a lot from the last time we were in this situation, but we haven’t spent a lot of time discussing that.
“Over the last few weeks we have put our head down and gone to work and playing a brand of footy that we are proud of playing.
“So that is our focus at the moment.”
Patrick Parnell will make his debut for the Crows, after being selected by the club in last year’s Mid-Season Draft.
Nicks said he hoped Parnell could get a run in the Crows side to show his ability at AFL level.
“We’d love for that to be the case. The last thing we’d want to do is bring someone in for one,” he said.
“(Luke) Brown is out in health and safety protocols, Buttsy (Jordan Butts) is out in concussion protocols so there is a few forced.
“There is a such a respect for him and what he brings to the game and some of the areas that we are working on at the moment are the ones that we feel that Paddy will bring.
“But the step up is huge… that is the challenge but we will give him every chance.”
Nicks also said the Crows were in discussions with former captain Taylor Walker over his future as speculation rages that other clubs could make a play for the veteran key forward.
“He is an important part of what we are doing,” Nicks said.
“He is the leader of our forward line on and off the field, we miss him when he is not there.”
Late call that set up new Crow’s AFL chance
Brett Turner wasn’t planning on playing footy last year.
Unable to get a consistent spot in West Adelaide’s SANFL side, playing 64 games in six years, Turner considered just walking away from the game after it became a drag.
But yet 18 months later the 25-year-old is in the AFL after Adelaide snapped him up in the Mid-Season Draft following strong form for Glenelg.
“Before I moved to Glenelg (for the 2021 season) I was going to have a year off footy and just have a year where I was doing things I enjoyed and get my mind off footy,” Turner said.
“Because if you are playing footy for long enough and you aren’t enjoying it you just want to ground yourself and get back to what is enjoyable.
“But it was just a dinner with some friends that got me over to Glenelg, Tom Schott and Liam McBean.
“It was a late decision but it was amazing.”
Before a foot injury, Turner is now back running, he averaged 24 disposals and 1.5 goals per game in the first four rounds of this SANFL season.
This included a dominant performance against the Crows in Round Three when he gathered 38 disposals and kicked four goals.
So how did Turner go from a player who couldn’t consistently crack the Westies SANFL side, to now at West Lakes.
“Sort of my mindset changed,” he said.
“I’ve spoken with a lot of mentors over the past couple of years I had to nullify a lot of my training and work out where I was deficient and make a couple of changes in my life such as my diet, change some habits and just work hard off the field.
“I had come from basketball so I had never really developed that football tank that they like to say, so I just spent a lot of that pre-season working on my aerobic base.
“Because I found for three quarters I was going pretty well but then I would cramp up.
“So I just worked on my aerobic base and once that came footy started to become a little bit easier for me.”
Despite a couple of interviews with the Crows, Turner was not convinced that he would realise his AFL dream.
Even more so when he found out on Wednesday that Adelaide would only take one player in the Mid-Season Draft.
A 185cm powerfully-built onballer, Turner can also play on the wing and as a half forward.
He said while he had to wait to realise his AFL dream it has come at the right time for him.
“I spoke with a couple of clubs when I was younger but being 18-years-old and pretty fresh there are a few things that you aren’t going to transition into AFL footy quickly with,” he said.
“I think I’m a lot more mature now and I’m ready for this step, I’m glad it has happened now because I don’t think I would have been successful at that age.”
Crows’ mid-season recruit can make instant impact
—Matt Turner
Seven weeks after being on the receiving end of Brett Turner’s football talent, Adelaide has selected the mature-age Glenelg midfielder in the AFL’s mid-season draft.
The 25-year-old, who registered 38 disposals and kicked four goals in the Tigers’ round 3 SANFL triumph against the Crows, landed at West Lakes via pick 4 on Wednesday night.
Adelaide had been linked with Turner before the draft and he was its only selection.
The Power also chose one player, 22-year-old East Fremantle ruck/forward Brynn Teakle, at pick 8.
Teakle, who is 203cm and 98kg, provides big-man depth while Scott Lycett remains sidelined for six to seven more weeks with a shoulder injury.
Turner also looms as a ready-made option, as Adelaide tries to cover the absences of captain Rory Sloane and veteran Paul Seedsman for the remainder of the season.
Crows recruiting manager Hamish Ogilvie said Turner deserved an opportunity on the back of outstanding form that was “clearly above SANFL level”.
“We rate Brett very highly and his performances this season in particular have backed that up,” Ogilvie said.
“He has done a lot of extra work and presented his body and conditioning in outstanding shape.
“As a player he offers a point of difference for our midfield in he has good speed and lateral movement and can go left and right foot out of stoppage.
“He fits nicely in our age profile given we need to add some quality players in that age bracket.
“History shows the very best SANFL players can transfer to the AFL and have an impact.”
Also able to play on a wing and half-forward, Turner had averaged 24 possessions, five clearances and 1.5 majors from four state-league games this season, before injuring his foot.
He has resumed training and is expected to be available to play after next weekend.
Turner needed to be granted a mid-season draft exemption to make him eligible because he did not nominate for last year’s national call.
An Australian junior BMX champion as an eight-year-old and former state basketballer as a youngster, Turner first emerged as a draft prospect in 2014 while playing for West Adelaide.
Teakle had trialled for a rookie spot with Essendon ahead of the 2020 campaign and was a Covid top-up player for Fremantle this year.
He was averaging 14.7 disposals and 18.2 hit-outs in the WAFL this season.
Port Adelaide national recruiting manager Geoff Parker said Teakle’s body had matured and ruck craft had developed in the four or five seasons the club had been tracking him.
“He hunts the ball well at ground level and he can go forward, mark and kick a goal,” Parker said.
“We’re excited about what he can bring to our club and look forward to welcoming him to Adelaide soon.”
The Crows passed on their second choice, No.19.
Crows to blood mid-season draft pick
—Russell Gould and Matt Turner
Twelve months after arriving at the club as a mid-season draftee, Patrick Parnell is set to make his debut for Adelaide.
The small defender will replace Luke Brown (Covid) for the home game against West Coast on Saturday.
Parnell, 20, is averaging 17.9 disposals, 4.4 marks and 3.3 rebound 50s in the SANFL this season.
The Crows snared him with pick 4 in last year’s mid-season draft.
The Crows will rest “banged up” rising star Josh Rachele until after the bye.
Rachele, who played 10-straight games in his debut season before being rested for last week’s loss to Geelong, will be given extra time to freshen up from a few niggles according to Crows assistant coach James Rahilly.
He said the amount of footy Rachele played, after an amazing five-goal debut in Round 1, was probably “too much”.
“He’s still a little bit banged up, Josh, after his start to the year,” he said on Wednesday.
“He won’t play this week then in to the bye. So three weeks off and then we have a bit of a program around that so when he come back he will be fresh and ready to go.
“He’s got a few little things, he’s just not cherry ripe, for a first-year player, and he’s a pretty important player, we’ll freshen him up and get him right for after the bye.
“His last couple of games probably weren’t at the level, he got a bit tired, and you have to remember these guys hadn’t played much for two years before so that’s why we are making the decision now that volume of footy was a little bit too much.”
Young big man Riley Thilthorpe will retain his sport for the clash with the Eagles and play as a second ruckman despite managing a knee issue.
“He’s working through a few things, that’s why his knee is strapped,” Rahilly said.
Taylor Walker will return and Rahilly said the Crows would go a bit taller in the forward line against the embattled Eagles, declaring recent scorelines in Adelaide’s five-match losing streak didn’t properly reflect their efforts.
The Crows have kicked 9.15 and 7.13 in the past two losses to St Kilda and then Geelong and Rahilly, the forwards coach, said his men needed to “finish off their work” a lot better to arrest the slide down the ladder.
“We think the scoreline hasn’t reflected how we have played and it’s a little bit on our forward to kick goals,” he said.
“To be beaten by the Saints by 20 points, and against Geelong we were eight points down in the third, we need to finish our work.”
Dawson backs Crows rebuild despite Blight’s doubts
—Simeon Thomas-Wilson
Adelaide star Jordan Dawson says he is confident about the direction the Crows are heading, despite the club’s two-time premiership coach Malcolm Blight saying “there really has not been a lot of improvement” in the side this season.
Blight, the only Crows coach to guide them to AFL premierships, said he wasn’t seeing a lot of improvement in current day side.
It comes as the Crows are in a five-match losing streak in the third season of the rebuild at West Lakes, prompting debate as to how the plan is going.
On SEN SA on Tuesday, Blight said “there really has not been a lot of improvement in the Adelaide team” when asked on the Crows season to date.
“I always have done this when I was coaching, who has improved,” Blight said.
“Let’s look in the Adelaide team and who has improved to my eye.
“(Josh) Rachele obviously, and (Jake) Soligo. It looks like they’re going to be two good kids, but you almost can’t rate them yet. They just look like good kids.
“I think (Jackson) Hately has improved, although he was injured last year so it’s hard.
“Sam Berry looks like a half-improvement to me.
“Then you go to (Shane) McAdam who I think has been the biggest improver and quite frankly the only improver in the Adelaide Football Club.
“I just can’t see anybody else.”
When asked if the Crows had improved this season, Dawson said he thought so.
“Yeah definitely, I think we’ve had some good wins and then there has been a lot of games where if we kicked straight and there have been a few moments that we didn’t capitalise on which have cost us,” he said.
“But apart from a couple of games we have been in games and the effort and contest has been there.
“Obviously we want to get more wins but the consistency of the group is growing and we are getting a lot of young guys in.”
Dawson moved to the Crows, who sit 15th, from the seventh placed Sydney Swans.
He said despite swapping a finals contender for a rebuilding one he was seeing promising signs.
“All the teams train hard and Sydney were no exception but coming here and having 20 to 30 guys training at the facility and around the city (in the off-season) it is exciting to see going forward those guys are coming through and want to be a part of something special,” he said.
“I saw it in Sydney and I’m seeing it here.”
Meanwhile former Crows captain Taylor walker says he wants to play on next year and his preference is to remain in Adelaide.
Speculation has raged around clubs potentially ready to offer Walker, 32, a two-year deal.
Gold Coast has been linked with Walker, but the Suns aren’t interested.
Walker said on Triple M that he hoped to stay in Adelaide.
“No. 1 do I want to stay in Adelaide I do, is there a contract on the table no there isn’t it,” he said.
“I’m sure we will get to an outcome sooner rather than later.”
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