AFL Gather Round: Adelaide Crows coach Matthew Nicks on Thursday night’s loss to Melbourne

Adelaide Crows coach Matthew Nicks says his team did get one thing right on Thursday night – but his frustration might have reached boiling point. Where does he go from here?

There’s only one word to describe the mood after Adelaide’s loss to Melbourne that extended its winless start to the season for Matthew Nicks and his players – frustration.

In the eight minutes the under-pressure Crows coach spent talking to media explaining Thursday’s 16-point defeat that consigned his side to a disastrous 0-4 record, Nicks uttered the word “frustration”, or a variation of it, eight times.

“(There’s) just incredible frustration, among all of us,” Nicks began.

“We get glimpses of who we know we can be and then we have periods of time where we look so far off fundamentals, execution and decision-making.

“So, frustration is where it sits at this point.

“We played a very good side and I felt we were in the game for the majority but not playing well at all.”

Matthew Nicks can’t buy a win. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

The high-powered Crows of last season kicked eight goals in the first quarter to start Gather Round with a win against Carlton but only managed that number for the whole game in the loss to the Demons.

The brave decision-making and lightning-fast ball movement Adelaide was capable of, at times, last year was rarely sighted on Thursday night, but Nicks took some solace in some of his team’s fundamentals surfacing for the first time this season.

“What we did have right was a system that we haven’t seen in the first three rounds,” Nicks said.

“So, we got an area of our game back to where it was last year, but unfortunately that exposed some of our execution and our ball use looks so clunky.

“And that can come, sometimes, off a bit of a lack of confidence in where the group sits and a bit of pressure that you’re under sitting at 0-3 and now 0-4.

“That’s where the frustration comes in, our ability now to play our way, we looked so slow with the ball at times, which is not us.

Crows players look dejected after the loss. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

“Sometimes that can come off a lack of form.

“We’ve got too many players, at the moment, that aren’t at their best, so that can hurt your transition, that can hurt a passage of play where you look damaging and threatening then all of a sudden someone will make a decision that wasn’t what the game needed at that point.

“And that’s where the frustration comes in.

“We’ve got to find our way through that, we’ve got to be able to build our confidence back to where we know it can be. We’ve got to look at our team from a selection point of view and get guys in the way that are going to be able to play the way we play.

“At the moment, it’s hard for us, but we’re working our way through it.

“It’s hard for our members and supporters to come out and watch because, at times, it is really frustrating to see.”

Originally published as AFL Gather Round: Adelaide Crows coach Matthew Nicks on Thursday night’s loss to Melbourne