After three matches in 21 days and more than 7000km of flying to play in regional Western Australia and the Gold Coast, Adelaide’s entire focus can now shift to round one.
The challenging pre-season schedule included wins against West Coast and Gold Coast split by a two-point loss to Fremantle but new Crows senior coach Don Pyke had to balance the desire for winning form with several other needs ahead of the premiership season.
“I think we’ve seen improvement through patches in the pre-season,” Pyke said. “In terms of what we wanted to achieve out of pre-season, I’m comfortable we’ve done that.
“We’ve got a healthy list … and a lot of competition for spots. It ticks a number of boxes there.
“There are a lot of positives out of it and there is still work to do – that’s this time of year. That’s why we do the pre-season training.
“Overall, it’s a good pre-season and sets us up to tackle Round One (against North Melbourne).”
Some of the key points from Adelaide’s NAB Challenge series:
- Pyke and the coaches have selection pressure. Thirty-one Crows played in at least one of the three NAB Challenge games – and 18 played in all three matches. Pyke was able to have a good look at four Crows who played their first AFL games and also introduced Collingwood recruit Paul Seedsman, who made steady improvement as he adjusted to his new environment. Wayne Milera, Adelaide’s first selection at last November’s national draft, backed up his strong summer on the training track with some tantalising glimpses of his class in all three games. Forward Mitch McGovern also gave the selectors an option to consider, improving across the three weeks and playing his best game against the Suns.
- After a summer of learning a revised game plan, the ability to test it against opposition using a large core group of players who appeared in at least two games was valuable. As is the case at all AFL clubs, the fine-tuning of set-ups, ball movement patterns and defensive structures, for example, are a work in progress. Pyke tried players in different roles, rotated more midfielders through attack and exposed different players to midfield minutes.
- It’s probably too early to compare too many NAB Challenge team stats to those from last premiership season. One that the Crows weren’t happy with on Friday night was the result at the clearances, particularly in the centre square.
- There were no injuries from the three AFL games, a rare event at this time of the year. The five players who did not appear in any AFL or SANFL games in the past three weeks – Charlie Cameron, Andy Otten, Ricky Henderson, Tom Doedee and Riley Knight – are all training and not far away from being available for selection. The lack of injuries across the squad also allowed Pyke to rest senior players Taylor Walker, Sam Jacobs, Daniel Talia, Scott Thompson and Eddie Betts from the WA journey.
