Coach Phil Walsh has reaffirmed Adelaide still has “work to do” after Thursday night’s NAB Challenge loss to Geelong at Simonds Stadium.
The Crows struggled to get their hands on the ball in the first half, and when they did were too often wasteful with their disposal. Through the efforts of young midfielders Brad Crouch and Cam Ellis-Yolmen, who were among Adelaide’s best, the Crows recovered from a five-goal half-time deficit to close within four points midway through the third quarter. But the Cats always had an answer and ran out comfortable 19-point winners.
Walsh said his team didn’t cope with Geelong’s intensity early in the game.
“Geelong’s pressure early was fantastic. They won the ground balls convincingly and had us on the back foot … it was (a combination of) how well they started and how poorly we started,” Walsh said.
“I was pleased a couple of times when we got the momentum back our way a little bit, but then Geelong again answered with a couple of quick goals. That disappointed me.
“There were some patches in the game where I thought we were good, but overall we just didn’t handle their pressure well enough.
“I was disappointed with our first quarter tonight. Last week, I was disappointed with our last quarter, so we’ve got a bit of work to do.”
Adelaide’s defence took a hit when Ricky Henderson was forced to withdraw from the team after falling ill on Thursday morning.
This followed the Club’s decision to leave fellow rebounding backman Matthew Jaensch at home as part of his management ahead of the season proper. Both players are expected to be available for Adelaide’s last NAB Challenge game against Port Adelaide on Saturday, March 21.
All Australian full-back Daniel Talia held Geelong spearhead Tom Hawkins to a solitary goal, but recruit Mitch Clark proved a handful, kicking six goals in his second game for the club.
Still, the Crows managed to limit the high-scoring Cats to 42 inside 50ms while generating 46 of their own. Walsh said stronger “team” defence was required to help support Adelaide’s inexperienced backline.
“I’m on record as saying we’ve got work to do on our team defence. Geelong kicked really straight, but we limited their inside 50ms tonight and kept them under 100 points – they’ve kicked over 100 points a few times here in Geelong,” he said.
Walsh confirmed former Cat James Podsiadly was likely to spend more time in defence this season.
“We’ve got a really young backline, so Podsiadly gives us a bit of experience down there. I’m keen to have him there, but I also want to get some time into Kyle Hartigan,” Walsh said.
“We need 50 games into Kyle Hartigan as quick as we can. I’ve got a lot of time for Kyle and I think he’ll get where he needs to go. There were just a couple of occasions tonight where Clark was too good for him.”
“That’s probably an area where we’ve got to be really good at; team defence to protect those guys, but I’ve got a lot of confidence in those three guys that they’ll stand up. Talia again tonight was really good.”
Despite winning the inside 50m count, the inaccurate Crows couldn’t convert on the scoreboard. Adelaide had more scoring shots (23 – 19), but only managed a score of 9.14 (68).
“We probably didn’t have the avenue to goals I was hoping for. Lynch was the only multiple goalkicker, so we need to do better to get the job done tonight in that regard,” Walsh said.
“Tex was pretty good – better than last week. Tom Lynch kicked two goals. Josh Jenkins didn’t have a great game and Eddie was well held.”
