DEESPAIR & DEELIGHT
One set of Demons are flying with their eyes on the grandest prize. Another set of Demons are precariously placed in the BFL relegation zone.
JAKE Lever walked out on a grand finalist last season to join a team that hadn’t played finals for 11 years and after yesterday, he might be closer to a premiership.
You could say injuries finally caught up with Adelaide in Alice Springs and the situation wasn’t helped when Paul Seedsman hurt his adductor in the warm-up and Luke Brown’s game ended before halftime with concussion.
But the Crows lost to an irresistible Melbourne by 91 points, and just maybe, the Demons are fair dinkum this season.
It was the biggest loss of the Don Pyke era and Adelaide’s biggest loss since 2011.
The Demons have broken the 100-point barrier seven times this season and have now won their past five games with scores of 108, 106, 146, 159 and 146 and were ruthlessly accurate and efficient yesterday.
Brad Crouch, Rory Sloane, Taylor Walker, Mitch McGovern and Seedsman make Adelaide stronger, faster and more composed, unquestionably.
But injuries can’t be blamed for Adelaide’s failure to run hard both ways yesterday, man up, be aggressive, tackle with intent and win contested ball.
Because when they didn’t, Melbourne feasted on it and kicked 5.1 to 0.0 in the first 15 minutes and it was game over.
The warning signs were there early when Jack Viney and Nathan Jones were able to walk the footy out of the middle and from there it was like circle work at training where they were able to move the ball without any pressure.
Max Gawn had a day out in the ruck, Jesse Hogan kicked five goals and Michael Hibberd beat Tom Lynch and punished Adelaide with his run off halfback.
The Crows threw Lynch and Darcy Fogarty behind the ball when under siege in the first quarter but couldn’t stem the flow.
The midfield was soundly beaten with Greenwood, Ellis-Yolmen and Gibbs all well down, they couldn’t hit simple targets consistently and were outworked.
The rare positives were Darcy Fogarty who led up all day and kicked a long goal, Richard Douglas and Matt Crouch were solid and youngster Tom Doedee did nothing wrong in the face of an avalanche of ball coming into defence.
Lever said he was looking forward to his first game against his old team and it showed. He took a strong mark in the first minute, whacked a few of his old teammates in the back to let them know he was there and his confidence grew with his trademark intercept marks.