Consistent Crows on rise
ADELAIDE coach Brenton Sanderson can feel the Crows building that special feeling again after producing their most significant four-quarter effort of the season to defeat St Kilda by 40 points last night and level their win-loss count.
After putting together consecutive wins for the first time in eight weeks, the Crows remain outside the AFL top eight but are in ominous form.
But they had to work hard earn the four points last night.
St Kilda may not be the powerhouse it has been in recent years but this was no walk in the park for Adelaide.
It took more than an hour of hard toil to secure a comfortable lead for the home side.
A dominant third quarter, in which Adelaide’s five-goal surge more than doubled the 32 points the Crows scored in the previous two terms, cracked the vice St Kilda brought to AAMI Stadium.
Before this, the Saints’ man-on-man suffocation of the Crows stopped Adelaide kicking consecutive goals to the 11th minute of the third term when midfielder Scott Thompson and key defender Daniel Talia scored a double in the space for four minutes.
It took 63 minutes for Adelaide to get a double-digit lead of 15 points on the back of Talia’s goal in the third quarter.
Before this, the Crows’ biggest lead quarter-by-quarter was six points late in the first and nine late in the second.
Standing tall for Adelaide was the man who had endured a tumultuous week, midfielder Rory Sloane.
Sloane overcame the focus of being branded as ‘‘trade bait’’ by former Crows captain Mark Ricciuto to be the only Adelaide player to effectively break the St Kilda trap.
Sloane had 19 disposals at halftime when the game was revealing just which Crows were worthy of keeping to 2014.
This was more than the combined totals of Patrick Dangerfield (eight) and Scott Thompson (eight).
Sloane set up two teammates for scores, including David Mackay for the game’s opening goal in the 18th minute.
He broke lines with effective kicks while his teammates relied on ineffective handpasses to escape St Kilda’s zonal traps.
St Kilda matched Sloane with its own playmaker ignoring the mire. Second-year Saint Jack Newnes wor- ked off some of Adelaide’s best midfielders in a stellar performance.
AAMI Stadium’s reputation as a graveyard for the game’s visiting key forwards continued yesterday.
St Kilda captain Nick Riewoldt scored only 1.3 working against the unrelenting tandem of Ben Rutten and the predominant Talia.
His goal came at the 13th minute of the third term when he was offered a free kick after being held by Rutten in a marking contest.
Adelaide’s attack may be unpredictable while it copes without the injured Walker, but Josh Jenkins, Shaun McKernan and Tom Lynch need good supply to be effective.
Lynch followed up his 10 goals against the Giants with 2.1.
‘‘We’re not out of the woods yet . . . we’re still out of the eight,’’ Sanderson said.
‘‘We’re not going to pat ourselves on the back.’’
But after two months of near despair over Adelaide’s erratic form,
We’re not out of the woods yet . . . we’re still out of the eight
Sanderson has seen his players deliver consistency in the past three weeks that have brought a loss to AFL pacesetter Hawthorn, a 135-point thrashing of bottom-ranked Greater Western Sydney and the grinding win against the Saints yesterday.
‘‘The form of the past three weeks says we’re recapturing that form we’re looking for,’’ he said.
‘‘We’ve been more consistent. For three weeks in a row I have been happy with our output, the way we are setting up and the way we are playing the game out to the end.’’
Adelaide continued to develop its attack as life goes on after the seasonending knee injury to key forward Taylor Walker.
The Crows had 10 goal scorers last night with key forward Jenkins putting the club through every emotion. He finished with 2.4 after hyperextending his knee in the first term.
Coach Scott Watters appealed to St Kilda supporters to keep the faith despite six losses in this year’s eight games.
‘‘We will continue to support our young players as they come through,’’ Watters said.