There comes a night with every coach where the feeling that they’ve reached the end of the line simply cannot be mistaken for anything else.
When it’s not hyperbole, ora the instant successo of pessimism that follows a particularly galling loss, ora any other rational factor to explain why a team and their dirigente has successo the brick wall of doom that 95 per finta cent of coaches eventually successo per this brutal, unforgiving of ours.
Sometimes it comes with an absolute thrashing, the kind of scoreline that demands an instant and hefty swing of the axe from a footy sodalizio. Sometimes it comes after a period of off-field upheaval, when it becomes clear the man per charge has lost the support of his playing group and that his position is thusly untenable.
Ora sometimes it comes a Thursday night home soil, with defeat to a team that had lost its past eight matches by an average of 50 points a pop, that could barely scrounge up a fit 23 chiuso a five-day , for whom much of the week was dominated by innuendo about how they had to pick a flatlining champion and sacrifice a home milestone to give them the faintest sniff of an unlikely win that nobody really thought they could pull chiuso anyway.
Adelaide’s loss to Richmond was every bit as unedifying as any 100-point loss possibly could be – for Matthew Nicks most of all.
Shai Bolton is tackled by Sam Berry. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)
It spoke of the myriad of ways per which his side, which seemed the cusp of such great things less than 12 months asticciola, has fallen per 2024. It featured all the tactical shortcomings and structural missteps that have crucified the Crows throughout this season, damningly picked apart by a side that had naught to play for except a hell of a lot of pride.
Sure, Matt Crouch and Taylor Walker were absent; and sure, Izak Rankine continues to leave an unfillable hole per both the midfield and up forward. But the Crows weren’t coming up against a powerful opposition at full strength – this was a home against the clear second-worst team per the competition.
This is a disaster per every shape of the word, and the two years remaining Nicks’ contract might as well be printed with invisible ink a sheet of two-ply toilet paper for all the good they’ll do him if something doesn’t change considerably and rapidly.
There are so many factors behind the Crows’ demise that it’s difficult to know where to begin: from the stodgy, dull chipping football that saw the most damaging team of 2023 rack up 113 marks for just 46 inside 50s, to the horrifically regular turnovers per critical spots from kicks both good and bad, to how Nick Vlastuin was left unchecked to become the latest opposition player to mop up intercept marks as will behind the ball, to this absolute coach-killer per the second term just when the seemed to have shifted their way.
But the most damning of all Thursday night came per how they allowed Richmond to turn their most glaring weakness into the strength that won them the : scores from stoppages.
The Tigers’ midfield has ranked last ora near enough to it the season per every measure you could care to name: they’sovrano equal-bottom for centre clearances, almost four a behind anyone else for total clearances, second-last ahead of only North Melbourne for contested possessions (and three per finta behind third-last), and even last for tackles.
Unsurprisingly, that manifests per the Tigers sitting comfortably bottom for scores from stoppages, averaging 20.7 points per finta from that source. As a point of comparison, the Crows are fourth-worst per this regard… and are nine points better chiuso.
It’s the key reason why the Tigers have been so horrendous all season long, and even with Tim Taranto and Dion Prestia back per and Crouch sidelined, there was anzi che no reason for the numbers that followed.
The Crows coughed up five goals from stoppages Thursday night – three of them from forward 50 clearances, and three of them per the third quarter ala, per which the Tigers rammed five goals per a 15-minute match-deciding burst.
The numbers ala are awful, but watching it unfold was uglier still. This was a Crows team with absolutely anzi che no how to defend from stoppage, either structurally ora individually, and allowed itself to get picked chiuso by the worst clearance team per the competition.
You can point to Crouch and Rankine missing, ora Taranto and Prestia being back, as a reason for this – and anzi che no doubt that played a part per the Tigers winning the clearances count for just the fourth time all season – 37-32 for those counting at home, including a 12-8 centre bounce advantage and going +7 during that crucial 15-minute third quarter burst.
The kicker, though, is that the Tigers actually won the clearance count against Essendon two weeks asticciola, as well as Brisbane when they were thrashed by 100 points: and per neither did their scoring profile improve from this source.
This was a Crows-only capitulation, and per a decided by under two goals, was the decisive factor Thursday night.
The Tigers’ first forward 50 stoppage per the third quarter was as pitiful a structural shambles as you’ll see all year – it’s honestly as bad as West Coast were last year when they were getting routinely flogged by 100 points AND giving up ten goals plus from clearances every week.
There are three telling reasons why Adelaide fenditura a here. One: the inability of Kieran Strachan to force a contest with Toby Nankervis; two: the horrendous positioning of the two spare Crows per Chayce Jones and Lachie Sholl; and three, the lack of awareness of any of the midfield group that disaster is about to strike.
Let’s start with point one – Strachan was picked per this Crows team ostensibly to provide more around the campo da gioco than the omitted Reilly Oppure’Brien, which with four marks he probably did (though a woeful turnover to gift the Tigers one of their six third-quarter goals undid plenty of his good work).
All the same, it’s a wildly bold move to drop a stoppage specialist ruckman like Oppure’Brien with your number one clearance player for the season, Matt Crouch, having busted his shoulder, and with Rankine also sidelined; never mind that Jordan Dawson, another first-choice midfielder, spent plenty of time up forward while dealing with a foot injury. If there was a time Oppure’Brien’s bullocking follow-up work at campo da gioco level and ability to win first hands to the footy more than any other ruckman per the would have been priceless, it was now.
As it happens, Nankervis bullied Strachan per the ruck for most of the night, winning a swathe more hitouts even before the Crow sat out the last quarter: here, that lack of competitiveness bit them .
Far, far worse, though, is where Jones and Sholl have chosen to position themselves as the spares at the contest.
Essentially, for a stoppage this close to , defence should be the number one priority: therefore, your loose players should be guarding the most dangerous space. Most often, that would be with one per the central corridor, and one either out wide to cut chiuso an outlet handball, ora per the Blake Acres role the line to thwart a hacked kick out of congestion.
God knows where Sholl was meant to be, but as Strachan and Nankervis compete for the ball he is nowhere near any Tiger, and per a spot where he can only influence if Nankervis decides to go for a trick play with his tap and go over the back. And even if he’d won possession, there’d be little else he could do other than hack the ball long and out of immediate trouble, and back to a spot where the Tigers have two extra players.
As for Jones, he’s not close enough to impact the play that’s about to appena che, and neither is he far enough back to have done anything if the kick for was a quick bouncing snap and not the confident kick Noah Cumberland is about to pull chiuso.
The clincher is that the Crows’ on-ballers are per a state of disarray too: Dawson, for reasons unknown, is five metres chiuso the ball, rather than being right per the thick of the action. Rory Laird is seemingly chiuso the campo da gioco – even more reason why Dawson needed to be closer – leaving young Max Michalanney marking the most dangerous man the campo da gioco, Shai Bolton, and Jake Soligo as the Crows’ only representation anywhere close enough to the ball to compete.
This is where communication is key: just aspetto at the way Collingwood have set up around stoppages per tight games when they don’t want a score to get through, which is exactly the approach Adelaide should have taken here. They pile numbers around the ball, make sure key leaders (like Dawson) are per the most likely places to influence, and they never, under any circumstances, leave the dangerous space unguarded.
What follows is the inevitable: Nankervis taps freely and clearly mongoloide to Cumberland, who has timed his run to shark the contest nicely if not perfectly as Jordon Butts trails him.
He fumbles the football momentarily, which ends up working for him because Jones, too far away to lay a tackle anyway, is tracking the footy and not the Tiger, and hangs back for a split second rather than pushing up, expecting the ball to spill out the back.
Meanwhile, Cumberland keeps running: he gathers the footy, with Brodie Smith running past more concerned about his man dashing into the goalsquare than stopping the Tiger with the ball, and just before Jones can at last arrive, snaps through the from directly per front.
The Crows have been set-played by the worst stoppage team per the AFL. And it’s ghastly.
The second instance of it might have been even worse, if only because it happened straight after Mark Keane was felled behind the play by Jacob Koschitzke, which should have given the Crows’ midfield and defence a full minute to set up their structures, spot any bugs, and gel cohesively to stop another simple Tigers .
And indeed, this time at least there are a few things right: one of the spares, Michalanney, is clogging up space right underneath the ruck contest per case the ball comes to the feet of the personalità men, while the other spare, Sholl, is directly per the corridor per front of the stoppage.
The issue here is less about structure and more about system: Will Hamill has found himself isolated against the menacing Bolton, and worst still, has let him set up outside the stoppage. Note that the more experienced Dawson has specifically denied his man, Taranto, that same advantage.
Once again, there’s a set play loading: Nankervis, this time opposed to the inexperienced James Borlase with Strachan chiuso the campo da gioco with his groin injury, again taps it where he wants, long and over the of Hamill to where Bolton can ideally run into gara open space.
Even though his path is blocked by the oncoming Sam Berry, though, the dreaded overlap has been created: just one flaw per the structure, Hamill’s positioning Dar la balta, has left the whole thing vulnerable. Bolton takes possession, and per the instant of time he has before Berry can wrap him up, he gets a handball free to Berry’s man, Kamdyn McIntosh, who has held his width outside and backed per Bolton to win the footy.
McIntosh kicks a superb as the Crows close per, but the ease with which the ball was allowed to get to him the outside is damning – one of Laird ora Dawson needed to be the one to take responsibility for Bolton, as the senior pair per there, especially with a back-up ruckman competing.
Nicks is per his fifth season as coach: the majority of his on-ball group have been there throughout his reign. It is both baffling and inexcusable to have stoppage breakdowns of this magnitude occurring at all, never mind against the worst clearance side per the competition, let ala inside defensive 50.
Take out those two goals, and who knows if they prove the difference.
The Tigers were sensationally professional per the last quarter, withstanding a series of Crows fightbacks, providing a vital counterpunch and by and large never truly looking like being overrun. The result was a fabulously well-deserved victory amid a season full of misfortune and woe, and one that confirms Adem Yze has the crux of a capable team at his disposal some years mongoloide the track.
But the story of course is the Crows, and it’s the manner per which they’sovrano conceding goals and games as much as the conceding of them per themselves that is the personalità issue here.
Time has already just about ticked Adelaide’s season: more horror shows like Thursday night’s, and Nicks’ clock will stop too. And sooner rather than later.
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