Essendon captain Jobe Watson gets a kick away against Crows midfielder Rory Sloane. Picture: Sarah Reed. Source: The Advertiser
ADELAIDE'S strength became its weakness on Friday night. In a summer of turmoil and bitterness from an opportunity lost in 2012, the one critical quality that took no hit on coach Brenton Sanderson's whiteboard was the Crows midfield.
Geelong premiership captain Cameron Ling only last week described it as the AFL's best - and the reason why Adelaide would win this season's premiership.
But last night the Crows midfield failed - miserably - in the premiership-season opener loss by 35 points to Essendon at AAMI Stadium. The numbers do not lie.
Rather, they will haunt the Adelaide midfielders when they have the game statistics read to them as a horror story.
Beaten at the clearances, 33-44. Smashed at the centre clearances, 9-18. Outclassed in creating supply while setting up just 48 inside-50s.
Crows midfielder Patrick Dangerfield this week made the revealing observation that Adelaide's greatest concern from its lukewarm pre-season campaign was the habit so many players had developed of "trying to make something out of nothing".
Former Adelaide coach Neil Craig used to describe this ailment as his men playing "cute" football.
In less subtle reviews, the assessment will be of a lazy team that refused to have its hunger brought into question during an indifferent pre-season.
While Adelaide continues to look inferior to the opposition in tackling, that image will stick - and tighter than the Crows' half-hearted tackles.
Adelaide's hope of settling its now wobbly defence was hurt by the loss of young defender Luke Brown - the kid chosen to cover for retired hero Michael Doughty - with a left-ankle injury in the third term.
The injury list also has forward Ricky Henderson who took a heavy knock to his shoulders while sweeping in defence during the last quarter.
The tactical surprise of the night was how Sanderson dealt with the absence of key forward Kurt Tippett, who has defected - with much pain for the Crows - to Sydney.
Despite all the indicators in the pre-season, Josh Jenkins did not start as the goalsquare-based key forward working behind Taylor Walker in a direct fill-in for Tippett.
Rather, Jenkins began on the bench to work a tandem with lead ruckman Sam Jacobs while the versatile Henderson was the preferred second attack forward with Walker.
On the evidence of the first 14 minutes when Adelaide scored 3.4 while holding Essendon on 0.0 it seemed a smart ploy to maximise that quick, direct movement Sanderson craves from a Crows squad he has made the highest-scoring in the club's 22-year history.
But forwards live off supply. This is created by industrious midfields. And Adelaide's engine choked late in the first term and continued to sputter in the second when Essendon's major playmakers led by captain and Brownlow Medallist Jobe Watson and Ben Howlett opened up the game ad burned the Crows in space.
If Tippett still loved Adelaide, he would have starved as a Crows forward - as Walker did in that second term when the Adelaide midfield lost its work ethic.
Imagine what Sanderson is going to say in Monday's review when he points to his players making just seven tackles in the second term while losing the disposal count 69-81. That is simply inexcusable.
ESSENDON 1.3 7.5 13.7 18.9 (117)
ADELAIDE 3.4 4.9 8.14 11.16 (82)
Best: Essendon: Howlett, Watson, Heppell, Stanton, Dempsey, Bellchambers. Adelaide: Reilly, Wright, Douglas, Thompson.
Goals: Essendon: Howlett 4, Davey 3, Goddard, Stanton, Dempsey, Myers, Hocking, Melksham, Watson, Hibberd, Kommer, Crameri, Bellchambers. Adelaide: Walker 3, Douglas 2, Mackay, Johncock, Jenkins, Petrenko, Porplyzia, van Berlo.
Umpires: Simon Meredith, Scott Jeffery, Brett Rosebury.
Official crowd: 42,218 at AAMI Stadium.
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