We haven’t had the start to the season we would have liked, but we know we’ve just got to get back to the brand of football that we know we play very well, which includes winning our contests both individually and as a team. Probably defensively as a team we’d like to be stronger than what we’ve been, and that’s certainly something we’ve been working on. We saw improvement against Collingwood last week, but we’ve just got to do it for longer than we did it last week.

While the last two weeks haven’t been our best, we’ve been pleased with the way our key defenders have operated. We were really happy with both Teddy Richards and Heath Grundy in last week’s match against the Magpies. To hold Travis Cloke to two goals last week was a great effort by Teddy when we were under a bit of pressure, and for Reg to hold Jesse White to no goals was also a good job.

Despite our results over the last two rounds, the vibe around the club has been really good, which is a credit to our leaders. The playing group have been terrific with our leaders in Macca and Kizza really driving the group. They do that very, very well and our leadership group with Joey Kennedy, Benny McGlynn, Teddy Richards and the rest of the guys, they make sure that we don’t take any shortcuts and drive the group fabulously well. We know we’ve just got to get back to playing some good football and we’re really confident we can do that this weekend.

Looking at tomorrow’s game, Eddie Betts is certainly one of Adelaide’s forwards who we need to get a handle on. He’s kicked six goals over the last two rounds, including four last week, so he’s a very talented player. From a defensive point of view, he’s certainly one we look at as one of their main sources of goal scoring. Nick Smith is someone who has played on him before when he was at Carlton, but Dane Rampe can also play on those small, quick types, so we do have a couple of options to play on him.

We also need to keep on top of James Podsiadly, who has moved over to Adelaide as well this season, and with Josh Jenkins in the team, they do have those talls up in their forward line that we need to focus on.”

The Crows do have a fairly new-look forward line to the team we encountered last season, so we’ve had to take the time to look closely at how Betts and Pods fit into their structures. We know they are probably still experimenting a little bit with that themselves to find the best set-ups they can find. We need to make sure we defend well on those players, who have been talented players for a long time.

This weekend’s game is our first road trip for the year and we’re all really looking forward to it. We’re very much on a mission to get over there and to bring home the four points. We know Adelaide will be equally as hungry for a win, so we’re expecting a very big game at Adelaide Oval tomorrow afternoon.