The thing that Adelaide coach Brenton Sanderson has brought to the Crows this season is contested footy. It’s well-documented that Sanderson believes contested football is what wins finals, and coming from Geelong and playing in a lot of finals himself, he thinks contested possession is the way to go about it. This year, the Crows have improved out of sight in that regard, and Sanderson has done a really good job with them.
In terms of contested possession percentage this year, the Crows are number one and the Swans are number two, and the clearances and stoppage numbers are pretty similar as well, so it looks like Saturday’s final is going to be a really hard and tough contest.
Adelaide are fourth in the competition for taking contested marks and second for marks inside 50, so as a midfield group we need to not let them get easy, quality entries deep where their forwards can get in one-on-one battles and take contested marks. We need to make sure we’re putting a lot of pressure on their mids that are kicking the ball inside 50.
Patrick Dangerfield and Scott Thompson have been leading the way in the midfield for Adelaide, and they are two particularly strong and talented players.
Dangerfield is so powerful, and the thing we need to get better at this week is our tackling. Dangerfield does try and barge through tackles, so this week, if we get the opportunity to tackle him, we need to make sure we stick it.
Thompson is very similar to Dangerfield in that he is also hard and tough, runs really hard and is also a quality player. The exciting thing about finals’ football is that we’re up against the best of the best, and Thompson and Dangerfield are certainly right up there. It’s a great opportunity for our players to play against them, and we’d like to think we’ve got a few guys who are playing good footy too at the moment.
Over the last month, our midfield has been a little bit up-and-down but we’ve played against some of the competition’s best and we’ve had our opportunities. We’ve been hard and tough, but it’s more the decisions and the ball use through the midfield that has to improve this week. The contested ball and actually having the courage to keep backing up and taking on the opponent has been really good, but we just need to make sure our decision making and ball use is as effective as it can be this week.
Playing an interstate final is always tough, but we know what’s ahead of us and we have had that knowledge for a week now. We need to start well because if we can the silence the Adelaide crowd early over there it’s always great, but that’s not the be all and end all. What we need this week is a four-quarter effort of playing the way we want to play. Each individual needs to bring their best to the game and as a team we need to work really well together because the Crows over there have been a good side, but we’re really excited about going over to Adelaide and having a decent crack.
