After our first look at Adelaide on the weekend in the Marsh Community Series, Kane Cornes has two concerns for them leading into the season.
The Crows went down to the Demons by 33 points at Casey Fields and Cornes believes they have a bit to work out before Round 1.
“I went down to the Crows a couple of weeks ago and had a good hour with Matthew Nicks and I did ask him, ‘there’s so many stats in footy now, which stats do you look at and in the coaches box what are you focusing on?’” he told SEN SA Breakfast.
“He said ‘the ones for us are time in possession – how long we have the ball in our hands as opposed to the opposition – time in forward half and scores from turnovers are basically the three stats that I look at’.
“So I looked at the game and particularly the way that Adelaide started. They were clearly focused on having huge time of possession. Short kicks in their backline, maintain the ball, disposal numbers would have been through the roof.
“But it is a bit concerning because just in the backline with their personnel, they don’t have a lot of great ball users there, granted Brodie Smith didn’t play and he’s going to help clearly.
“When you look at Luke Brown, Kyle Hartigan, Daniel Talia, Jake Kelly, these types of players aren’t great ball users so if that is the style of play I’m concerned they’re going to turn the ball over a lot and get scored against heavily.”
With Eddie Betts and Josh Jenkins joining Charlie Cameron and Mitch McGovern out the door at Adelaide, Cornes is worried how their forward line goes about kicking a winning score.
“Just the other area of concern for me is where the goals come from,” he said.
“I think Taylor Walker kicked 44 goals last year. Can he replicate that? Can Darcy Fogarty hit the scoreboard?
“As much as they like Shane McAdam and Tyson Stengle, these aren’t big goal scorers.
“Who is going to be their goal scorers? They kicked 10 on the weekend and that’s an area of concern for me. Can they kick a winning score each week? I’m not sure.
“No Josh Jenkins, no Eddie Betts, a lot of goals have gone out of the Crows.”