Adelaide has fallen away in the last fortnight after an impressive opening to the season.
The Round 2 defeat to Collingwood aside, the Crows were in each of the other five matches, winning three and losing a couple by single-point margins.
But in the past two weeks, they’ve dropped away alarmingly with heavy losses to GWS (59 points in Round 7) and Carlton by 48 points on Sunday.
Matthew Nicks did not coach against the Blues due to COVID protocols while midfielder Matt Crouch was dropped, but they cannot be blamed for the manner of the defeat, says Kane Cornes.
“In the end, there’s no real excuses for that performance,” he said on SEN SA Breakfast.
“The thing that struck me was it was a very un-Adelaide-like performance to what they have delivered for the most part of the season so far.”
Cornes believes the Crows are currently devoid of the hard working qualities that served them so well in wins over Richmond and the Western Bulldogs in previous weeks.
It is this defensive frailty which has led to the leaking of 229 points in two weeks that has become a major problem.
“Defensively incredibly poor the last fortnight,” he added.
“To concede 113 points against the Giants, you always want to keep the opposition under 100, that’s bare minimum.
“You look back at the Western Bulldogs game and it was 62 they kept them to. Phenomenal defensive performance. Against Richmond it was 82.
“So 113 last week against the Giants and 116 conceded against Carlton. You look a little bit deeper, they’ve given up 74 (inside 50) entries which I read is the second most of the year from any team. When you look at West Coast and North Melbourne and the way they’re playing, that’s pretty poor.
“Where has their fight, their desire, their competitiveness, their toughness around the ball gone? Their intensity when the opposition win the footy, to get it back, I thought that was lost.
“Carlton were able to transition the ball incredibly easily from their back 50 through to their forward 50 and the defensive mechanisms from Adelaide completely broke down.”
The Crows were completely outplayed by the Blues, losing the inside 50 count 74-49, the clearances 42-31 and contested possession 142-128, among plenty of other stats discrepancies in what was a stark contrast to their recent outings.
Next up for the 14th-placed Crows is the arduous task of taking on the third-placed Brisbane Lions at the Adelaide Oval this Saturday night.
Listen to the rest of the wash up from the Crows’ loss below: