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Adelaide coach Neil Craig’s regimental methods haven’t sapped the spirit of players staring at the prospect of the AFL club’s worst start to a season, Crows captain Simon Goodwin says.
Craig’s winless Crows suffered another hit on Wednesday, with key duo Patrick Dangerfield and Chris Knights ruled out of the showdown with arch rival Port Adelaide.
Prime mover Bernie Vince also is in doubt for Saturday’s match, not training on Wednesday due to general soreness as Adelaide’s injured list increased to 14 players.
Dangerfield, one of few bright lights in a dark season for the Crows, will miss a month with a fractured hand while Knights is feared to have suffered a recurrence of a foot injury which wrecked his pre-season.
Coach Craig’s personality and methods have been dissected under an intense microscope caused by five consecutive losses to start a season in which Adelaide expected to be top four contenders.
Adelaide’s hierarchy and players are increasingly bristling at criticism of Craig, with Goodwin on Wednesday the latest to support his beleaguered coach.
Goodwin said players still believed in Craig and his game plan, with the coach’s outlook belying his club’s predicament.
“Neil’s a very diligent coach, he makes really good assessments of where the group is at and what we are doing,” Goodwin said.
“He’s no different. He’s fun to have around the footy club, he’s chirpy, he’s upbeat, and he’s looking forward to this week – he’s no different to any other week.
“We have still got a lot of self belief down at the footy club, we know that there is definitely a lot of talent within the team and we know that we have to bring that out of ourselves.”
Goodwin discounted the notion he and the ageing core of Andrew McLeod, Tyson and Brett Burton faced the chop should the Crows be forced to write-off finals this year and look beyond.
“We are well aware of where we stand,” Goodwin said of the evergreen quartet.
“We spoke about it at the end of last year, that is was going to come down to performance and that is where it’s at.
“We need to perform as a group and the older players understand that.
“We are no different to anyone else in the team, we have to perform to hold our spot and we are no different from younger players … it’s not the way it works at out footy club and it never will be.”
The Crows skipper insisted the lengthy injured list must be put from the players’ minds.
The spate of ailments is likely to force Adelaide to give another rookie, Matthew Jaensch, his AFL debut against Port – an unheralded sixth Crow debutant in six games.
“You want to have as many players available for selection as possible and at the moment we haven’t got that,” Goodwin said.
“But we can’t worry about that, we have got to deal with what we have got out on the training park and perform with that.”
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