There were two ways of viewing Round 3’s clash between Melbourne and Adelaide.
Dees fans were incredibly impressed with Bernie Vince’s ability to deny Patrick Dangerfield any real impact on the game. Crows fans were incredibly frustrated by the way Vince went about antagonising Dangerfield.
Even though Vince’s efforts were not enough to earn his team a victory, they did reveal five key points in Adelaide’s game – two strengths and three weaknesses.
Strength No. 1: Adelaide can shut down a team in a hard grind even when their superstars are not firing.
The game started out drastically different from the Crows’ previous two matches, in which the powerhouses of Taylor Walker, Rory Sloane and Dangerfield were ripping apart their opposition.
However in Round 3, Dangerfield was subject to a hard tag, and Walker and Sloane were well held, and to Melbourne’s credit they came out firing, scoring the first three goals of the game and keeping Adelaide scoreless for a good part of the first quarter.
It was a week of unlikely heroes, with Ellis Yolmen stepping up and kicking two, and David Mackay showing how good he can be.
Strength No. 2: Adelaide have a tough mentality.
This mentality allowed them to grind away and recover the lead when the crowd was shut down and moral was low. It can be easier to regain moral when you have a player stand up and do something courageous that turns the game around. Yet Adelaide revealed a new tough-nut mentality that allowed them to overcome considerable opposition efforts without a big-name player displaying leadership, a credit to Phil Walsh as a coach.
Weakness No. 1 Patrick Dangerfield became flustered.
This is a pretty small problem at this stage, however if he is getting shut down and not having a considerable impact upon the game, the Crows lack an explosive edge over the competition. It can damage confidence in games where they are matched all over the ground.
Weakness No. 2: Dangerfield did not receive enough team support.
While Patrick has come out and said that he would gladly take a hard tag every week if it mean the Crows won every game, if another player had played more of a team game by getting himself between Dangerfield and the tagger, the explosive midfielder would have had more time to cleanly dispose of the footy.
Weakness No. 3: Taylor Walker was sucked in to focusing too much on his man and not enough on the game and lifting his team.
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