Adelaide
Coach – Don Pyke
2016 –
Points For – 1st
Points Against – 6th
Top 5 Best and Fairest
- Rory Sloane
- Eddie Betts
- Tom Lynch
- Daniel Talia
- Taylor Walker
2016 Rising Star Noms
None
Ins – Jordan Gallucci, Myles Poholke, Elliot Himmelberg, Matthew Signorello, Ben Davis, Ben Jarman
Outs –Nathan Van Berlo, Matthew Jaensch, Luke Lowden, Keenan Ramsey, Ricky Henderson, Mitch Grigg, Jarryd Lyons
My Prediction
Adelaide is such a hard team to rate. They are consistent, their team is hard to break into which means it can be hard to get a gauge of their depth. They havent been quite good enough to make the top four but have such a settled team that it is hard to see where the improvement will come from.
Their backline is steady. It is probably the area that needs to improve if they are to make the top four. They look light on for KP depth back there with Hartigan, Talia and Lever, they would love Andy Otten to find some of the touch that made him such a promising player earlier in his career. They have handy users off half back with Seedsman and Smith. Not exactly a mind blowing backline and I am not sure there is a massive amount of improvement to be made.
The midfield is a little one paced but they are hard at it and not often beaten. Sloane was huge last year, I know a lot of Adelaide people who told me he was more valuable than Dangerfield. Of course they were kidding themselves but he was very good. They will be hoping to have both Crouch boys running amok together this year, along with Thompson they are covered for hard nosed mids. I think they will look to add another dimension this year and hope that Milera and Cameron can push towards the midfield and give them a little more pace.
The rucks are ok as long as Jacobs stays upright. If he doesnt they have Jenkins but then who would they have to duck out the back at marking contests and kick cheap goals? Jenkins is a much more valuable forward then ruck so if there is one player they cant afford an injury to it is Jacobs.
The forward line is best in show, they were already strong with Jenkins, Tex and Lynch before they found McGovern who kicked 32 in his first year. They then have the best small forward in the game with Betts and have Milera and Cameron running around at the feet of the big guys. They will continue to kick winning scores and one end and just need the backline to do their job in restricting the other end.
So we have have a team with a great forward line, an average backline and a slightly above average midfield. They do what they do well and I think Pyke could not have squeezed anything else out of them last year. I dont see them dropping unless injury comes into play, they had a pretty good run injury wise last year. Even last year when they were having a run at the top four, I couldnt bring myself to rate them highly, for mine they just arent quite good enough and I dont see where the improvement will come from. Somewhere from 6th to 8th for mine.