Adelaide
Coach – Matthew Nicks
2020 –
Points For – 18th
Points Against – 18th
Top 5 Best and Fairest
- Reilly O’Brien
- Rory Laird
- Luke Brown
- Matt Crouch
- Ben Keays
2020 Rising Star Noms
Lachlan Sholl (Round 18)
Ins – Riley Tilthorpe, Luke Pedlar, Brayden Cook, Sam Berry, James Rowe, Jackson Hately, Mitch Hinge
Outs – Rory Atkins, Ben Crocker, Brad Crouch, Jordan Gallucim Bryce Gibbs, Kyle Hartigan, Riley Knight, Myles Poholke, Ayce Taylor, Patrick Wilson
My Prediction
Talk about the year from hell. I know we have had falls from grace before but hard to remember one as sharp and as sustained as the current Crows team. Even with the list challenges and gaps, it still feels like they underperformed against their potential last year. They have enough talent on their list to have finished higher than they did.
Their backline is actually reasonable and injuries played their part last year. Talia is a quality full back and rarely beaten. Doedee has shown when he is up and about that he is a very capable intercept and marking player. McAsey looks a player and Brodie Smith is a good half back. They were swamped last year though with the midfield not able to stem the flow when the opposition got moving. They were often left with too much to do. Sholl looks a talent and should see some time off half back.
The midfield is thin on the ground and they need to throw some caution to the wind and give their younger players greater responsibility. I would expect that Fogarty sees more midfield time this year and that Pedlar will get games early. Sloane found it hard going last year missing half a dozen games and not looking like he could carry the load when he was on, will need a lot more support. Milera played some good minutes and I think Hamill will also see serious time in the middle. Hately looks a good pick up and will form part of the long term midfield future. It is going to be a very raw midfield next year but one they need to support in becoming more competitive.
The forward line that looked unstoppable a few years ago, looked a disaster last year. If Tex Walker was a race horse he would have been shipped off to the knackery, he looks entirely finished. Himmelberg looks a super talent and Tilthorpe will form some sort of sick twin towers at some stage. Tom Lynch looked ineffective for large parts of the season and Tyson Stengle who looks a talent seems unable to keep his nose clean off the field. McAdam looks a good prospect but there is still a lot of work to do for this forward line to regularly kick winning scores.
The jury is well and truly out on Nicks, he didn’t have a great first season but also he didn’t have a lot of tools or talent at his disposal. He needs improvement this year or the calls for his head will come but the end of the year, Adelaide don’t have a history of accepting mediocrity. The ruck stocks look solid enough. O’Brien is a good young ruck and worth building your midfield around. They have Himmelberg that can cover and picked up Tilthorpe who wont be ready yet but will give coverage.
I don’t think things are dire at Adelaide despite the wooden spoon, they have pretty good young talent coming through and should be able to leverage off their home ground advantage to climb up the ladder a little. I think they should be looking at 5-6 wins this year and will find themselves somewhere in the 14-16 range.
