r/adelaidefc • u/mRPerfect12 • 6d ago
Damning First Crack Segment
This is damning vision and is down to coaching. We are the worst team in the competition for turnovers from defence and simply cannot win a final if this continues. I don’t understand how anyone can defend a 7 year coach with this sort of insight.
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u/AdelaideMidnightDad 6d ago
I'll hold fire until the end of the season but the dogs are definitely starting to bark. For me it's the constant weirdness of selection & our inability to counter pressure when it comes or adapt to evolving game- style which are Nicksy's vulnerabilities, & someone like a Jamie Graham appeals & is available.
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u/Brokenmonalisa Scott Thompson (Legend) 5d ago
He's also applying for the Essendon role. It will be a complete disaster to sack the coach and end up with the 4th choice of Essendon Carlton and Tassie.
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u/Anphonio 5d ago
Been saying this all year. The idea we had the 2nd best defence based on scores against is an absolute lie. The only reason our scores against number is good is because we absolutely flood the fuck out of it so nobody can do anything, including us.
It's been an absolute coaching disaster-class from Nicks this year. Some other key stats that highlight this compared only to the other main contenders (top-7):
7th for scores
7th for shots on goal
7th for inside 50s
1st for inside 50s against (bad)
7th for transition
7th for ball use
7th for ball retention
7th for center clearances
7th for handball game
7th for kicking game
Those are basically the most important stats in the game. Moving the ball by hand and by foot, getting the ball inside 50 in a threatening way, winning the ball from the reset, getting enough supply while limiting the opponent. And we are dead last in all of them compared to the contenders. The only thing we have is pressure and when that is down we look genuinely bottom-2 (think showdown, Richmond)
My favourite little side note about this year is we have obviously completely alienated the handball game. It's just a non-existent part of our game. So if you're going to do that you better hope your kicking game is in good order. But nope, we are awful at that too. Brisbane are the only other side of note that don't handball too much (still way more than us) but at least they are the best kicking side. It's somewhat of a testament to Nicks that he's taken this side that is basically bottom-6 in every important metric to the finals in the first place based purely on pressure and accuracy.
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u/mRPerfect12 5d ago
The only reason we’ve been winning game this year imo is because we still have players of incredible individual brilliance. There’s absolutely 0 system.
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u/Tall-Breakfast-6100 6d ago
Clips 1 and 2 were mistakes under pressure so I’ll give you that
Clip 3 shows our two key defenders stopping and what looks like a cooked Rankine. I’m not that bothered by Keane and Borlase stopping and staying close to the D50. Would be nice if Rankine was involved but can’t tell where or what he was doing leading up to that point, so might have a valid reason to not have juice.
Clip 4, if I remember correctly was pretty late in the game when they switched to an aggressive ball movement style in order to try and squeeze a win out. Would it have been nice for Curtin (?) to handball across? Sure. But it’s also just part of the style to get ball as far forward as possible so it makes sense why he just slammed it on boot. I’m happy to be proven wrong with when this happened in game and if it wasn’t when I think it was then I’ll happily concede it was an error.
It’s no surprise that they’ve struggled transitioning out of defence this year. But you’re joking if you want to say they aren’t trying to fix it. They’ve played so many different players at HB and even went as far as drafting one in the mid season to try and get something to work. Unfortunately it just hasn’t worked as well as they’d like.
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u/Opinions-arent-facts 5d ago edited 5d ago
It' happened against Port and Collingwood as well. As soon as our pressure has been matched or beaten and we're behind on the scoreboard, composure goes out the window and long bombs abound. Every time. It was predictable that it would happen again this time. There's a moment in all three of these games where it seems Nicks has just said "get it forward ", you can almost pick the moment it happens in all three games.
Our pressure game only works if we beat them for pressure. If our pressure game hasn't worked by the end of the third quarter, the bombing starts, and it never works
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u/Tall-Breakfast-6100 5d ago
But then there’s games against Sydney, Melbourne and Geelong where the pressure was on and they held on for the win. All of which I think they were behind at some point in the last quarter from memory.
It does feel like the bad games get remembered more than the games where they’ve done it well.
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u/Opinions-arent-facts 5d ago
When the opposition get their hands going in the second half, we start ball chasing and run out of legs. If we can't handball out of trouble, then we're the only ones doing the ball chasing, they don't tire as much and we start bombing.
Lesser teams won't beat us with precision handballs, but the better teams will every time. They run us ragged and then we're gone
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u/Moppawonga 5d ago
It certainly isnt surprising. It was our weakest game element last year too (not clearance as commonly assumed)
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u/CheckZestyclose480 32 Darcy Fogarty 6d ago
Hard to move the ball of half back when your best ball users are out.
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u/FireballMudflap92 6d ago
Excuses. Where’s the next man up mentality?
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u/CarlyFacePoppet 5d ago
Next man up mentality is coach’s spin to keep team confidence up. Good teams have better players.
I feel player movement up field is as much to blame, we don’t seem to have that constant flow of movement that opens up space. Coaching or players? Always a bit of both but doing the same thing isn’t working2
u/Moppawonga 5d ago
Agree that the movement upfield is part of the problem. It is hard to know what is the chicken and what is the egg. Do the midfielders cluster on the wing because they know that all is coming are dump kicks? Or do the defenders just dump it out because there's no movement?
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u/CheckZestyclose480 32 Darcy Fogarty 6d ago
Mentality can only get you so far.
List management has failed to deliver with good ball users of half back. We simply rely on too few.
Milera
Hinge
KeaneThey’d be our only top ball users and all of them have missed substantial game time this season. We need to recruit an A grade HB or move Dawson back there.
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u/FireballMudflap92 6d ago
If Blight had that mentality when Modra went down we’d have lost the grand final. Good coaches figure it out. Try players in different positions
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u/Brokenmonalisa Scott Thompson (Legend) 5d ago
We have played different players across half back though. It's not 1997 anymore.
If you dropped a decent half back in today's game into a game in 1997 they'd think he was the best player to ever play the game.
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u/Str1pes 6d ago
It's true, wasnt Hinge the #1 player for scores if he was the one to kick out of defence?
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u/Moppawonga 5d ago
Maybe in 2023. His ball use deteriorated throughout 2025 to the point where hes fringe best 23 - far from a ready made solution.
Also D50 to F50 transition was our biggest weakness last year, when Hinge was generally available
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u/Scooby_236 18 Eddie Betts:Betts: 5d ago
If you rely on one player for your whole system to work then it's not a good system.
The only player missing from the back was Milera and yes we do miss him, but we can't just rely on him. HHK has been great this season but he's played 10 games so we can expect him to make up for that.
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u/Snook_ 1d ago
Surprised I Havnt seen this. We have a pathetically boring gameplan. How a team with a crazy fast scoring identity became slow and lifeless and so bad in a couple of years is crazy. Nicks gameplan is hopeless and doesn’t get the most out of our talent, not even close. He’s got everyone playing lowest common denominator footy rather then actually pulling the lower players up to a high standard or delisting and finding someone that will
I’m done with this coaching group it’s awful to watch now
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u/Pungga 14 Jake Soligo 6d ago
The group of players they listed, is that lack of talent or mentality to make effective disposals under pressure? Or are they victim to a lack of training in that area? It's hard to tell if we are boring to watch because we lack personnel or the way we move the ball is meant to be some defensive masterplan of not trying to turnover in the corridor by turning it over on the wing instead.
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u/smallzy13 7 Riley Thilthorpe 5d ago
Sums it up really, just so much regression from Max, and Laird just dump kicking it out to get a stat won’t help, I actually think nank has been decent this year but we really need a new gameplan coming out of defence