Tippett and Mackay, who where Adelaide’s second- and third-round picks in the 2006 NAB AFL Draft, have both played all 12 games this season.
Tippett, 21, earned a NAB Rising Star nomination for his four-goal haul against Melbourne in round eight, but a combination of greater attention from opposition coaches and heavier ground conditions has seen the Queenslander kick just one goal in his past four games.
Mackay, 19, signed a contract extension to stay at West Lakes following his career-high 23 possessions against North Melbourne in round seven, but limited game time has seen him average just eight touches in his last three outings.
Coach Neil Craig said the assumption that first year players would fatigue was not necessarily correct.
“We train very hard, and one of the reasons we train hard and we train our younger guys very hard is to expose them as quickly as we can to that fatigue that you’re maybe forecasting,” he said.
Craig noted that correctly managing the workload of younger players allowed them to better deal with the physical and mental aspects football at the highest level.
“The sooner you expose them to that workload … the responsibility and the demand to be able to perform under fatigue, the better off the players will be.
“Does that mean we don’t give Kurt Tippett an easy session on a Wednesday? No, it doesn’t, but he’s got to understand that there will be fatigue and that he has to perform just as Richard Douglas, Nathan van Berlo, Bernie Vince, Jon Griffin and Ivan Maric have to.
"That’s the way it is.”
The Crows also have a handful of other young players on track to play their first full season of AFL.
Vince (22 career games) has already eclipsed his previous best year by playing all 12 games this season, and Douglas (27 career games) and Maric (19 career games) are also only two games shy of equalling their most prolific seasons.
But unlike Vince, Douglas and Maric – who have at least three years of training at AFL level behind them -- Tippett and Mackay both missed the majority of last year (their first) through injury.
Defender Nathan Bock, who was elevated to the Crows senior list in 2000, confirmed the heavy demands that AFL footy places on first-year players.
“It’s [AFL] a lot more difficult than playing SANFL in terms of the stresses and demands. They (Tippett and Mackay) have a huge challenge ahead of them, but as I said, it’s their first year and they’ve both played every game.
“I think they’ve showed a lot of promising signs throughout the year and I wouldn’t say they are struggling. They’ll continue to show improvement and hopefully they can get back to the form they were in at the start of the year."
