Ruckman Sam Jacobs says the Crows can take confidence from claiming their biggest “scalp” of the season at Adelaide Oval on Friday night.
The home team dominated all facets of the game against a red-hot Richmond.
Adelaide shut down the Tigers’ possession game with relentless pressure, laying 73 tackles to 55. It was a stark contrast to the Club’s performance against Sydney last week, where the Crows laid a season-low 38 tackles in a lacklustre display.
In front of 50,094 fans, the Crows nearly doubled Richmond’s forward 50m entries (74-38) and could’ve improved their 36-point winning margin if not for inaccurate goalkicking, which saw Adelaide record 33 scoring shots – 11.22 (88) – to the visitors’ 12 – 8.4 (52).
It was the Club's first win over a top eight team since beating North Melbourne in Round One.
The victory moved the Crows back into the top eight, pending other results of the round. Jacobs said the win over the sixth-placed Tigers was crucial for several reasons.
“It was really important to, not only, respond to last week but we really needed to get a scalp for our year,” Jacobs said after the game.
“It was good to be able to do that tonight and also on the back of a poor performance last week.
“It’s probably our first real four-quarter performance. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to kick straight and made things harder for ourselves than they had to be, but it was good to be able to press on in the second half and go away with a 36-point win in the end.”
Jacobs was instrumental in Adelaide’s victory.
After losing the battle with former teammate Kurt Tippett last weekend, Jacobs controlled the ruck contest against another ex-Crow in Ivan Maric and also former Blues teammate Shaun Hampson. Maric asserted his authority early, starting up forward and kicking the first goal of the game but Jacobs quickly got on top of the Tiger pair.
The former rookie won 37 hit-outs, to go with 14 possessions, four clearances, four tackles, four inside 50ms and three marks. He was pivotal in Adelaide winning the clearance count 50-27.
It was a strong performance from the entire midfield group, who were put under the spotlight by Interim Senior Coach Scott Camporeale following the loss to the Swans.
“I think 'Campo' likes pumping the mids up because that’s his line!” Jacobs said of the long-time midfield coach.
“We (the midfield group) take a lot of responsibility for how we perform as a team. We were really able to press them hard tonight and also not let them play the way they wanted to play.
“It was just good to get a team performance. I thought the leaders were brilliant tonight and really played well when it mattered.”
Jacobs said the result against Richmond showed that Adelaide’s defensive intensity was a mindset.
“It’s something we’ve trained not just this year but in the past we’ve really hammered it too. At training, everything’s good but it’s being able to do it when it matters out on the field,” he said.
“I don’t want to talk about last week too much, but we weren’t able to do it. It was good we got our attitude right and were able to do it this week.”
