Coach Brenton Sanderson says the Crows will be out to rectify their yo-yoing form and record consecutive wins for the first time this season against Carlton at the MCG on Saturday.

Adelaide squared the ledger (2-2) with a 52-point thrashing of the Western Bulldogs at AAMI Stadium last weekend. The strong victory followed what Sanderson described as the Club’s “worst loss” in his short coaching tenure in the Round Three Balfours Showdown. Adelaide’s other win, against Brisbane at the Gabba, was also in response to a lacklustre performance in the Round One loss to Essendon.

Sanderson said consistency remained the biggest issue for his team.

“It was a much better performance and team effort last week. We had a good, even contribution from the whole 22 … and that will be the theme again this week.

“It’s really important we get consistency. We show flashes of what this young side can do and then we let ourselves down. One thing that excited me last week was that we were actually younger than the Western Bulldogs.

“People talk about how we beat a ‘young’ Bulldogs team, but we were younger (average age of the Adelaide team was 24 years and 21 days compared to the Bulldogs 24 years and 174 days. The average number of games experience in the Crows team was 69.9 compared to the Dogs’ 76.) 

"We only had five players with 100 games or more experience and six with fewer than 14 games of experience. I think people sometimes forget that we’re still very young. Because of the success we had last year … almost making a Grand Final … you expect the evolution and improvement to be there but we are still a very young team. Rory Sloane, Taylor Walker, Patrick Dangerfield and Sam Jacobs are all still 21 – 24-years-old, so we’ve still got some growing pains that we’ll have to deal with for the next 12 months to two years.

“We need to keep the foot on the throat and not be complacent about last week’s result. It’s important we turn up ready to play again this week.”

The Crows will be forced to make at least one change to the team that beat the Dogs. Impressive young midfielder Brad Crouch injured his hamstring at training on Wednesday and is expected to miss a minimum of two weeks.

Sanderson said Brodie Smith, who made a successful comeback from injury in the SANFL last weekend, could be recalled to help combat Carlton’s small forwards, Eddie Betts, Chris Yarran and Jeff Garlett. Bernie Vince, Jarryd Lyons and Brodie Martin also performed strongly in the SANFL.

Graham Johncock’s SANFL team, Port Magpies, had a bye. Sanderson said it was likely the veteran would line up in the local league this week.

“I had a good chat with Graham last week, along with Mark Bickley who is his line coach. Graham is going to have to play consistently well to stay in our side,” he said.

“He’s had a great career for us and it’s not the end for him by any means. He’s offering a lot around the Club. He’s got so much knowledge and has played so much footy he has to be able to mentor that next group of young players coming through.

“When he’s in form he’ll play. At the moment, he’s out of our side.”

Carlton notched up its first win of the season against West Coast in Perth last weekend.

Sanderson said he’d been impressed with the Blues’ form despite their 1-3 start to 2013.

“We rate Carlton. They’re very well coached and their win over in the west last week was very good,” he said.

“We’re concerned about their small forwards – that’s their strength. Chris Yarran had 10 running bounces in a quarter last week. I don’t think we’ve had 10 running bounces as a team this year yet. Then you look at the midfield with Marc Murphy, Chris Judd, Bryce Gibbs and Kade Simpson … it’s a quality team and we’re going to have to be at our best to beat them.

“It’s important for us to play well at the MCG too because that’s where we play the big game at the end of the season. We had one win and two losses there last season, so we’ll make sure we go across with a strong plan and, hopefully, we get a win.”

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