Thompson laments patchy efforts
Scott Thompson says the Crows played well at times but again failed to put four quarters together against the Western Bulldogs
ADELAIDE star Scott Thompson has lamented his team's inability to string four quarters together after another inconsistent performance, this time in the 30-point loss to the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Friday night.
The Crows jumped out to an early lead, booting six first-quarter goals.
But they could manage only four more goals for the match and posted a score of 70 or less for a fourth straight game, all resulting in losses.
As coach Neil Craig noted after the match, Adelaide has shown glimpses of quality football in all bar its round 10 and 11 losses to the Brisbane Lions and North Melbourne respectively, but been unable to maintain intensity for long enough to win.
That pattern was repeated again on Friday night.
"It's another disappointing result," Thompson said after the loss.
"The disappointing thing at the moment is that we can put some really good patches of footy together, but it falls away.
"And when it does fall away we can look quite bad at times.
"It's frustrating, but we need to stay strong as a group and work towards what we want to get out of each game."
As he has been so often this season, Thompson was his team's best onballer, gathering 29 disposals and laying seven tackles.
But some of his other midfield teammates struggled to keep pace with the star-studded Bulldogs engine room, which had Ryan Griffen, Matthew Boyd, Callan Ward and Daniel Cross all in imposing touch.
The Crows laid 18 tackles in the first quarter, but only 38 more for the match.
Contested possession was even in the first quarter, but Adelaide lost the count by 15 in the second quarter, as well as conceding the first 11 clearances of the term.
"[The] second quarter was very poor by us," Thompson said.
"[Stoppages] is an area we've been working on to try and get better at, but it wasn't good enough tonight.
"But we'll look over the vision and work out where we're going wrong and try to address that in the coming weeks."
Thompson suspected insufficient mental application was the reason the young Crows had been unable to maintain a high level for a full game.
"You've got to be able to concentrate for four quarters," he said.
"The way the contested side of it has gone up, if you lapse at any stage the opposition can score quite quickly, and we saw that tonight."
Despite hopes of finals action now being gone after managing only three wins from 12 matches, the experienced midfielder is confident motivation will remain high as long as the team continues to show glimpses of its potential.
"We're very good in patches," he said.
"We showed again tonight in the first quarter, when we're at our best we can play some quality football, and that will keep us up, when we look at the vision and see how good we can be as a team.
"When we get that over four quarters, we'll be a very good football side."
With media scrutiny in Adelaide around the future of senior coach Craig sure to intensify yet again, Thompson stated firmly that the players remain "absolutely" 100 per cent behind their leader.