Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks said poor decision-making and costly execution errors, not his side’s five-day break, were to blame for the Crows’ disappointing fadeout against Geelong.
Nicks’ men led by as much as five goals on Thursday night, but were mown down by the surging Cats, who booted the first four goals of the last quarter at Adelaide Oval to set up a 19-point win.
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Adelaide was coming off a controversial one-point loss in warm conditions away against Gold Coast, while Geelong enjoyed an extra day of rest following a home win against Melbourne.
But after his charges imploded late against the Cats, Nicks refused to hide behind his side’s preparation as the West Lakes-based club slumped to their eighth loss in nine matches against Chris Scott’s side.
“Our guys did a great job during the week and we were up and going,” Nicks said.
“We got a lot wrong in that last quarter, just some decision-making, our execution, it was really uncharacteristic of us… It wasn’t us, so it’s going to be a hard one for us to go through.
“When you play teams like Geelong, if you make a mistake, you will be punished, and they did that to us.
“I thought for three quarters it was a really good game of footy, but I didn’t enjoy the last quarter at all.
“We played some of our best footy in the first three quarters and then we really just got it wrong in that last one.”
The Crows conceded their highest score of the season in the loss and Nicks admitted his vaunted ‘three-headed monster’ tall forward line was unable to keep the ball inside attacking 50 against Geelong. After kicking no less than three goals in each of his first four games for 2025, emerging superstar Riley Thilthorpe was held to just one goal by a superb Sam De Koning.
“At the moment we’re not really keeping the ball in our front half, so we’re spending a bit of time under pressure and then there’s an execution piece to that as well when the game is not necessarily going our way we seem to make more poor decisions and/or execution,” he said.
“We turned the ball over in some spots where it’s just undefendable, so (conceding) 100-plus points .. that’s a real work-on for us.
“(Our forward line structure) can cost us at times, but other times it stays in there and we score so there is a balance with that. If we don’t deliver the ball the way that we need to it can cost us.
“We’ll keep backing that in, but there’s too many other areas … it was mistakes in places where, good luck, a turnover 50 metres from goal you’re not stopping that very often.”
Star midfielder Izak Rankine was touch and go to play with a sore calf, but he was one of his side’s better players in the first three quarters and Nicks reported he was moving unhindered in the changerooms after the match.
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