by

Dear Sando,

I am writing to you regarding matters from our game against Carlton at the MCG last Saturday evening. It is with much regret that my letter is of high concern. I don’t want to alarm you but I fear our season could be over. Dead, gone, and buried alive at the G’.

To be honest, I don’t think it ever really begun. We’ve been poor since the sun rose on our pre-season campaign. “We’re just one month behind the rest of the competition’s preparation,” we told ourselves in denial believing we would eventually come good. Now five weeks into our quest for the premiership, remembering we missed last year’s grand final by five points at the hands of the Hawks, there’s no more time for excuses.

There have been several moments so far this season where we have looked a shade of our former selves. I think you would agree we’ve been consistently average. Perhaps I was silly to go to last weekend’s game with an air of confidence. At that point I still had blind hope that we’d get ourselves right. Let me tell you I was feeling very different at quarter time!

My spirit was down in the Ponsford stand gutter. We were getting thrashed in the all important KPIs, the scoreboard was 28 points in the red, and Taylor Walker was also in red having been substituted with a season-ending knee injury. Our spearhead forward gone along with our season (sorry Sando I don’t mean to sound so dramatic but this was the general consensus of the Crows fans around me). Cue tears.

It must be said though, with Walker on the bench I applaud you for making some immediate changes to our on-field structure. A previous coach, who shall not be named, once was very stubborn and often made adjustments when it was simply too late. Andy Otten, from the backline, presented well up forward and kicked three goals. Another defender in Matthew Jaensch also bagged a few majors for the game. This gives me, and I’m sure a lot of Adelaide fans, full faith that you will find the right forward line solution for the rest of the season. It may well not be the previous mentioned but I believe you’ll figure it out.

In the meantime though there were still some glaring gaps in our game at the G’. Let me start with our tackling and general effort to get the ball and our pressure around the ball carrier. I felt it was lacking BIG TIME against the Blues and really has been M.I.A since round one. We looked lazy. When the ball was there to be won we didn’t want it enough. Carlton clearly wanted it more. Now I’m certain you feel the same way about our effort, or lack thereof, because we were basically a changed team after three quarter time.

So for this I say ‘Thank you’. It showed a heap of heart to turn a three quarter pitiful performance into a last stanza fightback. Having only managed six goals to the final break we slammed home six in the fourth term alone. We were an inspired side! I can tell you you’d be hard pressed to find a footy supporter who couldn’t walk away from a game just happy that their side gave it a red-hot crack. This was exactly what we did. What a turn around it was from the previous three terms.

Unfortunately our resurgence was unrewarded on the scoreboard. Our comeback was also thwarted by some old-fashioned one-eyed umpiring. That hurt us. So Carlton collected the four points and went home with a 32-point win under their belts. On the other hand we wandered away into a haze of uncertainty for what lies ahead. Are we really dead and buried? Or is our season is in critical condition on life support? Can you fix us? I certainly hope you can.

Yours faithfully,

Anne Fedorowytsch

P.S. Go Crows!

Carlton 6.3 9.5 13.8 17.13 (115)

Adelaide 1.5 3.6 6.9 12.11 (83)

GOALS

Carlton: Garlett 4, Yarran 3, McLean 2, Judd, Murphy, Carrazzo, Simpson, Gibbs, Scotland, Armfield, Betts

Adelaide: Otten 3, Jaensch 3, Walker, Vince, Douglas, Petrenko, Jacobs, Lynch

Best

Carlton: Margetts, Stewart, Ryan

Adelaide: Sloane, Dangerfield, Laird, Otten, Jaensch, Douglas

Official crowd: 44,711

Umpires: Margetts, Stewart, Ryan

Our Votes: 3 Walker (Carl), 2 Garlett (Carl), 1 Sloane (Adel)