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AFL greats slam Crows for Showdown debacle

Jul 8th, 2019Jul 8th, 2019

Adelaide can't win the premiership this year according to one AFL great, while another has accused the Crows of surrendering to Port Adelaide and questioned Taylor Walker's captaincy.

The fallout from Adelaide's calamitous 57-point Showdown capitulation continued on Monday night when Brisbane triple-premiership player Jonathan Brown said Don Pyke's team lacked the midfield speed necessary to break their 20-year premiership drought.

"They can't win the flag for me because their spread from their midfield is a concern," Brown said on Fox Footy's On The Couch.

"Port Adelaide seemed to be happy to flick the handball on more so than they have done this season.

"I reckon they'd done their homework on Adelaide and thought 'You know what? Let's just flick it on, get the ball moving, get it outside the contest because we think we can out-run the Adelaide midfield'."

St Kilda legend Nick Riewoldt lambasted the Crows for a shocking lack of effort in a second half where they kicked just 1.3 and conceded the last nine goals of the match.

"To see Don Pyke sitting on the bench post-game totally disconsolate ... that's a pretty rare sight to see a coach respond that way in the modern game," Riewoldt said on Fox Footy.

"The first half was great - the crowd was up, they were into it, it was a typical Showdown - but in the second half after Tex kicked that early goal (they had) 12 inside 50s and the third-lowest pressure rating by a team in a half of footy in any game this year.

"So it was pretty clear that Adelaide waved the white flag."

Riewoldt highlighted Steven Motlop's late goal where he sprinted past four jogging Crows to emphasise his point.

"When you see that type of vision that's when you know the players have given up," he said.

"That's (lack of) effort ... pure and simple."

Riewoldt, who skippered the Saints in 220 games to be the third-longest serving skipper in VFL/AFL history, was also taken aback by a comment from Walker at his Monday press conference.

"I will never, ever question effort at our footy club," Walker replied when asked if the Crows had given up.

Riewoldt said he hoped that was Walker's public message, while behind closed doors he was taking the opposite tone.

"Because as captain, when you see stuff like that, that's your job ... to question effort and call out a lack of effort when you see it," Riewoldt said.

"You just hope that behind closed doors it's a very different story."


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