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Adelaide’s winless start to the AFL season continued on Friday night, managing just four goals in a 69-34 loss to Fremantle.
Despite high expectations in pre-season, the Crows have now dropped to 0-3 after falling short against the Dockers in a low-scoring affair at Optus Stadium.
Head coach Matthew Nicks admitted a number of key players are struggling and acknowledged the Crows were low on confidence early in their campaign.
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“Unfortunately at the moment, we’re not playing to a standard that we expect,” he said.
“We’ve got players right now who are down on form – too many to stand up when it counts. I think that comes back to a number of us just quite aren’t where we need to be at the moment. We are frustrated at the moment. We’re letting ourselves down.
“We are struggling to score. The lack of cohesion we have … at the moment it’s just not clicking for us. Unfortunately it’s a couple of weeks that we’ve been off.
“We’ve got to find a way to get out of this form we’re in.”
Adelaide’s inside 50 numbers have been well down on last year across their opening three matches, with former Swans player Gerard Healy pointing out their deficiencies.
“They’ve got some work to do forward of the centre,” he said on Fox Footy.
“You can’t recognise Adelaide’s forward connection this year.”
The side will return home next weekend for Gather Round when they take on the Demons, before a round five meeting with Carlton at the MCG.
Nicks believes there is still plenty of time to turn things around, especially given the likes of Brisbane and Richmond have failed to win a game in 2024.
“It’s still early in the season … there are some very good sides that are sitting in a similar record,” he said post-game.
“By no means are we dropping our bundle, but at the moment we are incredibly frustrated with where we are at.
“I don’t think we’ve lost belief at all… confidence is an amazing thing in footy. When momentum’s with you, you can really ride that and we don’t have that.”
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