Craig’s Crows ‘fell apart’ in Darwin

ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig says he would prefer to pit his side against the Indigenous All-Stars again - rather than play an internal trial - despite Saturday night’s 54 point thumping.

The Crows managed to stick with the super-quick All-Stars for 10 minutes of the opening term before being blown away.

Craig praised the efforts of youngsters Tom Lee, Myke Cook, James Sellar and Brodie Martin, but lamented his team’s lack of structure and ball use under pressure in the slippery conditions.

He insisted the coaching staff would gain valuable information from the hit-out.

“I think our structures fell apart under their pressure,” he said.

“It’s a disappointment, but you need to play in these sorts of games to find that out, as will be the case in the NAB Cup.

“You need to find these things out early, so that we’re not sitting here in round one talking about it,” Craig said after the game.

The veteran Adelaide coach said it was actually his side’s size advantage which counted against them in the end.

“I thought we were okay early when the conditions were reasonably dry,” he said.

“We saw some patterns of ball movement that we’ve been working on, but as the rain set in that started to drop off and, with the height of our side, we got caught out, but we always knew that was going to be the case.

“We won’t get that information in an internal trial and, if we had our time again, would we still do it? Absolutely. It’s been good for us.”

The All-Stars had too much speed all over the ground for the young Crows, but Craig said that was to be expected given the ‘unnatural’ opposition.

“They [The All-Stars] were good, weren’t they? Just talking to a couple of the guys after the game, they said it was an AFL-standard, the speed of the game, which is what we were after,” Craig said.

“Their speed to get at us quickly, their movement and ball speed exposed us in certain areas, but we always knew that was one of the advantages of playing in that sort of game with that sort of opposition.

“That’s an unnatural AFL side - you’re not going to come up against that too often. It was a good experience for those guys to play against.

“Our young guys wouldn’t have known that speed existed before tonight, but they certainly do now.”

Unlucky defender Greg Gallman, who missed most of last season with knee and ankle injuries, was taken to hospital with a suspected broken collarbone and Patrick Dangerfield suffered mild concussion.

Forward Taylor Walker withdrew from the side with a sore quad, but should be fit for round one of the NAB Cup against Geelong on February 21.