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12:58:36 PM Sun 18 April, 2004
Jason Phelan
Sportal
Star Adelaide midfielder Andrew McLeod has vowed that the player group will pull together and fight its way out of the mire after St Kilda defeated the Crows by 15 points at AAMI Stadium on Saturday night.
The result saw Adelaide – winless after four games – consigned to the bottom of the AFL ladder for the first time in its 14-year history.
A disappointed but defiant McLeod refused to admit the Crows are a spent force in 2004 and feels that Adelaide’s form is moving in the right direction.
“The last couple of weeks we’ve played pretty good footy and unfortunately for us we just haven’t had that polish that you need to kill top sides off,” he said.
“I think that’s probably the thing that’s just eluding us at the moment – we just can’t seem to finish off as well as we’d like to and that’s something we’re going to have to keep grinding away at. Sooner or later it’s going to come if we work hard enough.”
Adelaide pushed the league-leading Saints all the way but was ultimately undone by St Kilda’s aerial superiority and fluency in attack.
The Saints took 111 marks to the Crows’ 76 and appeared to score their goals with relative ease while Adelaide was forced to struggle and scrap for its own.
This fact was not lost on McLeod but he maintained that Adelaide has the personnel to get the job done in attack.
“It helps when you’ve got a bloke like Fraser Gehrig in the goal square and Riewoldt up there as well but we’ve certainly got the players up there to do it,” he said.
“I suppose it just comes down to a bit of a confidence thing too, obviously because we haven’t won a game yet (the) guys don’t have that confidence in themselves but that’s going to come.
“It seems that we’re just battling to get a goal at the moment (but) one day it’s just going to click and it’s all going to happen. If we just keep working hard and keep grinding away at it, it’s going to start happening for us.”
But while he was putting on a brave front in light of Adelaide’s poor run of results there were signs that the mounting pressure on the Crows camp is starting to take its toll.
The normally-affable McLeod bristled at the mention of recent negative press he had received on his own form.
“I just go out there and do my business,” he said.
“I don’t read (too much) into some of the crap that’s been said about me – I’m a pretty big boy - they can say what they want. I know where I am and where I want to be as a footballer.
“I was pretty happy with the way I played last week – I played off half-back and played there again tonight – I’m pretty happy with the way things went but I’m very disappointed with the result.”
When asked how Adelaide planned to resurrect its season, McLeod pinpointed player unity and a strong focus as the keys to success.
“The thing for us now is we’ve got to stick together as a whole and don’t let anything from the outside get to us,” he explained.
“We’ve just got to stick together and things are going to turn around pretty quick.
“There’s still eighteen games to go… that’s the thing we’re pretty excited about. We’ve been in this position before as a club and we know that we’re capable of winning some games.
“We’ve got a quality list – we know that – and as soon as we crack a win I think a whole weight is going to be lifted off our shoulders – it’ll be just what we need and hopefully that’s not too far around the corner.”
