By Michael Whiting
Dissapointed Gold Coast SUNS coach Guy McKenna was making no excuses for Saturday's 69-point loss against Adelaide, saying the first quarter performance was simply not up to scratch.
Adelaide led by 31 points at the first change, on the back of a rampant midfield performance, winning the centre clearances nine to one and the inside 50s, 26-7.
It was one-way traffic out of the middle and big Crows forwards Kurt Tippett (three goals) and Taylor Walker (two) helped set up the early lead.
"We had some plans in place and we didn't execute them so you're six goals down before you start," McKenna said.
"We just didn't get our hands on the footy.
"Everyone knows about contested footy and our numbers were down in that area in the early part of that first quarter.
"I would have thought that was a huge strength of ours last year. When you're nine-zip (down) out of the centre that makes it fairly tough.
"I don't think it's an attitude thing ... when you've got (Adelaide ruckman Sam) Jacobs getting his hand to it, it makes it hard for these fellas (midfielders) to start.
"I think overall we adjusted after that, but the damage was done."
The centre clearances finished 17-13 to Adelaide and the overall clearances 38-35.
The Suns coach was also disappointed with the final 10 minutes, where Adelaide kicked the final four goals to put the exclamation point on an emphatic win.
"You can say we're cramping, we're a young side and all that, but you'd expect to fly a flag I would have thought," he said.
"There's 36 minutes of the game (first quarter and last 10 minutes) where we gave them 10 goals, just handed it to them."
Captain Gary Ablett said the players were just too slow to adjust to Adelaide's centre square dominance.
"It took us 10 or 15 minutes to change things up and by then it was too late," Ablett said.
"We'll make sure we improve at those things, we'll look at the edits during the week and see where we can make some changes and do it quicker. Until we start changing things ourselves as players we're not going to improve."
McKenna said he was pleased with the four-quarter performance of Harley Bennell (22 disposals) and some of the midfield work of Karmichael Hunt (14 touches).
He was also full of praise for defender Seb Tape, who had three teeth knocked out.
"But typical of 'Sticky', he stayed out there and manages as best he can," McKenna said.
"He's a fearless competitor, he's a bloke you love to have. He can make some errors, but he played on (Jason) Porplyzia for most of the day up until that point and I thought his job was fairly good."
