Adelaide are still searching for answers why they blew a chance to take top AFL spot with a loss to unfancied North Melbourne, Crows forward Jason Porplyzia says.
The Crows could have taken the ladder leading position with a win, but instead slipped to fifth after their 32-point defeat to the Kangaroos on Sunday.
Compounding the loss was Kurt Tippett suffering concussion, with the key forward in doubt for Adelaide’s home fixture against Richmond on Saturday.
Porplyzia believes goal-kicking blunders were a factor in the loss to North, with Tippett and Shaun McKernan both spraying close-range set shots early in the match.
“I’m sure we will come up with a solution as to why we were below what our fans have come to expect from us this year,” Porplyzia told reporters on Monday.
“Certainly it wasn’t the way we’d like to start – we had a few opportunities early but missed them and they seemed to get a bit of a run-on.
“We talked about having a fast start and making sure that we would start well away home so that was disappointing.
“It obviously hurts when we can’t put scoreboard pressure on and it does deflate the team, there is no doubt about it.”
After the sapping early misses, the Kangaroos streeted to a match-defining 41-point halftime lead.
But Porplyzia, who will play his 100th AFL match against Richmond, denied the Crows were over-confident entering the clash against the mid-table Roos.
“If we had any notions of getting ahead of ourselves, we were certainly put back in our place yesterday,” he said.
“We can’t get ahead of ourselves … we’ll make sure if that sort of thing starts to creep in, we’ll stamp it out pretty quickly.”