Mark Ricciuto Speaks About Adelaide’s Grand Final Loss For The First Time

Mark Ricciuto made his return to Triple M Adelaide’s breakfast show Roo & Ditts this morning, and he spoke publicly about the Crows’ disappointing grand final loss for the first time.

Roo said that he felt Richmond were the best side all day, despite Adelaide leading at quarter time.

Listen to Roo's thoughts on the Grand Final here:

“I thought Richmond won the first quarter and they were the better side in the first quarter, and after that they were definitely the better team.

“So I thought they were the best side for the whole day.

“Now I don’t think anyone would have thought that was gonna happen before the game, that Richmond would be the best side for four quarters.

“Full credit to them, I thought they played great footy on grand final day, everything they did was first class, their pressure, their attack on the ball, they kicked big goals, they won the majority of the positions.”

Roo said that by contrast, the Crows couldn’t get their game plan working on the big stage.

“You flip that over to Adelaide and it’s quite the opposite.

“DIdn’t handle the occasion, Adelaide, I didn’t think. Their skills were way off, that was probably because of their pressure and because we didn’t handle the occasion so missed targets a lot of the time.”

Ricciuto felt that the pressure contributed to the Crows’ struggles with ball movement.

“I thought there was a lot of fumbling, as a result of that we couldn’t move the ball as we usually do.

“That’s usually one of our traits, that we can move the ball really well from back line to forward line, but when you miss your targets that stops.

“So when that stops, the forwards don’t get delivered the ball as well, they don’t play as well, and when it gets bombed in they don’t compete enough.

“So it was really a combination of a heap of factors, a few injuries in the first quarter doesn’t help… four blokes got injured late in the first quarter — that’s not an excuse, it’s just reality — and then they had a lack of run.”

Roo said it all added up to a bad game for the Crows.

“That (the injuries) was a small contribution to a poor performance on grand final day,” he said.

“They have to live with that now, and come back bigger and better next year.”