THE ADELAIDE Crows and Fremantle Dockers played out a highly defensive and pressure-filled contest at Fremantle Oval to close out Round Two.

Running out 33-point winners, the Crows were simply too good, capitalising on their midfield dominance and some great contested marks inside forward 50.

But the main feature of the contest from both sides was their defensive lines, with Adelaide managing to keep the Dockers goalless – the first time they have done so against an opposition since Season 6. It was also the first time Fremantle was held goalless since Season 7.

Adelaide’s backline consisted of solid performances by Brooke Tonon, Zoe Prowse, Sarah Goodwin, Madison Newman, Chelsea Biddell and Sarah Allan in an incredible team effort.

This was in contrast to incredible efforts from Fremantle’s defenders; Emma O’Driscoll, Madeleine Scanlon and Ash Brazill, who had the best games for the Dockers without being rewarded with the win.

Chelsea Randall was immense for the Crows, not just in defence, but all over the ground. Her usual two-way running and marking were a feature, kicking a goal, amassing 19 disposals, four marks and four tackles in the match.

After the game both Fremantle coach Lisa Webb and Adelaide mentor Matthew Clarke agreed that it was a defensive slog. However, Webb was adamant that the Dockers should be looking at it, learning from it and moving on.

“[It was] very disappointing to go down like that, Adelaide though to their credit are a very, very good team that are really well-drilled,” Webb explained.

“[It’s] just obviously tough one for us to swallow but we’ve got a six-day break and we want to make sure we reset and push forward for next week.”

When asked how they lost the match, Webb was pragmatic about the fact that Adelaide simply outworked and wanted the win more than her side.

“I just think they outworked us to be honest,” she said.

“Obviously they’ve got some really good players as well and with them having a plus one behind the ball and their ability to work it forward, we are just reactive, we weren’t clean in the contest [and] we fumbled the ball.

“[They are] things that we can turn around but [it’s] mostly just disappointing, especially at home in front of our crowd.”

When looking at how they move forward, Webb is clear that they need to work on their decision-making and making better decisions to build off their midfield’s hard work.

“I think with our decision-making with ball in hand, we had to fight incredibly hard for that and when we did, we made some poor decisions,” Webb continued.

“[It was] a big challenge for the mids obviously to go up against them but we were definitely beaten inside.

“I’ll just challenge the girls again, they’ve got to get to work again against another good team next week but they’ve been working hard at their craft and they’ll continue to build but that was a disappointing one today.”

After a tight first quarter that netted his side 1.3 to Fremantle’s solitary point, Clarke was proud of the Crows’ effort to continue to heap on the pressure.

“I thought that both teams had a really high pressure level and I thought after quarter one in particular, I thought that we really elevated in that area,” Clarke said.

“That was probably the standout, and then obviously defensively we were really solid, [there was] a really strong work rate from everyone to really allow us to hold some really good shape.”

When looking at where the game was won by Adelaide, it’s easy to look at the exploits of the defenders, particularly Prowse who enjoyed four marks including a Mark of the Year contender. Clarke was full of plaudits for his whole side for being able to generate the spare defender that was part of their tactics.

“It relies on the whole of the team to obviously generate that [spare in defence], it’s not just our defenders but clearly our defenders were really impressive,” he said.

“[They] won a lot of one-on-one contests and obviously ‘Freo’ kicked six points but a lot of the time that was [off the back of] a lot of pressure from our defenders so [I’m] really pleased.”

Once again, Ebony Marinoff looked to be a class above the midfielders, she finished with one goal, 31 disposals, seven marks, four clearances and 19 tackles (twelve more than the second highest tackler).

Anne Hatchard also collected 29 disposals, although a little fumbly early, she got on the end of two goals with seven marks, eight clearances and four tackles of her own.

Clarke spoke about their impact on the contest and the way they were able to give the Crows’ forwards better delivery over their performance in Round 1.

“They are amazingly consistent and have been for a long period of time so I guess in some ways we come to expect it which is probably a little unfair,” Clarke added.

“Clearly both Anne and Ebony had a heap of it through work rate [and] Madison Newman got a lot of the ball, once again through high work rate, but I also thought some of our newer midfielders who the possession rate may not have been quite as high but I felt like the general pressure that they brought was at a really, really good level.”