I thought that 3 players made all the difference to Adelaide on the weekend: 1) Mark Stevens, as you have said (he seemed to spark Carey even higher); 2) Nathan Bassett (under-rated and yet still one of the most tenacious defenders around, and one of the few who can read the flight of a ball mid-air); and 3) Ben Hart (whose solid performance out of defence was like the Rock of Gibraltor and who, together with Smart and Bassett completed a formidable back-line which remains miserley to a pinch when it comes to opposition teams).
Out of the 3 areas (back, mid and forward), I rated them (out of 10) as: 1) back half = 8.5 (a couple of West Coast goal sneaks due to some height disparity); 2) mid = 5 (the mid field fired but was still not at its energetic best - room for improvement, this week); 3) forward half = 7 (accuracy was what let us down, but every forward thrust had the goal line in sight - with slightly better accuracy, I would have rated them 9).
