DESPITE falling to the unbeaten North Melbourne by seven points in Friday's qualifying final, Adelaide might have just exposed the Roos' weak spot.
Widely agreed upon as the competition benchmark, the Kangaroos flew into finals, with the only blemish their week two draw with Geelong. But the Crows took control in the opening half on Friday night, becoming just the second team to take a lead into the main break against the minor premier.
"The made North Melbourne look vulnerable, I think, at times on Friday night," Lucy Watkin said on the Credit to the Girls podcast.
"North Melbourne, undefeated, it's so great they've been undefeated. But for me, I'm just like, the loss has to come. And they looked the closest that they have come to losing… there's only two more games left, I'm worried for North Melbourne. And with the way that Adelaide played, it's sort of like, 'Can a team use that against them later in this finals series?'"
The Roos were held to just 13 points to half-time – their second-lowest half-time score for the year – and ultimately finished with their third-lowest score of the season with a final score of 38.
To the main break, North Melbourne's tall forward trio of Kate Shierlaw, Tahlia Randall, and Emma King had taken just three marks between them, with Shierlaw and Randall goaling as a result.
A slow first half on the scoreboard bucked the club's trend of doing early scoreboard damage, with it generally doing more than half of its scoring across the first two quarters. Against Adelaide, however, just 34.2 per cent of its score came in the first half.
"What I found really interesting was the way (the Crows) opted to just lengthen their defence. So, Chelsea Biddell stayed deep," Gemma Bastiani said.
"The week leading up, and if you watch The W Show last week, it was all about how North Melbourne in week nine, or whatever it was, jumped the wall… they essentially broke through that really high press that Adelaide likes to get that works so effectively against other teams.
"Adelaide prepared themselves for that, and Chelsea Biddell just stayed deep, so every time North tried to go fast, they actually looked up and they saw Zoe Prowse in front of them, Tahlia Randall, and then Chelsea Biddell behind so they didn't get that one-on-one in space that they wanted."
Roos coach Darren Crocker made the necessary changes at half-time to get the game back on their terms, but it wasn't without a little help from star midfield duo Jasmine Garner and Ash Riddell.
"Riddell and Garner as well were, once again, excellent in the third quarter. They helped get the Roos on top, but it was a nice tussle," Watkin said.
