THE FEELING of being knocked out of the finals is always a very bad one.

It can be even worse when it's early in September because it feels like you've wasted the season.

Unfortunately, this was the case for Adelaide and North Melbourne last week.

The Crows would have been happy to earn a home final because they're hard to get. They were probably pretty happy just to get into the finals, but to then waste that opportunity was very disappointing.

Adelaide only really played one good quarter of football on Saturday and that’s certainly not enough to beat a team like Collingwood.

The Crows would be pretty disappointed with the way the season panned out given their really good start to the year, and because they had an opportunity to do better with a home final and didn’t take it.

But I think they did pretty well with that they’ve got.

Adelaide is certainly in a period where the club is promoting younger players and putting more responsibility on their shoulders. This year, Andrew McLeod didn’t play in the middle much. Simon Goodwin played a lot up forward and Tyson Edwards spent more time around the ground than in the middle.

Neil Craig and his players have taken some big steps forward in the area of development and I thought a number of the youngsters really stepped up.

Nathan van Berlo had a huge second half of the year. 'VB' went into the leadership group before the start of the season and he’s probably looking like being the Crows' next captain if he can continue to improve.

Second-year player Kurt Tippett surprised everyone. Kurt tapered off a bit towards the end of the year, which is not uncommon for young players, but he could develop into a really good key forward and ruckman.

Some of the grabs he took inside 50m were exactly what the Crows have been looking for up forward, so they’ll be hoping to keep him away from the Gold Coast when the new franchise comes knocking in a couple of years.

Bernie Vince also put in some of really good performances in 2008. I think his breakout game was in the first Showdown when Adelaide really needed someone to stand up and be counted.

Jason Porplyzia took his game to a new level, Nathan Bock had his best year and David Mackay looks like he’s going to be a good player for a long time.

Ivan Maric needed to step up with Benny Hudson leaving last year and he probably ended up overtaking the others in becoming the club’s number one ruckman.

And I think you can expect more of the same next year.

Guys like Porplyzia, Vince, van Berlo, Tippett, Mackay and Maric are all capable of improving again. Chris Knights had an unlucky year with injury too, so there’s plenty of excitement on the Adelaide list.

Experienced guys like Goodwin, McLeod and Edwards will all play at least another year, so that will be good for the young players’ development and should see the Crows around the mark again in 2009.

People have talked about Adelaide’s forward line as its biggest weakness, but I think the club needs to work on its skills more than anything else.

Having a good skill level is really important in the way Adelaide wants to play and Geelong is a great example. You need to be able to hit targets to move the ball quickly and to give your forwards a chance against their defenders one-out.

I also think people are reading more into Adelaide’s finals record under Neil than what’s actually there.

When I was at West Lakes, I certainly didn’t see Neil do anything wrong or different in finals compared to the minor rounds, where he has the best winning record of any current coach.

In 2005 and 2006, bad luck played an unfortunate role and injury and illness really affected us.

And, in the last couple of years, we just haven’t been good enough and were probably lucky just to make the finals.

Obviously, Neil would like to have a better record than 2-5, but if people are trying to hang him for a bad record in the finals, well that’s certainly not right.

--------------------------------------------------------------
More from The Locker Room
--------------------------------------------------------------

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.