Craig’s ‘soft’ reference made headlines following the Crows’ 26-point Showdown defeat, but the club’s longest-serving coach was quick to qualify the context of the written material.
“It (the word soft) was more about some of our attacking ball movement, which I spoke about in the (post-match) press conference as being speed of movement, aerial work and our stoppages,” Craig said on Thursday.
“Obviously, in footy the word ‘soft’ has an immediate connotation that we all know about (which is) weak and won’t have a go.
“I haven’t got a soft group of players here.”
Port Adelaide’s dominance at stoppages could be attributed to a 44-17 thrashing in the hit-outs.
Ruckman Ivan Maric, who impressed with four goals in the SANFL on the weekend, was already under strong consideration for an AFL recall and his chances were done no harm on Thursday when teammate Jon Griffin failed to front up for training.
“He [Griffin] is sick. There has been a respiratory illness going around. Simon Goodwin has had it for the last couple of weeks and now Jon has it.
“Hopefully, he’ll be okay. We’ll know more tomorrow on that one. Typically, for the guys that have had it in the past, it’s been a 24-hour situation.”
The midfield group spent the last 20 minutes of training walking through some set-ups in the centre square.
Craig said stoppages would remain a work in progress for the developing midfield this season.
“Clearly we need to do some work on our stoppages and that will be topical until we actually start to make some progress,” he said.
“You cannot live with 20 more stoppages against you during a game. The weight of numbers will get you no matter what else you’re doing around the ground and how well you’re doing it.”
Adelaide’s poor performance against the Power has some fans calling for key duo Simon Goodwin and Andrew McLeod to be reinstated to the midfield.
Craig said the club would continue to honour its commitment to the future.
“We’ve made some big decisions in the past and in relative terms we’ve got a very young squad. We’ve made the decision to do that so we’ve got to be committed to where we’re going as a club, irrespective of criticism or pressure from outside,” Craig said.
“The guys who play in there (the midfield) have got to play with a winning attitude and then we’ll take whatever we get from it. The easy option for me this weekend coming up against the Western Bulldogs would be to pull all those guys out and put all the experienced guys in, but that’s not going to happen. It’s not the way we’re going.”
