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Adelaide are the first team into the 2017 AFL grand final and, regardless of whether they play Richmond or GWS, they will be starting warm favourites to take out their first flag since 1998.
The Crows couldn’t have been more impressive, posting the highest score of the finals series so far and frankly never allowing Geelong a chance once they got to five goals up in the first quarter.
Adelaide are organised, clean, ruthless and talented, but they are also fuelled by a belief that this year’s premiership is their destiny.
The Crows have very good players on every line with barely a weak link among them, and Friday night’s performance solidified those claims. But there are two key architects who are consistently the key to Adelaide winning and whom Geelong were unable to stop.
Rory Laird was arguably best on ground, running his own race in the back half, as pinpoint with his skills as ever, complementing his outstanding decision-making. Chris Scott was lauded for his coaching performance against Sydney last week, but allowing Laird 29 effective disposals and 15 marks was a black mark.
If his opposition doesn’t put time into shutting him down next week, you can put a premiership medallion around his neck already.
Tom Lynch is the best lead-up link forward in the competition, and he set the tone early when the game was there to be shaped with two first-quarter goals. Rare is the opponent that can match Lynch’s size, strength and running power, and the Cats had no answers.
A team as good as Adelaide has many avenues into their forward 50 and towards goal, but Lynch is the primary playmaker in that regard, and attempting to cut him out of business can at least make the Crows think twice about their ball movement.
While the two players named above are crucial, Adelaide are a team of contributors. Run through the 22 that played on Friday and it’s hard to find someone that didn’t play their role.
There is no team more organised or better drilled than the Crows, and the feature of their game is how slick they are once they have won the ball back after forcing a turnover. They usually have multiple options to kick to, either aggressive in-board or more conservative going wider. Rarely do they not pick the right one.
No side scores more from turnovers than Adelaide, and the punishment they deliver is savage. They’re hard to break down at the back, and their forwards are superb at getting separation, with half a dozen multiple goal-kickers against Geelong.
As for the Cats, they had a most unusual finals series with all three of their matches decided between 51 and 61 points, losses to Richmond and Adelaide to go with their win over Sydney.
But what Geelong did to the Swans last week the Crows did to them this time around. The Cats were +69 in uncontested marks against Sydney, while on Friday night they were -61. They couldn’t stop the opposition from controlling the ball, and their lack of pace was exposed once more.
Geelong’s top tier let them down. Patrick Dangerfield, Joel Selwood, Mitch Duncan and Steven Motlop all had their share of the ball and hit the scoreboard, but they weren’t as clean or decisive going forward, and their forwards couldn’t contribute in the way their Adelaide counterparts could.
The Cats will still see themselves in the premiership window in 2018, and the list will change given the retirements of Andrew Mackie and Tom Lonergan and the potential exits of Motlop and Daniel Menzel. We know there is a certain Gary Ablett Jr waiting in the wings to take up a forward-midfield position.
As long as Geelong play seven or eight home games at the unique dimensions of Simonds Stadium each year with this list, they’ll continue to find themselves in the finals conversation. But their strength in the home-and-away rounds leads to a weakness in finals. It’s something they’ll have to develop some answers to.
A losing preliminary finalist is always yesterday’s news, and so it is with the Cats.
Right now, the future belongs to Adelaide. And based on their two finals wins so far, the 2017 premiership cup will too.