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Can the Crows go one better in 2018, or will they crash and burn?

Roar Guru
23rd February, 2018
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Taylor Walker needs to step up for the Crows in 2019. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Roar Guru
23rd February, 2018
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After their grand final embarrassment last year, the jury will be out on the Adelaide Crows to see whether they can go one better in 2018, or crash and burn like past beaten grand finalists have in recent years.

Last year, the Crows were the best-performed team of the home-and-away season by a country mile, being placed first or second after each round and, for the second year running, ranking first for points scored in the AFL.

A 56-point win over pre-season premiership favourites the GWS Giants at home in Round 1, after which they assumed favouritism for the flag, set the tone for a season in which they would bully teams into submission and claim its second minor premiership, and first since 2005, with a 15-1-6 record.

They won their first six matches by an average margin of 50.8 points, the largest of which was a 76-point win over eventual premiers Richmond (which had also started the season 5-0) in Round 6 at home.

But all the hard work they put into reaching their third grand final, and first since 1998, disintegrated on a dirty Saturday afternoon at the MCG when they were thrashed by Richmond by 48 points.

They had entered the match as the favourites, especially after they had dominated the GWS Giants and Geelong Cats in their qualifying and preliminary final matches respectively at home.

All went swimmingly when they kicked the first two goals of the match, and took an eleven-point lead into quarter-time, by which point they had kicked four majors.

Rory Sloane Adelaide Crows AFL Grand Final 2017 tall

(AAP Image/Julian Smith)

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Captain Taylor Walker was about to put them even further ahead in the second quarter, but a spoil from Tigers fullback Alex Rance would prevent the goal, and thus prove to be the turning point in the match.

From that point the Crows would only kick four more goals for the match, with the 8.12 (60) they eventually managed turning out to be their lowest score in any match for the year.

Eddie Betts, who kicked the most goals of any Crow with 55, managed just the one major, while several other players struggled on the big stage under the pressure of Dustin Martin and the yellow-and-black machine.

It was suggested by many that having to face Victorian opposition at the MCG may have been a factor in the result, with the Crows having only played twice at the ground during the regular season for one win and one draw (conversely, the Tigers played 13, including two finals matches, for eleven wins and two losses – both of those at the hands of non-Victorian opposition).

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The previous four grand finals had seen Victorian clubs use the advantage of playing at the MCG (or in the case of the Western Bulldogs, in Melbourne as Etihad Stadium is their regular home ground) to win flags at the expense of clubs outside AFL heartland.

Hawthorn’s hat-trick of flags in 2013-14-15 were achieved at the expense of Fremantle, the Sydney Swans and West Coast Eagles respectively, while the Bulldogs ended a 62-year premiership drought by upsetting the Swans by 22 points in the 2016 decider.

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The last non-Victorian club to win the premiership were the Swans in 2012; that year, they defeated Hawthorn by ten points in the grand final.

On the subject of non-Victorian clubs, the Brisbane Lions achieved a hat-trick of flags between 2001-02-03 by defeating local opposition in Essendon and Collingwood (twice) in the grand finals of those respective years.

This came at a period in which clubs outside AFL heartland dominated the competition; in 2004, Port Adelaide won their first flag by deny the Lions a historic four-peat with a 40-point win, while in 2005 and 2006 the Swans and Eagles contested two epic grand finals, which ended up 1-all.

The Crows’ defeat marked a sour ending to what had been a phenomenal year for the club, and saw them join the likes of the Sydney Swans (2014 and 2016), Hawthorn (2012), St Kilda (2009) and the Geelong Cats (2008) as recent minor premiers which had dominated the regular season but lost the match that mattered the most.

In particular, after ending their 44-year premiership drought in 2007, the Cats compiled a phenomenal 2008 season in which they won 21 matches and lost just one (by 86 points against Collingwood in Round 9), but lost the grand final against Hawthorn by 26 points.

Fremantle were also minor premiers in 2015, but they lost to Hawthorn by 27 points in the preliminary final. Many point to that as being the moment the Dockers’ premiership window was all but slammed shut.

They had also reached the grand final two years earlier, but a slow start in which they failed to kick a single goal in the first quarter was to eventually cost them as they lost to the Hawks by 15 points.

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After their recent fall from grace, Dockers coach Ross Lyon has made it clear that the side is rebuilding, especially with the club having lost club stalwarts Luke McPharlin and Matthew Pavlich to retirement in recent years.

In 2015, the West Coast Eagles finished second on the ladder having built a reputation for thrashing lower-ranked teams at home, and reached the grand final which it lost to Hawthorn by 46 points.

In the off-season that followed, they added Lewis Jetta and Jack Redden to their roster, and expectations were high for the club entering the 2016 season.

However, they could only finish sixth at the end of the minor rounds, and would eventually bow out in the first week of the finals, losing to eventual premiers the Western Bulldogs by 47 points at home.

Last year, they managed to sneak into eighth position after beating the Adelaide Crows at home, then defeated Port Adelaide in extra time at the Oval before going down to the GWS Giants by 67 points in the semi-final.

Three years after reaching the grand final, nothing much is expected of the Eagles in 2018.

And last year, the Swans started the season 0-6 and many feared for the end of the club as a consistent finals force, before they went on to win 14 of their next 16 matches, finishing sixth on the ladder and then bowing out to the Geelong Cats in a semi-final at the MCG.

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This came after they had suffered demoralising grand final losses to Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs in 2014 and 2016 respectively, after finishing as minor premiers in both years.

It will now remain to be seen whether the Adelaide Crows can avoid the meltdown that has occurred to beaten grand finalists in years past, and learn from the lessons of their grand final loss to Richmond.

Eddie Betts kicks during a team training session

(AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)

The club has been bolstered by the arrival of Bryce Gibbs from Carlton, but lost defender Jake Lever and forward Charlie Cameron to Melbourne and the Brisbane Lions respectively during last year’s trade period.

Gibbs returns home twelve months after failing to negotiate a trade to the club, and he arrives at West Lakes at just about the right time in both his career and for the Crows, as far as their premiership chances are concerned.

Their path to redemption starts with a potentially tough first-round clash against Essendon at Etihad Stadium on March 23, after which is followed by the grand final rematch against Richmond on the Thursday night before Good Friday.

They then get a stretch of five home games in six weeks between Rounds 6 and 11, with the GWS Giants the only side in that patch which finished in the top four last year.

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That should set Don Pyke’s men up well for a strong finish to the season, after which they can put all their focus and energy into aiming for the club’s third premiership, but most importantly, burying the demons of last year.

Charlie Cameron Adelaide Crows AFL Finals 2017

(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)

Should the Crows return to the grand final and salute this time around, they will become the first team since Hawthorn in 2012-13, and first interstate team since the West Coast Eagles in 2005-06, to win the premiership twelve months after losing the biggest match of the season.

The Eagles had lost to the Swans in the 2005 decider by four points before returning to the MCG twelve months later to defeat the same opposition to win their most recent flag by the narrowest of margins.

They also lost the 1991 grand final to Hawthorn by 53 points, which was played at Waverley Park as the MCG was undergoing redevelopment at the time, but then won its first flag the following year at the expense of the Geelong Cats (interestingly, Crows coach Don Pyke played in both matches, as well as in the club’s 1994 premiership triumph).

That is the task facing the Adelaide Crows in 2018 – can they go all the way and bury the demons of last year’s grand final flop, or will they crash and burn like past beaten grand finalists have done in recent years?

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