After six rounds, the Adelaide Crows remain the only undefeated team in the competition, and in the intervention, have become the new premiership favourites.
You can go as far back as you like to find the planting seeds to where they are now, but I like to go back to Round 22 last year.
In the third quarter of the match against Port Adelaide, Rory Sloane carelessly struck Brad Ebert in the face in a spoiling attempt, giving away a 50-metre penalty and landing him in hot water with the AFL judiciary.
He was subsequently charged with rough conduct and offered a two-match suspension, which was reduced to one after he took the early guilty plea. This ruled him out of the Crows’ final round clash with the West Coast Eagles at the Adelaide Oval the following Friday night.
Don Pyke’s men entered the match against the Eagles in second place on the ladder, in the box seat to secure the all-important double chance for the finals and with a faint hope of usurping the Sydney Swans at the top of the ladder.
However, without Sloane, the Crows would prove no match for the Eagles, trailing throughout the entire match and eventually losing by 29 points in front of their stunned home fans.
Their downfall came in the third quarter, which they started 11 points behind.
They kicked a string of three behinds to get to within eight points, but that was as close as they would get to the Eagles, who would kick five goals to shoot out to a 37-point lead at the final change.
From that moment, the Crows knew they would have to mount a huge comeback if they were to, not just win the match, but also lock up a top-two finish, with which comes their first two finals at home.
But eventually the challenge would prove too much and they went down by 29.
They then had to pray that other results would go their way if they were to stay in the top four at the conclusion of Round 23.
Unfortunately, wins for Geelong, Hawthorn and the GWS Giants would ultimately see the Crows drop to fifth on the ladder, though they could have finished fourth had the Hawks not mounted a late comeback in their match against Collingwood.
This left Don Pyke and his side having to re-emulate their own two pieces of history if they were to win their third flag.
The club came from fifth to win their second flag in 1998, twelve months after winning four consecutive finals to their debut premiership win.
With Sloane returning to the side after serving his one-match suspension, the Crows thumped North Melbourne at home to proceed to a semi-final against the Sydney Swans at the SCG.
Many, including those within the Crows’ inner-sanctum, rated the side a good chance of toppling the Swans on their home turf, especially after the red and white had come off a bruising defeat by the GWS Giants in their qualifying final the previous week.
Additionally, the Crows had beaten the Swans by ten points when the teams met at the Oval earlier in the season. They also scored a 27-point win in a semi-final at the same ground in 1998.
But they would be no match for the hardened Swans this time around, as they were taught a brutal lesson in contested footy, coughing up seven goals in the opening quarter.
The Crows would eventually go down by 36 points, ending a promising first season under Pyke in bitterly disappointing fashion.
Two weeks later, they could only watch on as the Western Bulldogs, who finished two places below them on the ladder, rewrote the record books by winning the flag from seventh place.
Another season went begging for the men from West Lakes and they knew they had to get better in all facets of their game if they were to challenge for the title in 2017.
Their season opener saw them assigned, what appeared to be on paper, a daunting first round showdown against the emerging GWS Giants at home.
Indeed, the Crows started slowly, trailing by eight points at quarter-time, but exploded after half-time to romp to a 56-point win, ending Round 1 in top spot on the ladder.
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They have since only gotten better and better, scoring wins over Hawthorn (at the MCG), Port Adelaide, Essendon, the Gold Coast Suns and, last Sunday, Richmond by 76 points.
The win over the Tigers, who also entered the match with a 5-0 record, was highlighted by a five-goal haul from Taylor Walker and a 33-disposal effort by new Brownlow Medal favourite Rory Sloane.
It was Sloane’s absence in that fateful match against the West Coast Eagles in the final round last year that ultimately proved very costly as far as the Crows’ 2016 premiership chances were concerned, and their subsequent semi-final loss to the Swans exposed them as wanting more than willing.
In recent times he has taken on extra responsibility on and off the field following the departure of Patrick Dangerfield to the Geelong Cats at the end of 2015, and he took with him what many believed to be the Crows’ chances of ending it’s long, frustrating premiership drought.
But if anything, the Crows further defined the every day saying “there is no I in team” with an excellent 2016 season ultimately ruined only by those aforementioned losses to the Eagles and Swans.
Now to the present, and the best attacking side of last year have scored at least 100 points in each game and have kicked at least 21 goals in four of their six matches to be the only side still undefeated after six rounds.
Leading the pack is Eddie Betts, who is in a three-way tie on the Coleman Medal leaderboard with GWS pair Jeremy Cameron and Toby Greene with 20 goals each. Only West Coast’s Josh Kennedy has kicked more goals (22).
After such an impressive start to the season, which eclipsed their 4-0 start to the 1996 season, Don Pyke’s men have now assumed outright premiership favouritism and it is hard seeing them slowing down anytime soon.
This Saturday, they travel down to Tasmania where they haven’t won since 2005, to face North Melbourne who are fresh off their first win of the season, sneaking home by 13 points against the Gold Coast Suns.
That is followed by a visit from a Melbourne Demons side that is continuing its upward trend under Simon Goodwin, and then a trip to Brisbane to face the Lions before they return home to face Fremantle in the Indigenous Round.
Realistically, they could (and should) be 10-0 by the time they face the Geelong Cats, and former favourite son Patrick Dangerfield, at Simonds Stadium in Round 11.
Already there is talk that the Crows could face the GWS Giants in this year’s grand final, with former Essendon captain Matthew Lloyd saying recently that the two clubs were setting the pace in an open season.
LLOYD: Apart from the Crows & the Giants being the standouts it’s an open season, there’s no reason why @PAFC couldn’t be top 4.
— RoweyandBicks (@RoweyandBicks) April 21, 2017
153 days until @Adelaide_FC & @GWSGIANTS meet in the Grand Final#AFLCrowsTigers#AFLGF
— Joshua Kay (@js_kay) April 30, 2017
Of course, the Crows have not won the premiership since 1998, but if they keep at their current rate of scoring heavily and beating teams in the fashion that they are, then there’s no reason why the Crows cannot mount the premiership dais on Saturday, September 30.
It would also put to an end a prolonged period of inconsistency, in which the Crows would produce excellent home-and-away seasons (as seen in 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2012 for example) but failing to perform when it matters most, in September footy.
Now the question remains, can the Crows perform when it matters most?
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