The Polarity of Crom

It was a minor season to remember for the Adelaide Crows, and a finals series to forget. In what was a golden opportunity to play deep into September, the Crows failed spectacularly.

The first minor premiers in the 18-team era to bow out in straight sets, they hadn’t won a quarter out of the eight played. Rival fans and media have certainly not shied away from labelling the Crows as chokers. This hasn’t been a choke in the traditional sense, though. I think it is better characterised as a squandered opportunity to go under the radar without the weight of expectation. Who would have thought this would happen at their home ground, too?!

That this was the first finals appearance for the vast majority of the squad was clearly evident. After an 8 year hiatus, the inexperience, the rust, was so very obvious. They were beaten by experienced and hardened finals teams who have laid bare their weaknesses and gaps for the rest of the competition to abuse. But this shouldn’t come as a surprise…

Generally after a long break, teams don’t get back into finals through the top 4. They are able to gradually rise from the lower rungs of the top 8, competing against lower performing teams in the first week of finals and adding more experience against a top 4 team in the second week. The Crows didn’t take the usual route, and they were instead shocked into a form of non-performance.

Weakness Abounds

Though there is a raft of statistics and numbers that explain how the Crows capitulated in the last two games, what I think is most concerning is that they don’t have another level to go to – unlike the remaining preliminary finalists. Yes, this does come with experience, but we’ve seen teams outside the top 4 show this too. It is down to game style as much as anything else. This explains why, given all the concerns raised throughout the year around Collingwood, they are expected to make the grand final.

Rankine’s absence would have only helped somewhat. He is a player who has X-factor and is multi-dimensional, but Crows’ success wouldn’t have been turned around by his inclusion. Arguably, only a quarter of the squad had respectable performances over the past two games. Matches can’t be won with three quarters of your team under-performing.

Back at parity

The last few seasons have highlighted the polarity of the Crows – they’ve been bipolar, really. Playing well but finishing in the lower end of the table; a team marred by narrow losses and incomprehensibly poor umpiring. Strong performances in the minor rounds, yet a non-existent shadow of themselves when it counts. A team who had won 13 matches in the immediate lead up to a finals series, only for that to be absolutely quashed too. If we look back even further, this could arguably been their third finals series in a row.

Though they finished minor premiers and may have been the best team during the minor rounds, they were afforded a comparatively favourable draw by yet another misrepresentation: finishing in the bottom 4 the previous season. Their meteoric rise from 15th to 1st is the stuff made of lore, but is also flattering: they certainly weren’t a bottom 4 side in 2024.

After all is said and done, the Crows are where they should be: ranked between 5th and 6th. They are certainly a good team, but there is a clear gap to becoming a great team, a contender.

So, what now..

Now out of the shadows, the Crows become the hunted and the challenge is greater. They can’t catch anyone by surprise anymore. Teams in the off-season will study them microscopically. Aside from referencing the methodical dispatches in the finals series, rival teams can also look to the past month of the minor round games where gaps started to show.

Though the club will seek to improve its stocks and address its glaring shortfalls as exposed by Collingwood and Hawthorn, it will be the experience gained from these two matches that will help develop its young core in the years ahead. They finally started winning close games more often and there will be strong lessons to unpack in the post-season review.

The base is certainly there, and it is now up to the players, and coaches, to prove they can rise to the occasion. Rebuilds and the path to success are rarely linear. The road may be continue to be bumpy, but as the saying goes: the obstacle is the way. Only one question remains….

Will they overcome the challenge?