Adelaide Crows can only take fight up to the lightweights

ADELAIDE is, for the first time, in danger of going through an entire AFL season without beating a finals combatant.

Brenton Sanderson

ADELAIDE is, for the first time, in danger of going through an entire AFL season without beating a finals combatant.

Brenton Sanderson's Crows - the talk of the town a year ago when they went within a kick of making the grand final - are 0 for 7 in matches against sides sitting inside the top-eight this year.

And their chances of beating a finalist are quickly running out.

Looking at the current ladder, Adelaide has only three more games against likely finalists - Geelong at home on Sunday, Fremantle in Perth next week and then hometown rival Port Adelaide in round 20.

In two of those matches - against the Cats and Dockers - it will start a big underdog.

Geelong ominously has the best record of all clubs against top-eight opposition this season, winning seven of eight games at the outstanding percentage of 129.8.

This is three wins better than any rival, with grand finalist Hawthorn and surprise packet Essendon winning four of six contests in the top-eight ladder.

Fremantle has the fifth-best record, winning two, drawing one and losing three matches.

The Power has won two of six games against the best sides, ranked seventh.

The Crows, who have beaten at least one finalist in each of their 22 previous years in the AFL, have a dreadful record against high-quality teams this year.

They have lost to Fremantle, Port, Essendon, Hawthorn, Richmond, Sydney and Collingwood and have the shocking percentage of 72.4 per cent against teams in the eight.

Only the hopeless St Kilda, Gold Coast, GWS and Melbourne have performed worse against the better teams.

Adelaide's wins have come against North Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Western Bulldogs, St Kilda and Greater Western Sydney.

None sits higher than 11th.

The inability of the Crows, who are 12th with a 6-9 record, to match it with the big guns comes just a year after they beat five teams who made the finals in 2012.

While Adelaide is all but out of finals contention this year, coach Sanderson has put it on his men to claim at least one big scalp.

Rookie defender Rory Laird said it was a big focus this week.

"We need to beat one of these sides," Laird said.

"We've been really close a couple of times, taking it up to Hawthorn and Fremantle, and we thought we played really well for most of the game against Collingwood last week.

"So we've been up there with a few of them but we just haven't been able to put four good quarters together against them, which hurts you against the best teams.

"But we've got another chance against Geelong this week and we're preparing well for them."

While the Crows will be without their best two players, Patrick Dangerfield and Taylor Walker, the Cats are hurt too, with several of their big names missing.

Statistics paint a damning picture of Adelaide's season so far.

One of the reasons it can't beat the best teams is that it has become so poor in two key categories it prided itself on last season - contested possession and clearances.

Last year the Crows led the AFL in winning contested footy with a +11.6 differential.

This year it ranks 12th at just +0.9.

It also has dropped from second in clearances differential (+5.6) to 12th (-0.9) while it has gone from being the third-highest scoring team (105.7 points a game) to the 11th-best (91.5).