Finding the measure on the 2019 version of the Crows is still proving difficult

Top-four contender? Definite finalist? Or still in the scrap for a low-order berth to September’s AFL finals? Finding the measure on the 2019 version of the Crows is still proving difficult.

Crows players react after the siren in the one-point loss to Brisbane. Picture: Jono Searle/AFL Photos/Getty Images

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Is there a more confusing team than Adelaide in the AFL today?

Essendon (4-5, 10th) is in the debate for frustratingly failing to live up to expectation, but the Crows (5-4) are too difficult to judge … as noted by the almost muted reaction to the weekend’s loss to Brisbane at the Gabba.

The Crows leave the field after the one-point loss to Brisbane. Picture: AAP Image/Darren England

Rarely has an Adelaide defeat passed with so little reaction. It points to the confusion on where the Crows sit — beyond currently ranking seventh of 18th in the national league — in the race to September.

For nine weeks of this year’s premiership race the key question of the Crows became an expectation: Adelaide would rebound from last year’s 12th ranking to resemble the 2017 top-four pacesetter that ended a 20-year grand final drought?

Or does 2018’s disappointment — created just as much by a heavy injury count as the off-field mistakes — stand as the more appropriate base in measuring the Crows today?

A one-point loss to Brisbane (a bottom-four team last year, 15th) at the Gabba might be one of those rare post-Showdown letdowns for Adelaide.

Crows coach Don Pyke could have easily dusted down that Divinyls quote he leaned on in 2016 when he noted: “There is a fine line between pleasure and pain” in close AFL games.

Kyle Hartigan of the Crows leaves the ground after a head clash against Brisbane. Picture: Jono Searle/AFL Photos/Getty Images

After the post-derby statistics revealed Pyke was managing the lowest-scoring Crows in the club’s 29-year story (78-point average), Adelaide delivered its highest score on the road this season — 92 points.

But the meanest Crows defence in club history conceded it second-highest score of the season, 93 points (up 26 points on the post-Showdown average of 67 points).

The scoreboard numbers went from one extreme to another.

And the most-confusing element of the loss to Brisbane was how Adelaide had its “one wood” — contested football — in fine tune (153-149).

A week after lauding his players’ work ethic with their strong tackling against Port Adelaide, Pyke watched the tackle count fall from 93 against the Power to 57 against the Lions. And Brisbane won this measure with 81 tackles.

That “fine line” noted by Pyke could be the gap created in defence after Showdown Medallist key defender Alex Keath (hip) collided with teammate Kyle Hartigan (concussion) in the third term, forcing Hartigan to be benched.

The trip to Brisbane marked the start of a defining six-week block of games that ends with the second Showdown against Port Adelaide. In these six games, Adelaide deals with five finals contenders — Brisbane, AFL premier West Coast on Saturday, Greater Western Sydney and Richmond back-to-back before the bye and then Geelong.

The silence from football’s jury since the Crows walked off the Gabba — with their first loss to Brisbane since August 18, 2012 — suggests there is indeed much confusion on assessing Adelaide … and, as key players return from the medical rooms in coming weeks, there will be better guidelines on offer as the Crows enter the bye in Round 14.

Of the three teams to make the biggest move from the bottom-10 in 2018 to the top-eight this year — Adelaide, Essendon and North Melbourne — the Crows are best placed to grab a finals berth in September.

But will the Crows just be part of the show — or the real show? Adelaide’s form is too confusing to answer that just yet.

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