Showdown 47 to define the road to September for Adelaide and Port Adelaide
There is always plenty at stake in Showdowns. But Saturday’s edition could define the road to September’s top-eight AFL finals for Adelaide and Port Adelaide.
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Showdown 47 could not have come at a better time for Don Pyke and Ken Hinkley … or so they will think until one of these coaches loses the derby at Adelaide Oval on Saturday evening.
This is the Showdown that is to define the road to September’s top-eight AFL finals for the Crows and Port Adelaide.
The stakes would seem considerably high after Adelaide lost to a top-four rival in Geelong at Kardinia Park on Friday night; and the Power, in its home loss to the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night, proved that it can be relied on failing when expected to win.
But Showdowns can be more about the moment than the journey to September glory, even if the derby is always pitched as a finals-like event.
Of the 21 inaugural-season Power players John Cahill guided to an extraordinary win in Showdown I at Football Park in April 1997, only five were with coach Mark Williams when they ended the choke to claim the 2004 AFL premiership — Peter Burgoyne, Adam Kingsley, Brendon Lade, Gavin Wanganeen and Michael Wilson.
Of the 21 Crows who failed (to fall to a 1-3 win-loss count after the first derby), 10 were doing a lap of honour of the MCG five months later while collecting Adelaide’s first AFL flag in 1997 — captain Mark Bickley, Troy Bond, Peter Caven, Tyson Edwards, Ben Hart, Rod Jameson, Kym Koster, Andrew McLeod, Chad Rintoul and Nigel Smart.
On this note, victories in Showdowns do not promise much in the bigger picture of the AFL premiership race … and defeat in the derby does not point to failure in September.
But you do have to get to September.
Showdown 47 could — with a Power victory — leave both SA-based AFL teams with modest 8-7 win-loss records with seven home-and-away fixtures to play. Or with a Crows victory, Adelaide would open a two-win gap on Port Adelaide and leave Ken Hinkley’s team with a negative 7-8 win-loss count and further concern about being stuck in “no-man’s land” with ninth spot.
For the first time since the 2005 “Heritage Round” Showdown at Football Park, the Adelaide Football Club will not wear its traditional hoops in a derby. In that Showdown — the only derby to have joint winners of the Showdown Medal (Simon Goodwin and Shaun Burgoyne) — the Crows adopted a 1930s State jumper while Port Adelaide completed the “pyjama” theme (as Andrew McLeod put it) by wearing the club’s 1870 blue-and-white hoops.
In this Showdown, the Crows will wear the club’s 2019 indigenous jumper in recognition of NAIDOC (National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee) Week.
And the Roast this week will look at Port Adelaide’s dress code for future Showdowns, in particular with its 150th anniversary season next year.
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