Adelaide produces a barnstorming final quarter to beat West Coast and keep its finals hopes alive

ADELAIDE has blown a fresh wind into its season and created a platform to rebuild its finals charge after a barnstorming final quarter stunned West Coast at Adelaide Oval.

Taylor Walker celebrates a goal. Picture: Sarah Reed

ADELAIDE has blown a fresh wind into its season and created a platform to rebuild its finals charge after a barnstorming final quarter against West Coast at Adelaide Oval.

After three humdrum quarters in which the Crows lacked run, a connection between the midfield and the forward line and seemed to be short on belief, Adelaide played the type of champagne football that typified last year’s road to the Grand Final.

The Crows kicked the first six goals of the final quarter to bring the Oval to top volume and remind everybody just how well this football club can play when it plays with flair, spirit and desperation and doesn’t think twice about its next move.

AFL BLOG: RE-LIVE ADELAIDE’S STUNNING COMEBACK

It was all inspired by captain Taylor Walker, who was a microcosm of his team.

He had struggled to find his best in the first part of the match but was irresistible from the moment he closed out the third quarter with a soccer goal.

Adelaide was still down by 20 points at the final change but through Walker, they were about to turn it on in the most impressive manner.

Tom Doedee is swamped by his teammates after kicking his first AFL goal.

Taylor Walker celebrates after the final siren.

The skipper kicked the first in the final quarter from outside 50m and it was on from there.

Two players lifted to elite level and had to be seen to believed in the last quarter. It was the leadership and command of Walker and the tireless and fierce pressure of vice-captain Rory Sloane, who had a shocker for the first half of the match.

Adelaide changed the complexion of the match halfway through the second quarter, when the Crows were starting to get rewarded for winning the contested ball and putting more heat on the Eagles when West Coast had the ball.

At once, the previously calm Eagles looked rushed and the ball started to spend more time in the Crows’ forward half.

It was a refreshing change.

Laird made a difference. After missing two matches to a broken hand he looked as sharp as he had been playing all along, at half-time, he was working at an efficiency of 86 per cent.

Matt Crouch runs off after copping a boot to the face. Picture: Sarah Reed

Shannon Hurn looks to pass with Myles Poholke behind. Picture: Sarah Reed

But it never really broke, until the final quarter.

It had taken only until the minutes after Luke Shuey snapped the first goal of the match in the fifth minute for the Eagles for West Coast’s plan to become clear.

The Eagles wanted to control the ball, even if that meant a low-scoring game.

It was high-possession, tempo football, making sure that the Crows had to fight for each turnover even if that meant they had to go sideways and backwards and take the longest route to goal.

Mark Hutchings and Jamie Cripps were prominent, because they were among the West Coast players who were prepare to run the length of the ground for a possession which meant there always seemed to be a West Coast player in the clear.

It meant playmakers such as Shannon Hurn always had an option and allowed the Eagles to keep the Crows out of it.

Elliot Yeo takes a hanger over Darcy Fogarty.

Kyle Hartigan and Jeremy McGovern get to know one another.

The Eagles had more of the early inside-50s, but that wasn’t the main concern for the Crows.

They struggle to put together goals, struggled to put together a string of disposals and struggled with the Eagles’ outside run when they moved away from the possession style play.

Until the last quarter, when everything changed and everything came together for the Crows again.

For a season that had been sinking so rapidly amid injuries and the drama surrounding the Collective Mind saga, you had to be at Adelaide Oval to believe the Crows could still play like they did last year and had it in them to beat one of the premiership contenders, albeit one hit by injury.

There is hope for the Crows again, even though the evidence is only based on one quarter.

ADELAIDE 1.3 3.8 6.10 12.16 (88)

WEST COAST 2.4 5.5 10.6 12.6 (78)

FJELDSTAD’S BEST

Crows: Laird, Walker, Seedsman, Gibbs, Talia, Douglas

Eagles: Gaff, McGovern, Shuey, Yeo, Cripps

GOALS

Crows: Walker 3, Jenkins 2, Jacobs, Fogarty, Poholke, Doedee, Greenwood, Hampton, Seedsman

Eagles: McGovern 2, Lycett 2, Cripps 2, Shuey, McInnes, Ah Chee, Gaff, Ryan, Yeo

INJURIES

Crows: Mackay (ribs)

Eagles: Nil

UMPIRES

Mollison, Stephens, Rosebury

CROWD

44,771 at the Adelaide Oval

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