Adelaide Crows on path to second AFL minor premiership — with best-ever figures
DON PYKE has built the best-performing Adelaide team of all-time as the Crows’ numbers reach club best.
IS this the greatest Crows team of all-time ... at least in home-and-away football?
Adelaide is destined to close the AFL home-and-away series with the club’s second McClelland Trophy as minor premier — and some of the best scoreboard figures in the Crows’ 27 seasons in the national league.
These include best-ever attack, best-ever win-loss ration and best-ever percentage.
Only three times has Adelaide won 16 or more of its 22 home-and-away games — 2005 and 2006 under Neil Craig with 17 and 16 wins respectively; and 2012 in Brenton Sanderson’s debut season as Crows coach with 17 victories.
Adelaide’s two AFL premiership teams in 1997 and 1998 under coach Malcolm Blight won just 13 of its 22 home-and-away games.
The 2005 Crows claimed the club’s only minor premiership while the 2006 and 2012 teams ranked second at the home-and-away series. All three teams fell short in the major round, losing preliminary finals — to West Coast in 2005 and 2006 and Hawthorn in 2012.
Don Pyke’s top-ranking Crows are on the path to a 17-1-4 win-draw-loss count — the best in Adelaide’s story. They are currently 15-1-4 with their home-and-away agenda in the next fortnight to close with games against an ominous Sydney at Adelaide Oval on Friday night and West Coast in Perth in the last home-and-away game ever played at Subiaco Oval.
But Pyke’s Crows are already well ahead of the Craig and Sanderson teams that were pacesetters in home-and-away football.
Pyke’s team is averaging scores of 113 points this season — superior to the 110 scored by the Sanderson Crows in 2012; and ahead of the 94 and 105 scored by Craig’s Crows in 2005 and 2006 respectively.
Pyke’s Crows are defensively better than the Sanderson model in 2012 — conceding 80 points this season compared with 83.
But the most-defensive Crows remain with Craig. They conceded just 69 points in 2005 and 74 in 2006 when AFL games were played with a stronger defensive tone.
On percentage — the best measure of a team’s balance between defence and attack — the Pyke Crows are better placed than the Craig and Sanderson models. Adelaide’s percentage is currently 142.1 — ahead of the 2005 team (136.45), 2012 (132.5) and 2006 (123.96).
Adelaide is assured of a home qualifying final at Adelaide Oval next month when the top-eight final series begins on Thursday, September 7.
The Crows will command a top-two finish. Adelaide is most likely to command top spot, setting up a qualifying final with the fourth-ranked team. This could be any of Geelong, GWS Giants, Richmond or the Swans.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au