Adelaide Crows prove they are still up for the big fight after toppling West Coast Eagles with last quarter surge

ADELAIDE’S hopes of reaching a fourth consecutive AFL final series have received a shot in the arm with their come-from-behind 10-point win against West Coast. And they will now march forward with renewed confidence.

Luke Shuey and Rory Sloane dig deep while Sam Jacobs tries to get a part of the action. Picture Sarah Reed

• Match recap: Crows snatch thrilling win

HOPE for the Adelaide Football Club is now based on renewed confidence — and genuine belief — rather than a mathematical formula.

As the Crows on Saturday night seemed 30 minutes away from being formally classed as an also-ran in season 2018, Adelaide delivered that manic, energetic and high-scoring football that could make every team in the AFL top eight feel nervous again.

The come-from-behind 10-point win against West Coast puts the Crows at 7-7 — and by the maths, needing six wins from the remaining eight home-and-away games to be certain of staying in the fight for glory in September.

Adelaide players mob Myles Poholke after kicking a goal against the West Coast Eagles. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

And while there is life, there is hope. Now there is new hope. There is still a hard, tough road to September — as to be noted by the next challenge being AFL premier Richmond at the MCG on Friday.

But there also is new fight in this patched-up Adelaide team that clearly gained from the pause — and reflection — in last weekend’s mid-season break.

So what needed to be seen at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night when it was still too much to ask the injury hit Crows to live up to the standards that defined Adelaide in its high-scoring run to the minor premiership — and the grand final — last season?

There needed to be signs that the Crows were going to keep a pulse in their mission to play in their fourth consecutive finals series in September. That pulse might have seemed on life support in football’s intensive care unit late in the third term when West Coast had almost a five-goal lead.

The response with a six-goal last term — when Adelaide had laboured to score six goals in the first three terms — will echo across the AFL. As Crows coach Don Pyke gets more and more soldiers back for the battle in the next eight weeks, there could be yet again a significant challenge to be made from outside the top-four rankings in the finals.

Kyle Hartigan squares off with Eagles forward Jeremy McGovern. Picture: AAP Image/Mark Brake

So much is made of the players each team had in the grandstand (where no game is ever won). More so when the Eagles — without their key strikers Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling — were considered to be less likely to score than the Socceroos.

This made the midfield battle absorbing — and, for a moment in the third term, it seemed won by West Coast with the dominance of Andrew Gaff and Luke Shuey.

West Coast’s obsession with holding down returning Crows vice-captain Rory Sloane — for his first game in 11 weeks — did have a benefit for Adelaide.

The heavy focus on Sloane from Mark Hutchings does leave the park open for All-Australian and Crows club champion Matt Crouch.

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