Malcolm Blight names his top 5 Adelaide players as we invite fans to build their own Crows Dream Team of the past 30 years

He's been the heartbeat of Adelaide's team in the past decade, but Malcolm Blight wouldn't have Rory Sloane in his best Crows team. Here's who Blighty picked instead and how you can choose yours. 

Malcolm Blight nearly couldn’t come up with a fifth pick.

As Adelaide prepares for its 31st season The Advertiser is asking Crows fans who should be in the best team of the past 30 years.

To launch this, which will involve an interactive elements where Crows fans can pick their own greatest ever Adelaide team, The Advertiser asked legendary two-time premiership winning coach Malcolm Blight who would be the first five picked in his side.

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The first four were relatively straight forward for Blight, but the fifth pick was one the ‘Messiah’ wrangled with before coming up with a bit of a left field option.

Blight’s first three were dual Norm Smith Medal winner Andrew McLeod, eight time All-Australian Mark Ricciuto and champion defender Ben Hart.

“The obvious ones are Andrew McLeod, Mark Ricciuto and Ben Hart,” he said.

“From there it gets a bit tricky.

“I think Simon Goodwin, he was a three-time best and fairest.

“And in doing this you forget about (Tony) McGuinness and (Chris) McDermott because half of their careers were played in the SANFL and they were very good players.” Blight said for his fifth pick, it was initially down to one of Tyson Edwards, Nigel Smart, Mark Bickley and Scott Thompson.

“Rory (Sloane) isn’t there just yet,” he said.

“They are the club leading games records as well as everything else they have done. When in doubt I say who has played the games.

Who would make your Adelaide Crows team of the past 30 years? Would it look exactly like this side from the 1997 Premiership?

“That means a hell of a lot to me.

“Mark captain of two-premierships and a great servant of the club, Nigel was unique the best way to describe it, Scotty Thompson would just get a lot of the ball and don’t forget they almost made two grand finals they weren’t a poor team.”

But in the end Blight went for a player who although didn’t played as many games as others, had a huge impact on the biggest stage – Darren Jarman who kicked six and five goals in Adelaide’s two grand final wins.

“They all had great careers and longer careers, but when you are talking about the effect on the Adelaide football club and although his career was shorter certainly on the stage we know about he was unbelievable,” Blight said.

Results from the readers’ choice Crows Dream Team of the past 30 years will be published in this weekend’s Sunday Mail and on Advertiser.com.au

Malcolm Blight names his top 5 Adelaide players as we invite fans to build their own Crows Dream Team of the past 30 years