“It was the Monday and he said ‘we might give you a go on Carey on Saturday,” Caven recalls of the conversation with his coach.

“The year before against St Kilda he got to me and said ‘we might try Pitto on Hall and you on Loewey’ but this time it was Carey.”

The way Blight told him was as if it was no big deal that he was asking Caven to stand arguably the greatest key forward to ever play the game and was responsible for stopping him in a grand final.

“Then he said ‘he’s bigger than you, stronger than you’, and I thought ‘where’s this going?’.

“But Blighty had a way of filling you with confidence and making you believe in yourself, and he said ‘but if you play from behind and bring it to ground, we can work him over’.”

Like everyone else in the 1990s, Caven would watch Carey in his absolute prime dominate games of footy, only he had to live it as well.

“I used to watch him on Friday night footy too and I’d say ‘gee did you see that, he’s just turned the entire game in two minutes’,” Caven said.

“My plan in the grand final wasn’t to wrestle with him — I wouldn’t win that one so I had to try to run off him. I watched a lot of old footage to see what I could do to nullify him.

“My whole psyche that week was built around the fact that I didn’t want to go down in the record books for firstly losing a grand final but secondly being the bloke who Wayne Carey won the Norm Smith Medal on.”

Caven had five days to think about the toughest assignment in football when Adelaide would play North Melbourne in the 1998 AFL grand final and admitted he was anxious.

“What do you reckon? You’re playing on the King,” Caven said.

“To say it was a relief afterwards is an understatement.”

Blight got all the defenders together on the morning of the grand final and gave them a clear and simple plan.

“The game in Adelaide (in Round 21) they beat us by two goals, and they kicked 14 goals that day and nearly all of them came with no one between them and the goals — they had Pagan’s Paddock,” Blight said.

“So grand final morning before we got onto the bus I got all of the defenders together.

“Usually at all 50/50s — ball ups or boundary throw-ins I wanted them to move to the front, if it goes over the back oh well.

“But on that day I said ‘listen, I want you to change, I want you to play from behind’.

“I showed them a bit of commentary from a video it was Dennis Cometti who said ‘Pagan’s Paddock has worked again’ and I stopped it, and said ‘well what are we going to do about it?’ and there was a bit of a silence.

“I said ‘boys, stand behind your chair, you’re going to play from behind’, they’re going to feel our pressure and start kicking points. They haven’t had a team come from behind like this.”

FIRST QUARTER

Ninety four thousand, four hundred and thirty one people packed the MCG on Saturday, September 26, as Mark Seymour performed Holy Grail, Rob Guest sang the national anthem and boxing legend Muhammad Ali did a lap of honour in the back of a car before the game.

The main event was of heavyweight proportions as well. North Melbourne — a powerhouse team of the 90s on an 11-game winning streak against the reigning premiers Adelaide who had just won four consecutive games on the road to keep their dream of back-to-back flags alive.

The Kangaroos ran onto the ground first, followed by Adelaide players who were greeted by a banner which simply read ‘The Crows are back, 97-98’. How right it was.

Carey won the toss and Shaun Rehn and Shaun McKernan went head-to-head in the ruck as North Melbourne hit the ground running. Winston Abraham and Byron Pickett were busy and John Blakey kicked the first goal before Carey sprayed a set shot inside two minutes. That kick would be an omen for how North Melbourne’s day would unfold.

Adelaide’s first goal came from Mark Ricciuto nine minutes before quarter-time. Roo had minutes earlier missed a difficult shot from 55m but put a 30m set shot from a free kick straight through the middle to get the Crows on the board.

“I started at full forward, the ball hadn’t come down much and I was being tagged by Adam Simpson,” Ricciuto said.

“I was nervous — I didn’t sleep the whole week, that’s the thing players go through in grand finals and why I can understand how the players felt last year (2017).

“But whenever you get that first goal on the board it calms you down.”

Ricciuto’s goal got the Crows moving and with 3:29 to go Darren Jarman arrived. He got on the end of a pass from Andrew McLeod, did a U-turn in the pocket and threw the ball on his left foot and watched as it sailed through from 45m against the boundary. It was Darren Jarman, in a grand final, of course it did.

But his goal was matched a minute later by Carey who kicked a miracle out of mid-air from the outside of his right foot.

“I think Wayne Carey has given us the first magical moment of this year’s grand final,” commentator Sandy Roberts said.

It was magical but it would be the only goal Carey would kick for the game.

Adelaide 3.2 (20)

North Melbourne 4.4 (28)

SECOND QUARTER

The Roos maintained control of the game with Martin Pike kicking the first goal of the second quarter thanks to a smother from Byron Pickett.

Jarman was taking the kick-ins from defence while being tagged and McLeod was moved into the midfield as North Melbourne had all the play.

The Roos had 31-14 inside 50s and exploited Pagan’s Paddock but couldn’t hit the target, kicking eight consecutive behinds to take their score to 5.13.

“They were all over us in the second quarter and the reality is if they kicked even half of their shots the game was probably over, but I just remember thinking out on the ground every time they missed that we were still hanging in there,” Bickley said.

“And we went in at halftime only 24 points down and while not superconfident, there was still an element of belief there.”

In the shadows of halftime the game took a turn for Nigel Smart who started in defence. As he took possession of the ball he was met high by David King in a hit that still affects him today.

“He hit my head flush and it didn’t look overly bad on the tape but I suffer neck issues today from that, that’s ongoing,” Smart said.

“The vertebrae crunched a little bit and it’s all fine, but it’s a memory. Thanks Kingy.

“I thought I felt okay but obviously I wasn’t.

“In those days with doctors and concussion it was taken seriously but the protocols weren’t as tested as they are today.”

Smart got up and took his free kick but kicked the ball out of bounds on the full, then a follow-up hit from Martin Pike sent him to the bench.

“Unlike today when the players run off whenever they feel like it, when we played you never wanted to go off and if you did get dragged it was seen as something was either wrong with you or you weren’t playing that well,” he said.

“I had a little spell on the bench but it was probably the right call.

“Memories of that game — I remember bits and pieces but after halftime there are a few bits and bobs that come and go.”

Adelaide trailed by 24 points at halftime but Blight wasn’t panicking.

“Our midfield was down, so we changed the halfbacks into the midfield which we did the year before and that went beautifully.

“It was interesting watching the game ‘another point, another point, another point and I know we’re not getting this but we’ll get our turn’.

“I didn’t want them to run away with six or seven or eight goals, and that’s what they’d done all year.

“If we could just stymie them early, I think we frustrated them as much as anything.”

Bruce McAvaney, who was calling the game, could sense the gulf between the two teams which the scoreboard didn’t reflect.

“It feels like a 10-goal game but it’s only a four-goal game,” McAvaney said.

Leigh Matthews added: “I think they’re still in it.”

Adelaide 4.3 (27)

North Melbourne 6.15 (51)

THIRD QUARTER

“At halftime Malcolm was prowling, as he sometimes did, and was unhappy with our effort,” Bickley recalls.

“But one of the things that stuck with me over the years, he kept reminding us that every grand final, no matter how good an effort it is just to get there, and we’d had a pretty hard road, you just cannot be satisfied, you will never get this opportunity back.

“And he talked about if there is any part of your body that is satisfied and thinking that maybe it’s not our day, then get that out of your head because this game is still alive.

“He broke it down into its simplest form. He said ‘we’re four goals down, if we win this quarter by two goals then we know we’re super-fit and we can win the last by two goals’.

“He made a lot of positional moves, some blokes into the middle and Kane Johnson was one of them.”

Smart had recovered from his head knock and was moved forward, McLeod got the first clearance and three minutes in Rehn took a strong mark at half-forward and hit Jarman with a perfect pass for a goal. The score was now 33-51.

“Can history repeat itself?” Matthews posed on the commentary.

Simon Goodwin started getting involved off halfback and on the wing and with 15 minutes to go McLeod gave a brilliant releasing handball to Johnson who kicked a goal and Adelaide now trailed 40-51.

“They’re back,” McAvaney declared.

North Melbourne meanwhile continued to miss shots on goal, including Carey.

“What did he end up kicking? 1.4?” Caven said last week.

“And the one goal he did get I asked Smarty to mind him for 10 seconds for me.

“Look he didn’t have his cleanest day and if he kicks straight it might have been a different story but that’s footy.

“It wasn’t one of my best games either but I just did what I could to nullify him and that allowed others like Nigel (Smart) to go forward so we had more strings to our bow.”

With 11 minutes to go in the third term, Johnson found Jarman in the square and he converted to make the score 48-51.

“Ali is looking on and North Melbourne are on the ropes,” Cometti declared.

Ben Marsh, who started the year on the rookie list, took a huge intercept mark from a kick-in at half-forward, found McLeod who hit Smart and he kicked the goal to put the Crows in front 64-57 just before three-quarter-time.

“Andrew McLeod is turning this game inside out,” McAvaney said.

A goal to Brett Alison after the three-quarter-time siren made it a one-point game but it would also be the last goal the Kangaroos would kick for the day.

Adelaide 9.11 (65)

North Melbourne 8.15 (63)

FOURTH QUARTER

With the game on the line, McLeod and Ricciuto both lifted again and James Thiessen kicked an early goal to put the Crows further in front 71-63.

Then with 17 minutes to go, Jarman marked at 50m and kicked his fourth goal. He would finish with five giving him 11 goals in Adelaide’s two triumphant grand finals.

As Blight was watching from the coaches’ box he felt a sense of deja vu but that wasn’t unusual.

“I felt that with Darren every time he played though,” Blight said.

“Everyone forgets that Andrew (McLeod) won the first best-and-fairest (in 1997) and Mark (Ricciuto) won the second (in 1998), but Darren was runner-up to both of them, he had sensational years.”

Carey missed another shot, Caven took a goal-saving mark in the square, Ricciuto was enormous off halfback and North could not stop the momentum.

“This Crows team is like a runaway train,” McAvaney said.

With eight minutes to go Adelaide was in total control and a Smart snap around his body from a stoppage while being tackled 30m out put them up 85-67.

“There are some guys who can remember every moment, every ball, but even the grand final I haven’t watched it too many times because I always felt uncomfortable watching myself play,” Smart said.

“But watching it (on a phone) now — there must be a neuron in my head going off now because I remember watching the ball onto the boot and the trajectory, and knowing it was going to go through, because you instinctively know.”

From that moment the Crows began to relax as they realised they were about to go back to back.

“Peter Bell had a shot at goal and missed, and someone in the crowd grabbed the ball and took off up the stairs and out of the stadium and back then there was only one ball, you didn’t have a bag full,” Bickley said.

“But it was great because it gave us the chance to catch our breath and while we were waiting for the emergency umpire to bring another ball on, I was hunched over on my knees and Kane Johnson wasn’t far away and for whatever reason we looked at each other and he winked at me, and that was the moment we realised we’d won the game, it was pretty amazing.”

With 2:48 left on the clock, McLeod kicked to Jarman who went to Vardy for a goal to put the Crows up 105-68, and shortly after that Blight made his way to the bench to celebrate.

“They are a super football team,” McAvaney said as the seconds ticked down.

Ricciuto — who had missed the 1997 premiership due to groin surgery — summed it up perfectly.

“I remember running back looking at Shaun Rehn and thinking ‘s***, I think we’ve won a flag’, and reality set in, that last quarter was unbelievable,” he said.

FINAL SCORE

Adelaide 15.15 (105)

North Melbourne 8.22 (70)