What the potential suspension of Izak Rankine means for Adelaide’s premiership hopes
Adelaide faces an anxious wait over Izak Rankine’s finals fate — and even the most optimistic Crows supporter would have their doubts with September around the corner.
At the end of his short media conference on Monday, Adelaide leadership group member Darcy Fogarty was asked can the Crows win a premiership without Izak Rankine?
“I think we have a really strong squad so we have full belief,” he said.
Fogarty might have belief the Crows can cover the loss of their star, should he be banned for making a homophobic slur to a Collingwood player on Saturday night.
Few Crows fans will be sharing this optimism, should Rankine be ruled out of the entirety of Adelaide’s first finals campaign since 2017.
If you had to make a list of players the Crows would least like to lose for their finals campaign Rankine would be easily in their top three – along with captain Jordan Dawson and gun key forward Riley Thilthorpe.
Inaugural Crows coach Graham Cornes said those three were Matthew Nicks’ “game changers”.
“They are a very balanced team but there are three game changers in that line up, Thilthorpe, Dawson and Rankine,” he said.
“At any stage during a game they can be expected to do something special which occasionally means the difference between winning and losing.”
While Thilthorpe can be a huge point of difference when fully and up running because of his hulking build, Rankine might even be at the top of that list.
Because if you look at finals, it is tailor made for a player like Rankine.
A gun in the midfield, an x-factor in the forward line, Rankine is a player whose class can be the difference between winning and losing on the big stage.
“He is the one player that the coach can call on to do something special, whether that is to be thrown into the midfield or create mayhem in the forward line,” Cornes said.
Nicks has done this.
While Rankine started the season playing more as a midfielder, since the Crows’ bye in Round 15 his time forward has risen from 43 per cent to 79 per cent.
In this period the Crows have risen from ninth for points from forward 50 stoppages to first, while Rankine is rated sixth among forwards and 24th in the AFL across this period.
With Rankine in the side the Crows have a win rate of 54 per cent, compared to a 45 per cent one with him out of the side from 2023 onwards.
So no wonder when it was first revealed by this masthead that an Adelaide player was facing an investigation by the AFL’s Integrity Unit, Crows fans online were praying and hoping it was a fringe player in the firing line.
That it is Rankine is enough to sap what should be plenty of optimism after the thrilling win over Collingwood and what could be done over the next few weeks out of even the most optimistic Crows fan.
“All the Crows fans I have spoken to today are definitely concerned and worried that it will impact on this finals campaign and their chances and they are right to do that,” Cornes said.
On Saturday night Nicks said the lid was well and truly off for Crows fans.
Rankine missing finals would put it squarely back on for many.
