2015 AFL fixture: Adelaide Crows to face just one top-four rival twice next season

NEW Adelaide coach Phil Walsh has been handed a favourable draw over the first 10 rounds of 2015 to start to his senior coaching career.

Walsh, Crows score favourable draw

NEW Adelaide coach Phil Walsh has been handed a favourable draw to start to his senior coaching career.

Walsh’s Crows, while denied the blockbuster games which hometown rival Port Adelaide has been given, will play only three of this year’s top-eight sides in the opening 10 rounds of 2015 before their mid-season bye.

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And Adelaide will have double-up games against only two top-eight sides next year, the annual Showdowns against the Power as well as Geelong. Its other double-up matches are against non-finalists West Coast, Brisbane and Gold Coast.

The Crows play three finalists on the road next season — Sydney at the SCG in round 18, Essendon at Etihad Stadium in round 20 and Geelong at Simonds Stadium in round 23.

The kind draw, particularly in the first half of the season, gives Walsh the chance to get his coaching reign off to a flying start and the Crows a wonderful opportunity of forcing their way back into the finals for the first time since 2012.

In the opening 10 rounds, Adelaide plays seven of the bottom eight clubs from this year — Collingwood (round two), Melbourne (round three), Western Bulldogs (round four), Gold Coast (round six), St Kilda (round seven), GWS (round eight), and Carlton (round 10).

Asked if the Crows had a favourable draw, chief executive Andrew Fagan said: “I’m not going to start suggesting to Phil Walsh that I know which games are winnable and which ones aren’t for him. I think from a footy department perspective every game is going to be a challenge and I think we’ve seen that it is fraught with danger to start predicting wins and losses when a draw is handed out.

“But they (the football department) are comfortable from a travel perspective, the small number of six-day breaks they have and generally with how things have panned out.’’

Fagan described Adelaide’s draw as “well balanced’’ but it does lack blockbusters.

The Crows took issue with having just one game at the MCG — against Carlton in round 10. “In an ideal world we would have had at least one more game at the MCG and another Friday night game,” Fagan said.

The Crows scored one Thursday night game at home rather than the two they requested. This will be the jewel-in-the-crown match against Hawthorn in round 12, which will highlight their 25th season in the AFL.

Adelaide has one appearance on Friday Night Football — against Richmond at Adelaide Oval in Round 19.

Originally published as 2015 AFL fixture: Adelaide Crows to face just one top-four rival twice next season