David King explains why Adelaide is the most powerful and complete team in the AFL

FORGET the fast-finishing Swans and the mighty Giants. DAVID KING says the Adelaide Crows are the most powerful team in the competition and they are about to prove it.

Taylor Walker is having a brilliant season for Adelaide. Picture: Sarah Reed

THE Adelaide Crows are the most powerful and complete team in the competition.

They have no weakness and their strengths are plentiful.

Don Pyke’s ball movement methods and intercept defensive play provide a ruthlessly efficient scoring profile that most teams simply cannot handle.

The Crows flick their defence-to-offence switch quicker than any team, and by some margin.

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The mindset and running patterns that Pyke demands from his troops as they read the cues of the game are stunning. The Crows never operate at anything less than 100 per cent speed as they assess the moment the ball appears to become either an opposition turnover or an Adelaide ball won at the contest.

Then it’s go time. Every Crow becomes an offensive runner at full speed as they immediately challenge their opposition for goalside position, creating space for counter-attacks and leading lanes for the forwards.

It’s a murder of Crows heading towards goals while maintaining enough separation to not allow the opposition to zone off or assist defensively.

Taylor Walker is having a brilliant season for Adelaide. Picture: Sarah Reed

Their team-first running patterns reward various players, from the small Eddie Betts to the key tall Taylor Walker, at random.

It’s an “as the Crow flies” running pattern that’s irrepressible and brilliant in its simplicity, but, make no mistake, it’s the system and method that provide the scoring. The marriage of significant talent with this plan makes the Crows a problematic assignment.

Don’t confuse this for players who gamble or cheat forward of the opposition before their defensive duties are complete. The “as the Crow flies” ball movement pattern enables them to score the most from the defensive half of the field, more than 20 per cent above the AFL average.

The Adelaide offence is clearly the best, averaging 113 points a game, but let’s put that into context. They are scoring 2.5 goals more than Geelong, the second highest scoring team. That’s insane.

They have the same amount of inside 50m opportunities as Port Adelaide but score three more goals on average. If you give the Crows the football, you’ll leak scores.

On turnover the Crows punish better than all other teams, including the “Orange Tsunami” from Greater Western Sydney. Adelaide scores 96 points per 100 opposition turnovers compared to 86 points per 100 turnovers for the next best Giants.

The way Adelaide attacks complements the way it defends and vice versa, which is the ideal.

Its team defence is highlighted by the fact that only Melbourne submits its opposition to more pressure every week.

We all marvel at the intercept capabilities of Rory Laird, Jake Lever and Daniel Talia, who are in the AFL’s top 12 for winning back possession of the ball from the opposition, but it’s the team pressure acts up the field that are understated.

Brodie Smith and Rory Atkins celebrate a goal for the Crows. Picture: Getty Images

Almost half of the competition’s total scores are initiated from turnovers across the half-back flank or forward of that position. The Crows force the most of these types of opposition turnovers and also punish the most, securing an average of 61 points a game.

The Giants are ranked No. 17 at forcing those types of turnovers, more than 30 per cent less than Adelaide, and achieve only a 45-point return. That’s a three-goal gap in a season in which small winning margins have been common.

If the Giants play Adelaide in this year’s Grand Final, these turnovers will prove a separating factor.

At the start of the season the biggest question mark hanging over the Crows was their ability to win contested ball and clearances (Rory Sloane excepted).

Strike that. Over the past four weeks the Crows have won the clearance battle by an average of nine and the contested ball battle by six, well up on last season’s +1 clearance and +2 contested possessions.

Only Hawthorn’s Tom Mitchell has had more disposals than Matt Crouch, and Crouch and Sloane are among the AFL’s top 15 clearance winners.

This provides competition-high inside forward 50 opportunities and fuels Adelaide’s seldom discussed territory game — the Crows keep the ball in their forward half an average of six minutes more than their opposition. And 12 minutes during the past month. That’s enormous.

Every season wins and losses against top-eight teams tell a tale.

The Crows don’t just simply beat up on the weaklings, they have the best winning ratio against the competition leaders.

Adelaide is the best equipped team in the competition. Expect a statement to be made at Adelaide Oval on Friday night.