Riley Thilthorpe leads Adelaide Crows to biggest Showdown win of all time against the Power
The biggest Showdown victory ever? Check. Port’s biggest loss under Ken Hinkley? Yep. In horrendous conditions on Saturday night, the brutal Crows delivered a performance for the ages.
AFL News
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Showdowns are always close and it does not matter on the day where the South Australian teams are on the ladder are two of the great footy cliches.
Take Saturday night for instance.
Often the better team all season prevails.
Sometimes by massive margins.
The Crows entered the match five wins clear of Port Adelaide and knowing a win would take them top.
Aside from late in the first term and a patch in the third quarter, the gap between the sides was embarrassingly obvious.
Put simply, Adelaide looked every bit a premiership contender, showing no mercy right to the end to turn the contest into a 98-point cake walk.
The Power looked like a team that could not wait for the game or even its season to finish.
It was a horror send-off for Ken Hinkley in his 25th and last Showdown.
The loss was the biggest of his 13-year coaching tenure and the club’s heaviest since 2011.
Any suggestion Port could cause an upset was basically over by half-time.
Instead, it finished with the lowest ever Showdown score (35 points, tying Adelaide in 2020 when there were shortened quarters).
Some of the most torrential rain in the history of the derby did not slow down a Crows side hungry to turn their four-game winning streak into five.
If anything, the poor conditions just exposed the difference in the teams’ effort levels, workrate, class and discipline.
Fox Footy’s Garry Lyon said there was a ruthlessness about the Crows.
“They haven’t taken their foot off the pedal at all,” Lyon said.
“They want to be on top at the end of this round.
“Wet-weather footy – this looks like a side that thrives in these conditions.”
The last time Adelaide had a five-match winning streak was 2017, a season that ended in a grand final.
This stunning campaign – after a 15th-placed finish last year – very much could.
Crows coach Matthew Nicks was delighted with the killer instinct displayed by his charges as they put the Power to the sword with a devastating eight-goals-to-none final term.
“We’re hungry, we’re enjoying playing footy, I don’t think we wanted that one to end,” he said.
“And that can happen. We’re in a position where we want the game to keep going and for our opposition it’s tough.
“We’ve been on the other end of that, and it’s really hard, from a mental point of view, to continue to push.
“But our guys kept fighting, and some of that will come back to our squad strength as well.
“Unfortunately, it looks like Max might have done a hammy, but having a list that is healthy and with pressure from below for spots, I think helps you drive right through to the end.
“No one wants to let the team down.”
The Crows are playing with such connection and confidence, they will truly believe they are capable of something special, despite trying to keep a lid on things publicly.
“They’re genuinely serious contenders,” Lyon said.
Lyon called Port soft in the first term as it got smashed in the contest.
The Power fought back for a bit, but then went to water again late.
Adelaide booted 8.2 to 0.2 in the last to rub salt in the wound and give plenty of food for thought for Hinkley and coach-in-waiting Josh Carr.
The tackle count (100-73) said plenty about the teams’ toughness, as did the contested possessions (172-148), which was also hurt by Port’s lack of discipline rearing again (33-21 free kick count against it).
And it was as if Riley Thilthorpe saw Western Bulldogs’ Sam Darcy kick six goals the other night and said ‘don’t forget about me’.
Thilthorpe dominated, winning the Showdown Medal, playing brilliantly in the conditions for a big player (19 disposals, six clearances, three goals).
“He’s just a monster,” Lyon said.
“And if you’re going to win a premiership, you need one of these in your forward half.
“For a player of his size to dominate the game in the conditions we’ve had speaks volumes of his capacity to play at different levels, in the air and ground level.”
WRONG WAY, MILES!
Matched up on star skipper Jordan Dawson, who was influential throughout, Miles Bergman would have been feeling pretty pleased with his start to the game when he gathered the first clearance of the contest and heaved the ball 60m deep inside 50.
The only problem was he’d kicked it the wrong way, with his long bomb falling into the arms of Adelaide forward Darcy Fogarty.
Fogarty spared Bergman’s blushes when he pushed his set shot wide, but not much went right for the Power early.
The Crows piled on the pressure, but let themselves down with wayward kicking at goal, leading the inside 50 count 13-2 at one stage, but putting a wasteful 2.6 on the scoreboard.
A magnificent tap from Taylor Walker into the path of Sam Berry helped break that run of errant kicking, Berry not breaking stride as he stroked through a brilliant goal from long range.
“That might be the best goal he’s ever kicked, that’s 55m out on the run, that’s a beautiful kick,” Adelaide great Mark Ricciuto said on Fox Footy.
Berry followed up with another long-range stunner late in the third to cap a good outing.
Scoreboard
CROWS 3.6 7.8 12.11 20.13 (133)
POWER 3.1 3.3 5.3 5.5 (35)
PHELAN’S BEST CROWS: Thilthorpe, Soligo, Dawson, Peatling, Neal-Bullen, Keays, Curtin, Walker. POWER: Butters, Rozee, Sweet, Farrell, Wines.
GOALS CROWS: Thilthorpe 3, Walker 3, Keays 3, Berry 2, Soligo 2, Rankine, Fogarty, Peatling, Pedlar, O’Brien, Neal-Bullen, Dawson. POWER: McEntee 2, Sweet, Mead, Georgiades.
INJURIES CROWS: Michalanney (hamstring). POWER: Jones (corked thigh).
UMPIRES Haussen, Deboy, Howorth, Meredith
46,018 at ADELAIDE OVAL
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
JASON PHELAN’S VOTES
3 Thilthorpe (Adel)
2 Soligo (Adel)
1 Butters (Port)
Originally published as Riley Thilthorpe leads Adelaide Crows to biggest Showdown win of all time against the Power
Stop the count: Breathtaking Daicos stuns at the ‘G
After what Nick Daicos produced at the MCG against the Tigers on Sunday, by round 20 on Brownlow Medal night, the count might be over. Here’s how another masterclass unfolded.
Giants star to miss finals-shaping clash after fiery Sydney derby
GWS will go into a finals-shaping clash against the Bulldogs on Thursday night without superstar Toby Greene, who was involved in a number of incidents against the Swans.