The Crows’ Crouch brothers are leading Adelaide’s charge to AFL premiership glory

FORGET “Dangerwood’’ and “Motchin’’, Adelaide’s Crouch brothers have formed their own matchwinning midfield combination.

TAG TEAM: Adelaide’s Brad, left, and Matt Crouch remonstrate with Geelong’s Tom Hawkins. Picture: Getty Images

FORGET “Dangerwood’’ and “Motchin’’, Adelaide’s Crouch brothers have formed their own matchwinning midfield combination.

While Geelong’s Patrick Dangerfield-Joel Selwood and Richmond’s Dustin Martin-Trent Cotchin on-ball pairings have seen them being given brand names, Matt and Brad Crouch have quietly crept up to become a game-breaking team within a team.

In the final home-and-away season round against West Coast, the Ballarat ball magnets smashed the VFL-AFL record for most disposals in a season between two brothers when Matt tallied a career-high 45 and Brad a career-best 42 in the 29-point loss at Subiaco Oval. That gave them a combined total of 1201 for the year – 27 more than Kane and Chad Cornes achieved for Port Adelaide in their grand final season of 2007.

Matt, 22, finished the minor round with a whopping 726 disposals at an average of 33 the highest in Crows history, beating inaugural captain Chris McDermott’s average of 32.7 in 1992.

Older brother Brad, 23, had 475 possessions at an average of 28 after missing five matches, including the first four, because of injury.

Then the pair ran riot in the six-goal qualifying final win against Greater Western Sydney that propelled the minor premier Crows to their first home preliminary final since 2006 and one win from their first grand final appearance since 1998.

Matt recorded a team-high 31 disposals and 127 SuperCoach points against the Giants while Brad had a game-high 11 inside-50s and team-best 546 metres gained.

The eye-catching one-two show illustrated how the pair, who had hardly played at AFL together before this season because of Brad’s frustrating battle with injuries, had stepped out of the shadows of the “Dangerwood’’ and “Motchin’’ combinations.

“They should be in that conversation now,’’ said Adelaide lead ruckman Sam Jacobs, who described the pair as “pretty special’’. “We haven’t got a nickname for them yet but we probably should.’’

In the superhero world, Matt is Batman and Brad, his sidekick, is Robin.

Matt finished the minor round second in the league in disposals behind Hawthorn's prolific Tom Mitchell (787).

He has amassed 30 or more disposals in 17 of the 23 games he has played this year, including the past nine.

Remarkably, his season-low is a still-very-healthy 27 against Geelong in round 11.

That’s better than a lot of players’ career-high.

Brad’s disposal numbers have fluctuated between 20 and 42.

NumberCrunch Crouch Bros Sep 15

The pair rank in the top three at the Crows in tackles, contested possessions and clearances, with only star vice-captain, fellow midfielder and AFLPA most courageous player winner Rory Sloane in the same conversation.

The Crouch siblings rank in the top five in the league as a midfield combination for disposals (averaging 60.8), groundball-gets (18.6) and uncontested possessions ((34.6).

They are averaging career-highs in almost every key statistic.

As for their brothers disposals record, Matt described it as “a funny one’’.

“It’s nice to achieve that together but it’s actually not something that me and Brad have even spoken about,’’ he said. “It’s something we might reflect on later but at the moment we’re just focused on the finals and trying to win a premiership.’’

The pair appears to have an almost telepathic on-field understanding but Matt said that it’s not something that comes naturally “because we didn’t play a lot of footy together growing up’’.

“Brad’s 15 months older than me so when we were growing up we weren’t in the same team very often,’’ Matt said.

“If anything, we probably just notice each other’s voice out on the field more than others.’’

That’s music to the ears of Crows’ fans.

Originally published as The Crows’ Crouch brothers are leading Adelaide’s charge to AFL premiership glory