Ultimate player ratings: Jon Ralph and Glenn McFarlane rate every Adelaide player

The Crows have talent to spare, but in 2024 all eyes should be on one of their most exciting players. GLENN MCFARLANE and JON RALPH rate every Adelaide player.

Adelaide Crows 2024 player ratings

Taylor Walker has won Adelaide’s goalkicking award for the past five seasons and it would be a brave man to suggest he won’t make it six-in-a-row, given his 76-goal return in 2023.

But if ‘Father Time’ – or injury – finally catches up with the rising 34-year-old key forward, his mid-sized teammate Izak Rankine looks ready to take over his goal-kicking mantle.

Rankine and Walker are different players in make-up and mannerisms – there is a 13 cm height difference and they were born a decade apart minus two days, for starters.

Yet both have an uncanny sense of where the goals are, and how to kick them.

Criteria: Prediction of their 2024 performance based on their 2023 season, expected improvement and role in their side.

Skipper Jordan Dawson is the Crows’ most important player, while Rory Laird’s consistency over a long period of time has him next in line.

But the freakishly-skilled Rankine has a bullet beside his name in rising up the rankings.

He is ready to elevate his game from prodigious young talent to the finished product as he sets out on his second season with the Crows.

It could yet push him past Walker – one of Adelaide’s greatest players – in terms of his 2024 rankings, based on his expected projections this year.

And it seems fitting that he will take over the revered No. 23 guernsey this season, carrying on the tradition of Andrew McLeod, who carved out such a rich legacy for the club.

Rankine will turn 24 in April – just two days before Walker turns 34 – and he showed big signs of maturity last season, kicking 36.27 and being rated elite in terms of forward 50 ground ball gets, forward 50m marks and in goals.

Rankine was electric in his first season at the Crows, how much can he improve? (Photo by Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Go back and look at his 5.0 against North Melbourne in round 16 last season to see just what he can do when he is at his best.

He kicked goals in 17 of his 20 games last season and finished equal fourth in the club’s best and fairest, just six votes behind Walker.

Rankine would be looking to break through the 50-goal barrier this season and while he will likely never reach the high end of Walker’s goalkicking tallies, he is going to be a presence in attack – and even in the midfield – deep into the future.

Josh Rachele is far from a finished product, but we anticipate he too will take his game to a new level for the Crows this year.

Like Rankine, he boasts exquisite skills coupled with a hint of arrogance that most good players need.

Rachele doesn’t turn 21 until April, but this looks as if it will be the year he comes of age, and the prospect of him working alongside Rankine must warm the hearts of Crows’ fans.

Originally published as Ultimate player ratings: Jon Ralph and Glenn McFarlane rate every Adelaide player