Good article on the Adelaide - West Coast game in today's Melbourne Age:
Eagles holding all the cardsRohan Connolly
September 18, 2006
FOR a second year in a row, the game that nearly all season appeared the obvious grand final match-up has come a week early.
Last season, West Coast and Adelaide headed the ladder for the last nine home-and-away rounds, their premiership play-off seemingly inevitable. But that was before the Crows blew their home qualifying final against St Kilda.
Adelaide rebounded the following week, but sentenced to a preliminary final at Subiaco, found the odds stacked too heavily, kissing its flag hopes goodbye a week from grand final day.
Switch forward 12 months, and it's the same plot, same actors, only their roles having reversed. Adelaide and West Coast held down the top two spots from round nine onwards, the Eagles' turn to finish No. 1 then lose that first home final.
The significant difference this season, however, is in the expectation of just how this intriguing sequel might play out.
Adelaide clearly shot itself in the foot in that 2005 upset at the hands of the Saints. West Coast's one-point loss to Sydney last week, in contrast, has left the Eagles with barely a limp.
West Coast will head to AAMI Stadium chock full of confidence, and with plenty of popular support for its chances not only of knocking over the Crows, but either Sydney or stablemate Fremantle at the MCG the following Saturday. And rightfully so.
It's easy to jump on the bandwagon of a finals side that stitches up its opposition as emphatically as the Eagles did the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night. But this is about far more than the superficiality of a 74-point scoreboard belting.
Daniel Kerr, Andrew Embley and Ashley Hansen were three of West Coast's four changes for the semi-final. They threatened to make a huge difference. And did.
The magnificence of Chris Judd and Ben Cousins is a weekly event, but something Sydney has been able to withstand. But you wonder whether that would have been the case with Kerr, Embley and an improved Chad Fletcher also thrown into the mix.
Those five players had no fewer than 134 disposals between them, an average of just on 27, against a Bulldog midfield and on-ball brigade that simply didn't know which way to turn. That in turn was great news for Eagle lesser lights Sam Butler and Beau Waters, who cashed in with 30 and 24 damaging touches respectively.
Hansen straightened the Eagles up with his hard leading and 11 marks, presenting another key forward target.
It was one change appreciated fully by Quinten Lynch and the game's most effective "swingman", Adam Hunter. They shared 10 goals, and along with the occasional presence of a resting ruckman, made West Coast's forward set-up a different proposition altogether from the impotent lot that was dealt with in last year's grand final.
Adelaide's defence is the best around, but the Crows' backmen will this week have a much bigger job on their hands given that profile and amount of quality ball coming in than they might have assumed a week ago. Not that the Crows wouldn't already have been a little twitchy anyway. They've lost five of their past six clashes with the Eagles, two of them coming at AAMI Stadium, where West Coast hung on by two points back in round two in one of the best games of the season.
That 82-point belting of Adelaide at Subiaco in round 17 also doesn't exactly hurt the case for a West Coast victory this week. The Eagles were completely dominant in midfield and around the ground despite the absence of ruckman Dean Cox, Embley and Fletcher. They racked up 26 goals, Lynch and Hansen sharing seven, but a spread of 13 individual goalkickers was equally significant.
And that win came against a much fuller playing contingent than Adelaide coach Neil Craig has had at his disposal for some time.
The Crows missed Andrew McLeod that day, but still had Brett Burton, Mark Ricciuto, Ben Hart and Trent Hentschel up and running.
What a luxury that seems now. For the Crows, it's clearly going to be all hands on deck, and that means some big, big decisions for Craig on the fitness of Ricciuto, McLeod and Burton.
Of that trio, it's the "Birdman" who appears closest to the line. To play all three underdone stars would be asking for trouble, and if the worst eventuated, Craig would cop a caning about gambling on unfit players at the most critical point of the season. But he might equally be criticised for playing less capable, if fitter, bodies against the roll call of silk presented by Judd, Cousins, Kerr, Embley and co.
John Worsfold had his worries after West Coast's first-up finals loss. But the Eagles' coach is entitled to feel a little more comfortable than his coaching rival this week.
Blowing a home qualifying final and being sentenced to an interstate preliminary final might have been a death sentence. It proved as much for Adelaide last year.
But few, if any, sides that have faced a monumental finals challenge look as well-equipped for the task as Worsfold's mob does right now.
http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2006/09/17/1158431586989.html