CROWS BREAK THE HOODOO
Rest easy, Adelaide fans! The boys are finally on the board. The Crows got their first win of the season last night, taking down the struggling Hawks by 35 points and the jubilation, and relief, was obvious
IT was 16 games in the making and Matthew Nicks, his players and suffering Adelaide fans in 2020 may have been wondering if it was ever going to happen this season.
But the Adelaide Crows have won an AFL game for the first time under Nicks and for the first time since they defeated St Kilda in August last year as they heaped more woe on Alistair Clarkson and Hawthorn and finally tasted victory in 2020.
The game at Adelaide Oval on Tuesday night, strangely a Hawks home game, loomed as the best chance the Crows would have to save themselves from becoming the first side in AFL history to go throughout a season winless and since Fitzroy in the 1964 VFL season.
And while there were moments where it seemed Adelaide may let this opportunity slip, when the siren sounded Crows players and coaches were able to celebrate like it was August 2019 again.
Brad Crouch came back into the side for the first time since injuring his hamstring in
Round 8, while after copping criticism for not impacting games enough Matt Crouch has been ranked No. 1 in the AFL for average pressure points (66.7) from Rounds 10-14.
And in a game when the Crows needed to win the contested ball the Crouch brothers put in a vintage performance.
Matt may still handball it a lot but finished with 32 possessions (11 contested), while Brad is unlikely to be at the Crows next year - but what both did was help Adelaide smash Hawthorn in the contested ball by 25. The Crows have been routinely smashed in the contested ball stakes this season, against the Hawks they gave some back. Arguably for the first time as a Crow Tyson Stengle showed just how he can impact games. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing since he came to Adelaide from Richmond, but Stengle against the Hawks showed why the Crows backed him with a new two-year contract two weeks ago.
He missed out on kicking the first goal of the match for a remarkable fourth-straight game - although he should have kept this run going when he passed up two easy opportunities to open the scoring. But for the rest of the game Stengle showed why he was given Eddie Betts’ No. 18 at the end of last season, with his crumb to extend the Crows’ lead in the second a moment of magic.
Before the game Clarkson said winning against the Crows wasn’t “absolutely crucial”.
But Hawthorn fans will want to see something in the final three games of the season to give them some hope about the future of the struggling Hawks.