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Let’s settle on the Adelaide premiership dark horse bandwagon talk after a fortnight’s worth of victories against depleted opposition.
Absolutely, the Crows have been impressive – eye-catching and daring, they’ve been an offensive juggernaut in their first two games of the season. The premise of all this isn’t to dismiss their strong start to 2025.
But they’ve been a difficult team to trust in the past, especially given their status in 2024 as a popular smoky pick for a high-end finish ended in yet another year of disappointment and more pointed criticisms from fans towards Matthew Nicks.
For the Crows to come out and simply demolish St Kilda and Essendon, as they’ve done to date this year, is more than an encouraging sign – but if we were to make judgement calls on two weeks’ worth of footy every single year, we’d all be playing in the minor league, batting well below average and failing to get on base with at an embarrassing rate.
Pre-season, it felt right to have the Crows maybe fighting for one of the final spots in the eight. Personally, the evenness across the competition is as such that it was difficult to squeeze them in as a genuine contender, but the squad has clearly taken strides in the right direction.
What’s perhaps underrated with Adelaide is that between 2016 and 2019, their drafting was diabolical. Since 2020, it has been very good and helped set up what should be the aim of consistent September footy in the years ahead.
They’ve surrounded Nicks with better support in the coaches box and it seems like they’ve taken a strong turn in terms of a stable off-field setup, which naturally seeps into the on-field aspect of things.
In Round 1, they took on an inexperienced Saints team that had set themselves up defensively with inexperience and promise, and annihilated them.
Ross Lyon subbed Angus Hastie early and tried to stabilise a bit, and while the margin ballooned, the scoring shots in the second half were almost identical.
The following week, the Saints caused a huge upset over Geelong, but Lyon sought to use experience in key tactical roles in a way that wasn’t present against the Crows. They set up differently and approached the game differently.
Of course, it was a good win for Adelaide, but using the Saints’ result the following week as evidence of it being any better than it was is to ignore what Lyon changed.
Finally breaking that MCG hoodoo against an Essendon team that played well in Round 1 against the Hawks was fantastic. A scoreline reminiscent of the 80s and 90s, this was a drubbing of the highest order.
It should be acknowledged that the Bombers were missing their two most important players, Jordan Ridley and Kyle Langford, and quite frankly, the effort wasn’t there from the start.
That’s not to take anything necessarily from the Crows, either; it was their ability to outrun and overpower the opposition that simply made Essendon look worse. However, using the Bombers’ encouraging performance to start the season against a contender to prop up the value of this win just won’t fly.
Adelaide haven’t been tested, regardless of how their opposition has gone in their other match. The real tests for the Crows will come when they’re the ones actually facing Geelong and Hawthorn, not a retroactive weighting system based on the Saints and Bombers.
The fear around the Crows, and what perhaps limited predictions of a true jump into contention, was the fact the club only has two genuine stars, and there’s a heavy reliance on perhaps 10 players to make big strides forward to really improve the quality of the group.
Jordan Dawson and Izak Rankine were prominently featured in The Roar’s top 50 players list in pre-season, but the drop-off was thought to be significant.
Naturally, Riley Thilthorpe and Jake Soligo were expected to make a jump, and they’ve started the season of strongly. From there, it gets a bit murkier.
A sample size of two games isn’t much good for anyone, but we have seen encouraging signs from the likes of Josh Rachele, Josh Worrell (a long-time personal favourite), Max Michalanney and Nick Murray in particular.
It’s those last three names that are the big swing factors for the Crows this season, and the test as to whether this team will actually be one that features in September.
While offensively, the Crows probably weren’t expected to come out and generate a shot at goal from 60 per cent of their inside 50s – up from 46 per cent last season – nor did the metres gained jump seem likely to increase by 700 per game, a clear first in the league, the midfield and forward line never seemed to be the issue.
The defence was, and truthfully still is, the main concern; no, it’s not because the names aren’t universally known as a lot of panel shows seem to love to say, despite them only reading off a prompter.
In 2024, the Crows defended one-on-ones pretty well, especially considering they conceded amongst the most in the league; but they actually benefitted more from their opposition’s inaccuracy.
Part of that is by design, trying to force harder shots, but a lot of it is luck – they conceded the fourth-most shots at goal last year (only Richmond, North Melbourne and West Coast gave up more) and their opponents’ accuracy was a full three per cent lower than the league average.
Adelaide defended the talls quite well, but at ground level, they were largely destroyed. Their opponents were dominant whenever there was a hint of spillage, gathering the ball at a better rate than almost anyone. In conceding well above average numbers for tackles inside 50, the Crows were inviting that same pressure.
To improve defensively comes with natural progression from the aforementioned trio, with the added hope that Mark Keane can take further strides forward. Mitch Hinge, Rory Laird and Wayne Milera aren’t there for their defending, so it makes things a little more difficult for the rest, too.
It’s why the additions of Isaac Cumming, James Peatling and Alex Neal-Bullen were so logical and wise. Defending isn’t relying purely on backmen, but rather a whole-ground effort, both structurally and aided by pressure.
There are few better players than Neal-Bullen to address this. He has had the biggest impact of the trio through the first fortnight, but all three function well as two-way threats from advanced positions.
Still, the concerns remain. This Hollywood style of offensive footy isn’t sustainable, and defensive integrity is vital to actually being a good team.
The Crows conceded 22 scoring shots against the Saints and 25 against the Bombers. They are still defending well aerially, but remain been a bit susceptible at ground level.
Things have felt a little more stable with the higher work-rate from the half-forwards, and truthfully, the absence of certain players that were being gifted games, rather than earning them.
Through the opening two weeks, it has become clear Nicks wants his team to try and control possession through the back half to minimise the forward pressure of the opposition. We’ve seen inflated numbers for Adelaide defenders, which is great for your opening season fantasy match-ups, but the real-world effects are still yet to be seen against quality opposition.
Things will start to get testier soon for the Crows. They play the structurally underrated North Melbourne this week, a game they should win but will be tested in, while the Suns away from home is a real test against a fellow finals contender. After that, it’s Geelong, GWS, Fremantle (away) and Carlton.
All six of these teams have defensive structural integrity that can nullify the Crows offensively and restrict their ability to be so free-flowing, and will stop the run and easy hit-ups the Saints and Bombers couldn’t.
All these teams, too, have tactical differences in their approach to quick ball movement, yet all can hit the scoreboard hard in a short period of time.
The real test is now coming for Adelaide, to see if they’ve got a back-up plan for when things don’t go quite as smoothly as they are now, and if their desire to control the ball and stick the intercepts can protect their ground-level deficiencies, because young Michalanney can’t do it all himself.
Yes, the Crows have been extremely impressive to start the season, and have been playing the most entertaining brand of footy we’ve seen in 2025.
But these two games haven’t elevated the status of this group to anything resembling a September lock or even a dark horse contender… yet.
The real tests are fast approaching for this Adelaide outfit – they’ll be challenged physically and tactically in ways they simply weren’t in the opening fortnight.
If the defensive numbers improve and the Crows come away with a record better than 50/50 in their next six weeks, then it will have been a convincing opening stanza.
Until then, don’t overreact to two games against depleted opposition.
They’re fun, but the bandwagon hasn’t left the station.