March 9, 1991: Adelaide’s exciting run through the pre-season Foster’s Cup competition ended abruptly at the semi-final stage.

After advancing with impressive wins over Geelong and St Kilda, the Crows were brought back to reality by a 58-point loss to North Melbourne at AFL Park.

Adelaide only trailed by 13 points at the first change and then 16 at half-time but North dominated the second half, adding 9.6 to 2.6 to win 15.13 (103) to 6.9 (45).

The Sunday Mail listed Andrew Jarman as Adelaide’s best, along with Tony McGuinness, Bruce Lindsay, David Marshall, Grantley Fielke and Chris McDermott.
Andrew Payze and Clayton Lamb played their first senior games for the Crows, in what was the club’s final pre-season outing before tackling AFL powerhouse Hawthorn in the opening premiership season match.

Crows coach Graham Cornes said: “The only positive thing that came out of it was there are a lot of areas we have had highlighted that we can improve on. And it gets our feet well and truly back on the ground.”

This year the Adelaide Football Club celebrates the 20th anniversary of its first AFL game for premiership points when it plays Hawthorn in the opening round - two decades after the Crows thumped Hawthorn by 86 points at Football Park.

For the next few months www.afc.com.au will run a regular feature highlighting the main footy news events from 20 years ago.