ADELAIDE skipper Nathan van Berlo has predicted an emotionally charged start to Friday night's clash with Essendon after tumultuous pre-seasons for both clubs.
The Crows were hit with stiff penalties over the Kurt Tippett salary cap breach, while the Bombers are under Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority investigation over possible used of banned substances.
While van Berlo, who re-signed with the Crows for three years on Monday, expected a fiery opening to the game, he said emotion wouldn't be a determining factor in the result.
"There will certainly be a fair bit of emotion around the Essendon footy club - some people could argue there will be a fair bit of emotion around us with the tumultuous off-season that we had as well," van Berlo said.
"It's like with a milestone game, I think the emotion lasts for the first maybe five minutes of the game.
"Certainly in the build-up it's there, but it shouldn't be something that drives you as a football club or as a team.
"I don't think that will be the case for us this weekend; we'll be preparing to play a fit, well-organised and ready-to-go Essendon side.
"We're expecting a very tough encounter."
Some have predicted that Adelaide won't live up to the increased expectations raised by last year's successes, and this has created an undertone of us-against-them at West Lakes.
It led coach Brenton Sanderson to deliver an impassioned speech at the club's season launch last week in which he boldly claimed his group was hungry and ready to take on lofty expectations. Van Berlo said that while a siege mentality could prove beneficial, he would be disappointed if it was necessary to drive his teammates.
"You can use criticism in any way that you want to try and drive you, but I'd be disappointed if we needed criticism from outside or from even, to an extent, internally to drive you," he said.
"Every player that we've got here is a competitive person and they want to win and they want to get the best out of themselves, so naturally that internal desire that they've got will drive more than what any criticism outside would."
Patchy pre-season form has led to suggestions the Crows would struggle to match last year's impressive third-place finish, but van Berlo warned opposition clubs from reading too much into NAB Cup results.
Adelaide lost to St Kilda in its first NAB Cup hit out and was thrashed by Geelong by 63 points the following week. The 26-year-old van Berlo said his side was ahead of where it was at the start of 2012.
"We've trained harder this pre-season, we've got our bodies in better shape, the attitude and hunger of the group is still certainly there and burning to improve and we've further improved on our culture as well.
"Those things are more or less recognised internally; we feel them growing as a playing group. While our [pre-season] performances have been criticised to a certain extent we know that we're very well prepared going into round one and have every confidence we can perform at the level that we need to."
