Josh Jenkins has credited his fellow forwards after kicking a career-high six goals against West Coast.

Jenkins kicked three of Adelaide’s eight first-quarter goals on Sunday. The first two were from marks in the goal square when he was spotted up by Tom Lynch and then Eddie Betts. His third was a beautiful set shot from a tight angle 45 metres out on the quarter-time siren. 

The athletic Crow finished with 6.1 as well as seven marks, including a game-high five contested.

The personal-best goal haul saw Jenkins improve his tally to 41 from 18 games this season – one more than his previous best season return of 40 goals (from 20 matches) in 2014.

Jenkins, who only kicked one goal in Adelaide’s big win over Brisbane last week, said his teammates had made a point of trying to find the mismatch in the undermanned Eagles backline.

“Last week, I couldn’t find the ball and then this week it finds me,” Jenkins said after the game.

“It can be the life of a tall forward. Sometimes, you can’t sniff a goal but today I was able to get on the end of a few.

“Eddie and a couple of the other guys really made it a focus to get me involved. To get one or two early gets you up and about and you feel like you’re in the game early.”

The Crows kicked 12 of their 19 goals from turnovers on Sunday.

Jenkins praised Adelaide’s team defence and also its young backline, which limited West Coast to its lowest score – 10.9 (69) of the season.

“Along with Hawthorn, West Coast is probably the benchmark forward line in the competition,” Jenkins said.

“We’ve seen our young defensive group grow this year. They’ve had some growing pains, but there’s Jake Lever, Kyle Hartigan and Daniel Talia, who’s got to be All Australian full-back again, while Brodie Smith probably had his best game for the year and Rory Laird is another All-Australian candidate.

“We’ve got a really good group down there. They’ve played a lot of footy together this year and they’re really starting to gel for us.”

With potent forward lines at either end of the ground, the midfield battle was crucial.

With the exception of a 20-minute patch in the second quarter, the Crows got on top in the middle.

West Coast’s prime movers Matt Priddis (22), Luke Shuey (25), Andrew Gaff (23) and Mark LeCras (13 and two goals) were limited to near-season low numbers.

Sam Jacobs edged out Nic Naitanui, who was dominant when the two teams met in Round 15, in the ruck battle, while Scott Thompson (29), Patrick Dangerfield (28), Richard Douglas (25) and Rory Sloane (25) all found plenty of the ball. Adelaide lost the clearance count (31 – 36) but won the inside 50m count (60 – 54) and contested possession (141 – 140).

“I thought Sam Jacobs really set the tone. He was pretty good at negating Nic Naitanui in the centre,” Jenkins said.

“The guys had a really strong plan in there and it worked early. We were able to get on top in the clearances. When we can get it in our forward half, we feel like we can score and beat any side.”

Adelaide will now prepare to play Geelong – possibly for a home final – at Simonds Stadium on Saturday. Jenkins admitted he was excited by the prospect of playing finals for the first time in his relatively short career, but said it was important the Crows kept a narrow focus.

“To be honest, it can be easy to drift off, especially, for someone like myself who has never played in the final, and to think about what that might be like,” he said.

“I guess we got a bit of a taste of it today, with 53,000 fans here it’s a finals atmosphere and as good as you’re going to get anywhere.

“We’re professional athletes and you’ve got to be able to stay on task. We’ll recover now as best as we can.

“We’ve got a short turnaround to go down to Geelong and tackle those guys at a venue where it’s been tough for us to win in recent years.”