Eddie Betts believes his unbelievable right-foot banana against North Melbourne was "probably the best" of his career, eclipsing his Goal of the Year winner in 2006.

Betts brought the crowd of more than 47,000 to its feet in the opening quarter at Adelaide Oval on Saturday night.

The exciting Crow coolly gathered a loose ball on the 50m arc at the northern end and danced along the boundary line before setting sail with a checkside kick as his Kangaroos opponent closed in. The ball curled around perfectly and cleared the line mid-post height. Betts celebrated with the captivated Crows supporters on the half-forward flank as commentators lauded his kick the goal of the season so far.

Betts is a past recipient of the Goal of the Year, earning the honour with another boundary line shot, from a similar angle but shorter distance, against Collingwood at the MCG in 2006.  

“I reckon it was better than that,” Betts said with a smile after the game on Saturday night.

“You have a split second to think whether you’re going to centre the ball or try a checkside kick. I just thought I’d have a crack and if it goes through it goes through and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

“I was lucky it went through tonight.”

After the initial amazement of Betts’ goal had passed, debate started over whether the livewire forward was out of bounds when he took the kick.

Replays suggested the two-time Blues leading goalkicker might’ve just dragged the ball over the line as he prepared to make contact with his foot. But the boundary umpire, who had a front-on view, gave it the all clear and Betts was awarded his first of three goals for the night.

“I was up at the pie stand, I was out (of bounds) that far,” Betts laughed.

“Nah, I’m not sure. It was close. Chris Yarran actually won Goal of the Year in 2012 when he was out of bounds against Richmond in Round One. I’ll text him tonight and ask him if I was out of bounds or not.”

Betts said he often had goalkicking competitions at training with Yarran and another skilful former Blues teammate, Jeff Garlett. He said he’d received a group message from the pair “getting stuck into him” after the game.

“When I was at Carlton, Yaz, Jeffy and I would always practice those shots and put lunch on it,” he said.

“All the boys would challenge each other and that’s how you get better, by practising at training. We practice it a lot. I was never the one buying the lunches though.”

Teammate Sam Kerridge was in the opposite forward pocket when Betts slotted the miraculous goal.

He wasn’t surprised to see the ball sail through.

“Eddie is unbelievable. I was in the other pocket on my haunches. It took me a little while to get over to him and I missed the celebration,” Kerridge said.

“He’s been a great get for us. He adds so much spark and buzz to our forward line. We have so much confidence in him. He plays his role every week. It’s not about how many kicks he gets, it’s also his tackles, his chasing and the crumbs he picks up.

“We really enjoy having him here.”

The Crows could also have a Mark of the Year contender this week after James Podsiadly got a nice ride in the third quarter.

Cheeky Betts was quick to niggle his forward line teammate about his hanger.

“I ran past Podsy during the game and said, ‘What? Are you trying to be Tony Modra? I know Mods was in the rooms before the game, but you don’t have to try to be him.”

The goal and mark were two moments of individual brilliance in what was an impressive team performance. Inspired by strong defensive pressure and better composure with the ball in hand, the Crows led from start to finish to post a comfortable with 36-point win over the in-form Roos.

The result maintained Adelaide’s run of up and down performances and Betts said it was important his side cut out the ‘down’ weeks.

“It was a tough week this week and it’ll still be tough next week because we don’t want to be on a rollercoaster, win, loss, win, loss … we want to find some consistency, so we’ll train hard this week,” he said.

“We’ve got another tough opponent in Essendon on Saturday night. We’ve got to go over to Melbourne next week and play like we did tonight from the get-go.

“Hopefully, we can come away with the win.”