Rory Sloane wanted Saturday night’s thrilling match against the Swans to come to an end so desperately he thought he heard the final siren before it had actually sounded.
“I could’ve sworn I heard it…,” Sloane said after the match.
One of Adelaide's best players in the SCG clash, Sloane wasn’t the only Crow anxiously awaiting the final siren.
After eight lead changes in the third quarter, neither side showed any signs of letting up in a tense final term.
The visitors, who trailed by seven points at three-quarter time, kicked the first three goals of the last quarter to open up an 18-point lead before Ryan O’Keefe and Lewis Jetta both converted to reduce the margin to five points.
Jetta had an opportunity to put the Swans ahead with a snap around his body in the dying stages, but his kick was off-target. A goal-line review with less than a minute of game-time remaining generated additional suspense.
The review showed Graham Johncock’s potentially match-winning kick at goal brushing the padding of the post. The umpires correctly awarded a behind and Sydney regained possession of the ball.
As was the case all night, the ball was kicked, scrapped, toe-poked and bundled forward, ending up in the hands of veteran Jarrad McVeigh inside the Swans’ 50m and then … siren.
“Those final few minutes were pretty nerve racking,” Sloane said.
“The call came out that there wasn’t long to go. We were just trying to get possession of the ball and slow it down. We were lucky Lewis Jetta missed that goal and the ball was in the Swans’ forward line at the end, so if the game had been another five seconds longer we might’ve lost it.
“We knew it was going to go down to the wire and winning those close ones is a great feeling. They’re the ones we’re going to pride ourselves on this year.”
The Crows, who had previously beaten four bottom-eight teams of last season, set themselves for the clash with the unbeaten Swans after a sub-par performance against premiership fancies Hawthorn in round three.
A key to upstaging Sydney - the best contested team in the competition - was winning the all-important contested possession statistic.
Led by Sloane (14) and inspirational pair Scott Thompson (16) and Patrick Dangerfield (12), Adelaide achieved this feat, finishing with eight more contested possessions than the Swans.
“Sydney is a great inside team and in great form as well,” Sloane said.
“We knew it was going to be a slog all game. It might not have been pretty, but we knew it was going to be tough and they fought really hard. We just wanted to keep our form rolling and it was great for us to back up after the Showdown win last week.
“Geelong, Carlton, Collingwood and Freo … we’ve got a tough month ahead and we want to beat those sides if we’re going to move forward. It’s going to be a big challenge, but as a young group we’ll learn from tonight and the next few weeks as well.”
