Adelaide tagger Robert Shirley says confidence was high within the playing group leading into Saturday’s elimination final against West Coast despite losing the last three games of the season.

Shirley turned in his best performance in the Crows’ tri-colours against the Eagles – curbing the influence of gun midfielder Chris Judd while gathering 23 disposals himself – and he attributed the win to the positive outlook maintained by the team throughout.

“We were quietly confident leading into the game,” he said.

“Our training form has been pretty good over the last few weeks. I think we were pretty competitive last week (against the Power) and had our chances to win the game. This week we put it all together and were good enough to have a win.

“This week we were going in confident and it showed in the way we played and the way we pulled together as a team - next week will be the same no matter who we play.”

Shirley was assigned the task of nullifying Judd early in the week and he identified the young game-breaker’s speed as his greatest asset.

“I was really a bit worried about his pace because he’s got the ability to take (the ball) and dash for 20 metres and no one can really stop him,” he said.

“It was a matter of just staying with him and when he did have the ball just to put as much pressure on him as I could to make him dispose of it under pressure.”

The importance of Shirley’s contribution was not lost on senior coach Gary Ayres.

“He’s definitely improved,” he said.

“Robbie’s got that one core ingredient that I think all league footballers have to have and that is he hates to be beaten. He doesn’t accept second best and his tenacity, his perseverance and his ‘want’, if you like, his will to improve is really a credit to the kid.

“He got a few knocks on the chin early in the year, he got delisted last year and his character trait as far as being a real improver is there.”

Shirley is philosophical about the turnaround in fortunes that has seen him go from AFL discard to first-team regular in a few short months.

“It’s funny how the game turns around pretty quickly,” he reflects.

“A few months ago I wasn’t really close to getting a game (but) in the second half of the season I’ve been lucky enough to get a chance and (then) lucky enough to stay in the side. It’s a week by week thing for me – I don’t take it any further than that.”