You play sport to have fun and you have fun when you win, so as we boarded our plane to Alice Springs last Friday, we were going with the intention of winning regardless of the weather or who we had in our line-up.

With a strong week of training behind us and the well wishes of everyone we left behind in Adelaide we were ready to show the people of Alice Springs the new- look Adelaide Crows.

As is common with the NAB Cup we had some fresh faces in the side, but no one was more welcome within the team than gun forward Jason Porplyzia.

Everyone knows what he is capable of and although ‘Sando’ made everyone wait until the second half to see him, it was worth the wait as he collected 16 classy possessions.

I am sure no one was more pleased to be out there than Jason himself and we all look forward to seeing him terrorize defenders all season long.

This time of year in the Alice you can expect to see one thing for sure - rain!

And in the week leading up to the game there was plenty to be seen.

As we landed and took our bus to the hotel we drove for ten minutes and got a chance to see all the excess water lying by the roadside and in the overflowing channels.

Being almost 200cm this made me extra anxious as a greasy ball and heavy track are not ideal for someone my size.

Following a light training run and a big dinner we all headed to bed ready to give our best efforts.

Saturday, game day!

The sun was trying to come out and the rain clouds seemed gone but with the amount of rain that had fallen in the days leading up we knew the ground would still be soggy.

We arrived at Traeger Park at around 5pm and the boys eagerly inspected the oval.

Surprisingly, despite the expected heavy and soggy grass, there was not really any excess water laying in the ground and all looked pretty well ready for a quality football match.

 The Lions, who had also left a few big guns at home including the Simon Black, Jed Adcock, Daniel Merrett and the recently injured Jonathan Brown, arrived with a batch of young guns ready to show Michael Voss why they deserved to be in the team for round one.

As the match started, we knew we were in for a tough battle.

The Lions were implementing their game-style well and we were playing ours equally as well.

With some good work up field from Bernie Vince, Chris Knights, Shaun McKernan and Jared Petrenko we were able to get a nice lead going into quarter time, but Sando and the line coaches let us know what we had to do to really gain the ascendancy.

Tommy Lynch, who we nabbed in trade week from St. Kilda, was everywhere early on.

He seemed to be running his man into the ground and was a constant link between our midfielders and a resulting goal.

He also kicked a couple of smart ones himself.

We did what the coaches had asked throughout the second quarter and with some fresh substitutes coming on at half time (Porplyzia, McIntyre, Shaw, Thompson, Johnston, Riley) we knew we could run away with a good win.

But, as is the competitive levels of AFL teams, if you want a victory you have to earn it, and the Lions certainly weren’t going to give us a victory and say well done.

Throughout the whole game, acting captain Patrick Dangerfield and ball magnet Rory Sloane led the way inside the centre square while big Shaun McKernan dominated the ball-ups against good opposition in Matthew Leuenberger.

Others to stand out in my mind were Ian Callinan, young gun Brad Crouch, Andy Otten and the man with the freshly cut mullet, Matthew Jaensch.

Despite the game not being a true away game with both teams having to travel, anytime you can get a victory despite getting on a plane and sleeping in hotels is a brilliant feeling and a positive result.

There were many distractions up there but the boys were focused on the task at hand and played the way we have trained all summer long.

There were no premiership points on offer but any time you can get that winning feeling it can only be a good thing for the group and our supporters as a whole.

We move forward now with a dominant opposition in Collingwood awaiting us and round one creeping closer.

With our big events such as the Community Camp, season launch and members day all completed or upcoming the 2012 AFL season is very much underway so get along to the games and become a Crows member.

As is our slogan, we play much, much better with a 19th Man!

Josh #20