WITH a finals berth safely tucked in his pocket, Adelaide coach Neil Craig has set sail for the top four.

The Crows won their 12th match of the season on Friday night against Hawthorn, which puts them level on points with fourth-placed Western Bulldogs.

The Dogs have a game in hand and a superior percentage but Craig says his team has some fire in the belly to go as far as possible in 2009.

“Well, we’ve got a chance, I guess [of making top four],” Craig said after the match.

“And our aim will be to win the next two games and see how it all falls out. I haven’t looked at the draw for the last couple of weeks but it is getting a bit messy.

“We’ll play as hard as we can in the next two weeks to try and finish as high as we can.”

Adelaide has made the finals in each of Craig’s five years at the helm but hasn’t won a final since beating Fremantle in the 2006 qualifying final.

And they’ve gone out in the first week in the past two seasons.

Craig said that monkey wouldn’t go away until the team did something about it.

“Once finals start there will be the speculation about our record and we understand that,” he said.

“It’s there, it is not going to change until we change it.

“Our next challenge is to do a bit more in finals. I just believe this group have got the energy and the want and desire to give it their best shot.

“The squad has changed, and relatively quickly. But I just know that the mentality of this group is a real joy to coach and the best example I can give is tonight.

“In the past, not this year, we would have lost that game so they’ve got some real fight.”

But Craig said he wasn’t thrilled to have done a favour to the eighth-placed Port Adelaide by beating one of its main rivals.

“That doesn’t sit too well does it,” Craig said. “We are not into doing Port favours.”

Something that did please the Crows coach was the four-goal game of Trent Hentschel, who has barely played AFL football since doing his knee in 2006.

Craig said the most positive aspect was the fearless way Hentschel attacked the game, given his injury history.

“He played at a high speed and he played what I called hard footy and we wanted him to do that, not just meander through the game and be tentative,” he said.

“Because he wants to find out himself, he is not into just hanging around the footy club.”