Sam Shaw is yet to make his regular season AFL debut, but on Saturday night he walked away from AAMI Stadium as a member of Adelaide’s pre-season premiership team.
Injuries have deprived Shaw, who is in his third season at West Lakes, the opportunity to pull on the Crows guernsey before now and was still pinching himself in the aftermath of the Club’s 34-point NAB Cup Grand Final win over West Coast at AAMI Stadium.
“It’s a bit surreal,” Shaw told afc.com.au.
“I haven’t played an AFL game (in the premiership season) yet, so I was really working towards round one, but we’ve had a fantastic campaign both as a team and for me personally.
“It’s been an interesting experience and tonight has just topped it off.”
Selected by Adelaide with pick No.45 in the 2009 AFL Draft, Shaw has battled shin, back and hamstring complaints during his time at West Lakes, but on the back of a solid - and importantly uninterrupted - summer has emerged as one of the surprise packets of the NAB Cup.
The athletic, 193cm, 88kg, defender has held down a key post in defence in the absence of injured full-back Ben Rutten often coming up against significantly bigger opponents, including resting West Coast ruckman Dean Cox, Nic Naitanui and Scott Lycett on Saturday night.
“Fortunately, I didn’t have too much time on Cox or Naitanui,” Shaw said.
“Daniel Talia spent most of the time on them, but I’m getting a lot of experience playing on bigger bodies.
“I suppose I was never really touted as a key defender, so to get that experience has been good.
“West Coast is a very good side.
“They tended to get over the back of us quite a bit at times, so it certainly put a lot of pressure on us defensively.”
Despite having played in all five of Adelaide’s 2012 NAB Cup matches, the clash with West Coast was Shaw’s first full game.
The level-headed backman finished with 13 possessions, three marks and was credited with more ‘one per cent’ efforts than any other Crow.
With Rutten expected to return for the Club’s season-opener against Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium on March 31, Shaw knows competition for spots in the team will be tough but hopes to continue to push his name in front of the selectors.
“We’ve got Ben coming back,” he said.
“He’s got a lot of experience and will probably slip straight back into the side.
“I’ll just look to plug a hole wherever I can, press for selection and hopefully get some games.”
The 2012 NAB Cup trophy is Adelaide’s first piece of silverware since the Club’s last pre-season premiership win against Collingwood in 2003.
Shaw dismissed suggestions his team could be seduced by its early form, but was optimistic the pre-season grand final win could propel the Crows in the start of the season proper.
“We did discuss that it was only a NAB Cup game, but seeing as we’d made it all the way to the grand final we certainly wanted to make a match of it and I’m sure West Coast was the same,” Shaw said.
“We both fielded pretty good sides and were out there to win.
“Whilst it is only the NAB Cup, it was a good experience and a good form indicator leading into the start of the regular season.”
More than 27,000 fans packed AAMI Stadium to see Adelaide triumph over the Eagles on Saturday night.
Much was made of the Crows’ ability to attract a crowd to the decider and Shaw praised the turnout.
“It seemed like 50,000 people being out there on the ground,” he said.
“It was fantastic and our supporters were great tonight.
“Hopefully, we gave them a good match and we get even more people along to the regular season games.”
