ADELAIDE skipper Simon Goodwin says the Crows are as ready as they’ll ever be to take on Collingwood in the first elimination final at AAMI Stadium on Saturday.
The Crows have been confronted with some tough obstacles this year, including five-straight losses and a season-ending injury to star forward Brett Burton.
And Goodwin, who has played in more finals than any other Crow (20) including two premierships, said the challenges of the minor round had prepared his side for what lies ahead in September.
“Every time we’ve been faced with a challenge, whether it be losing five games in a row, winning up in Sydney or playing the Western Bulldogs here to get a home final [we’ve overcome it] and those type of results build confidence and belief within the playing group,” Goodwin said on Tuesday.
“The young playing group that we’ve got has faced a lot of challenges and we’ve come through the other side to put ourselves into a home final.
“The challenges that we’ve faced throughout the year have held us in good stead and we think we’re as prepared as we can be.”
The Adelaide coaching staff re-jigged its game plan over the summer after conceding that defensively-minded footy would not win the club a flag.
This season, the Crows have made a conscious effort to restore the attacking edge, which was on display in 2005 and 2006, and, despite conceding finals were a different ball game, coach Neil Craig was hopeful his side wouldn’t have to change a thing.
“We try and keep the finals preparation pretty much the same as the rest of the year.
“We place a lot of emphasis on our ability to prepare both physically and mentally and also our attention to detail, so that when you run out there, there are no excuses.
“We need to have a picture, for our club, of what we think is important in finals and we put those into place during the year, so that if we do get an opportunity to play finals, then it’s not like we’ve got four new things to do.”
Collingwood easily accounted for the Crows at the MCG in round 15 this season after the visitors lost Burton and livewire Jason Porplyzia to injury early in the piece.
Craig, who praised the Pies’ competitive spirit and ability to respond quickly from a loss, acknowledged the impact of the injuries on the game, but said that Collingwood was simply too good in a few areas, which he refused to disclose.
“We need to play some fast football against Collingwood,” Craig said.
“We were very good early in that [round 15] game and people talk about the two major injuries we got in Jason Porplyzia and Brett Burton. Those injuries unsettled us to a certain extent, but there were some things in that game we thought we did poorly and that Collingwood did very well, so it will be a tough game of footy.”
Craig also said the Crows would need to concentrate on winning the contested possession this week - a statistic that cost them dearly in last year’s heartbreaking elimination final loss to Hawthorn.
“If you go back to last year’s elimination final, maybe our last quarter, in terms of contested ball, was pretty poor,” he said.
“We need to make sure that our contested ball is very good early and that it’s good for the whole day. That will be the challenge for our young playing group, to keep that sort of pressure up.”