Adelaide captain Rory Sloane believes his club can play finals next season – but can they?
Kane Cornes has attempted to lay out the case for the Crows, believing with a bit of luck in close games, an easy fixture and an improved forward line, they can potentially get to the 12-13 win threshold.
“Your automatic response is ‘he’s dreaming, Rory Sloane is absolutely dreaming’, that would be my belief, that they’re unlikely to play finals, but if they are set to play finals, how can you build a case around it?” Cornes told SEN SA Breakfast.
“No one would’ve said Collingwood would go from 17th to 4th and no one would’ve said the previous year that Melbourne would’ve gone from outside the eight to the premiership.
“There’s surprises every year, Sydney right down the bottom in 2020, play finals in 2021. It can happen.
“For it to happen, this is how you can build the case for Adelaide to play finals next year.
“They’re going to get the easiest draw of all-time. That’s the important point. They’re going to get a very favourable draw because they’re finishing near the bottom of the ladder. There’s the big tick.
“12 of your games are at home. If you can get an easy draw and 12 games at home and you win seven of those 12, you’ve only got to pinch five more.
“I like the forward line. I think it has the capability to be a dangerous forward line in the competition.
“Darcy Fogarty is an AFL player and after another pre-season, hopefully the combination of him and Taylor Walker works. They’ve been too tall in that forward line, I think they now have a structure that works.
“Fogarty, Walker, Riley Thilthorpe with another pre-season as the third tall/backup ruckman, Josh Rachele and Wayne Milera in the front-half, I think that’s a lot to work with talent wise.
“I’d like one more to come in and support them. A player, ironically, like Charlie Cameron would be awesome to cause some chaos and another finisher. I don’t think there’s one of that quality on their list.
“The Adelaide playing group is clearly tough and competitive. They’re hard to play against. Which is half the battle. Look at Essendon and how easy they are to play against. Look at the Giants. They’re an easy team to play against at times.
“Adelaide aren’t. They’ve got it in their DNA. They’re tough, they’re competitive, they have consistent spirit and consistency of effort and if they can maintain that, they’re going to be in more games than not.
“Three games this year they’ve lost by under five points. Flip the script there and all of a sudden you’re on eight wins this year, you’ve got two more winnable games going home, there’s 10, and then you’re going ‘okay, we only need to find two more wins next year’.
“I like their key defenders. I like Nick Murray, I love Jordon Butts and I like Tom Doedee as the interceptor. They have two key pillars that can at least combat the best one-two punches in the game. They have the capability to do that.
“And then you have pick three in the draft. Go and get a player like Nick Daicos – find one! If you can get a player that can instantly impact and a couple of other pieces in the trade period, there you have it.
“The midfield is a complete and utter mess and I put that solely down to recruiting errors. I don’t know how to fix it other than to keep rewarding players like Jake Soligo, give him more wing minutes because he looks the goods.
“Start drafting players who aren’t all the same player, that would be a strong message to (recruiter) Hamish Ogilvie.”
Adelaide will be looking to put a dent in Carlton’s finals hopes this weekend when they host the Blues on Saturday night.