What Adelaide’s Finals Win Over the Bulldogs Actually Changed
Summary: Readers will learn how Adelaide ended a long AFL finals drought, why the Western Bulldogs lost a game they led on expected scores, and how one result reset the coaching conversation around Matthew Nicks.
At Adelaide Oval, one miss did more than shift a scoreline. It changed the story of the season for two clubs.
Adelaide beat the Western Bulldogs by 22 points in an elimination final, delivering the club its first finals win since 2017. The win put the Crows into a semifinal against the reigning premier Lions at the Gabba.
More importantly for the people running the club, it cooled the speculation around Matthew Nicks. Channel 7’s Tom Morris had reported before the match that Nicks could have been sacked if the Crows lost. No one publicly confirmed that report, but it gave the final unmistakable stakes.
The miss that flipped the game
The Bulldogs had their chance to make the speculation real. With 14 minutes 50 seconds left in the last quarter, Aaron Naughton marked 25 metres from goal, directly in front. Adelaide Oval was tense. Naughton had already hit the post twice that night. He hit it again. The Dogs took the lead, but only by a single behind.
From that moment, the game turned. Adelaide settled, held the ball, and piled on five unanswered goals. Darcy Fogarty, Izak Rankine and Josh Rachele all contributed majors as the margin stretched to 22 points.
Naughton finished with one goal and three behinds. The scoreboard would have been kinder to him if the underlying numbers had mattered. The Bulldogs won the expected-scores battle, a metric that estimates what the scoreboard should look like from the quality of chances created. They created the superior opportunities and failed to convert enough of them. That is how a team can control a final and still go home.
Rankine’s night and Nicks’ reprieve
Rankine was one of the best players on the ground. He finished with 34 disposals, seven clearances, five inside 50s and two goals, earning 17.9 rating points, his seventh-best outing of the season.
The result left the coaching story on hold in the Crows’ favour. ESPN’s analysis concluded that even a semifinal defeat to the Lions at the Gabba would be unlikely to bring the pitchforks back out. Nicks is safe, for now. Adelaide has something it has lacked for years: a finals breakthrough to build on. The Bulldogs, meanwhile, have a more familiar problem to solve: how to turn their best chances into a victory that counts.