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Jamie Kloeden reporting for AFANA from Adelaide Oval, Australia

As hordes of Adelaide football supporters made their way into the city, the realization was setting in that the Crows were finally going to make Adelaide Oval their home ground. The iconic sporting venue - which is known worldwide as a picturesque cricket venue - has been redeveloped to house over 50,000 fans while still retaining its old school charm, including the manually run scoreboard that was first used back on 3rd November, 1911. Although both Adelaide and Port Adelaide opened the ground last week, it was Port that was the home side on that occasion and a sea of black and teal took over the stands as the Power fans enjoyed their first taste of their new surrounds. Round Three action saw Brenton Sanderson and the Crows with a home fixture and it was their turn to put on a show in front of a sea of red, blue and gold fans.

Unfortunately for those 47,426 predominantly Adelaide fans that were there at the game, it was third time unlucky as the Crows slumped to their third loss in as many games. Early play looked promising for Adelaide as they appeared in good touch through the midfield as well as up forward. Even though it took the Crows nearly 12 minutes register the first goal of the match through Rory Sloane, they looked to be a more competitive outfit than the one that surrendered meekly in the late stages against Port last week. From this point on though, it was the Sydney Swans who took charge and, although they allowed the Crows to get close at times, they were never seriously challenged. When the siren blew for quarter time it was six goals to two in favor of the Swans and the huge crowd with even bigger expectations was suddenly a lot quieter. For the Swans it wasn’t boom recruit Lance Franklin doing the damage up forward but instead Luke Parker who kicked two early majors (goals).

Josh Jenkins was presenting well up forward for the Crows but his scoring attempts were terrible in terms of their accuracy. By half time his five shots on goal had resulted in four behinds (points) and one out of bounds on the full. At the other end of the ground, the Swans "go to guy" had become Franklin as he showed his class and kicked two goals to help give his new Sydney teammates a 19 point lead at the main break. Parker continued to be among the best on the ground while the hard and tough Kieran Jack was providing his usual grunt in the midfield. While Sydney were finally starting to reap the rewards for the big dollars that they spent on getting Franklin to the club, the Crows have two new forwards of their own and were getting varied levels of service from them. Big man and former Cat James Podsiadly was working as hard as anyone on the field and, while he had only one goal to his name, it was his attack on the ball and general presence that was proving his strongest asset in this game. Ex-Carlton goal sneak Eddie Betts is the other big name addition to the Adelaide line up this season. While he was effective last week against Port with four goals, he found it tougher this week and was struggling to get his hands on the ball and make an impact.

Franklin had the first scoring opportunity of the second half but missed the target altogether and it took until the five minute mark when a dubious free kick was awarded to Adelaide's David McKay for the first goal to be scored. McKay’s goal seemed to spark the Crows into action and for the next period of play it was the home team that had the energy to control the run of play with Patrick Dangerfield and Matthew Jaensch both kicking quick goals to make things interesting again. However it was just not enough to hold off the Swans and when Tom Mitchell kicked his first against the flow of the game it looked like Adelaide may have wasted its chance to get back into the game. When Parker kicked his third it seemed like the Swans were about to take complete control. Jack and Franklin followed with two more to make it a reach for the Crows to come back. Betts finally got his name on the scorecard with a late goal but Parker answered straight back with his fourth and gave the Swans a 25 point break entering the final quarter.

It was nothing but a "Sydney Swans show" in the last quarter and they piled on seven goals to the Crows paltry seven points. Classy players such as Jarrod McVeigh, Franklin and Daniel Hannebery were among the goal scorers for Sydney in the last quarter while some of the top players from the Crows such as Richard Douglas, Betts and Podsiadly all missed chances that helped the margin blow out to 63 points by the time the game ended. Perhaps the final play of the game was the one that best summed up the game for both teams with Podsiadly lining up for goal after the siren and hitting the post with his kick.

Sydney is back on home turf at the SCG on Sunday next week to face an in form North Melbourne outfit coming fresh off a great win against Port Adelaide. Adelaide will be desperate to find some form and find it fast. The Crows will travel to Melbourne to take on St Kilda, hoping for a win to prevent themselves falling to 0-4 and an uphill battle to be in the mix for finals action this year.


Scoreboard
Adelaide: 2.2 5.7  9.10 9.17  (71)
Sydney:   6.2 9.2 14.5  21.8 (134)

Best Players
Adelaide: Podsiadly, Douglas, Dangerfield, Jaensch, Smith, Jacobs
Sydney:   Parker, Franklin, Jack, Kennedy, Malceski, McGlynn

Article last changed on Wednesday, April 09, 2014 - 7:45 PM EDT


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