The Adelaide Crows and the GWS Giants will get their 2017 seasons started at Adelaide Oval in a match that promises plenty.
These are two prolific scoring teams with multi-dimensional forward lines and that is likely to mean plenty of goals kicked.
The Crows are an interesting team this year – they changed little over the off-season and so they’ll need to find something inside their own list to lift them up a bit further this year.
The Giants snagged a new recruit in Brett Deledio, but he has a calf injury and won’t make his debut for GWS until later in the season.
In fact both teams are missing a few players through injury – the Crows have Brad Crouch, Scott Thompson and Jake Lever all set to miss, and there are no guarantees on Taylor Walker or Rory Sloane.
The Giants on the other hand will be missing Stephen Coniglio and Deledio for the next couple of weeks, and Aidan Corr is also absent.
Curtly Hampton will debut for the Crows and Tim Taranto will play his first game for the Giants.
This is a tough match because while the Giants look like the better side on paper, they’ve never beaten Adelaide in Adelaide before.
In addition to that, teams travelling interstate often struggle a bit in Round 1 and that could have an impact for the Giants.
Of course, if Walker and Sloane don’t pull up – and we don’t know if they will – it’ll make the Crows seriously understaffed.
Not sure you can pick either side with confidence, but if you do you’re probably looking at either Adelaide to win by 1-39 points at $2.63, or GWS to beat the -2.5 points line at $1.92.
Jonathon Patton had some good form to close out last year kicking three bags in his last four games, and him at $4.33 to kick three or more goals seems like a good price.