{"id":78232,"date":"2026-08-23T04:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T04:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/78232\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T04:59:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T04:59:20","slug":"reward-for-hard-work-adelaide-coach-has-finals-ace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/78232\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Reward for hard work’: Adelaide coach has finals ace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide ace Izak Rankine is in hot form ahead of first finals campaign. (Matt Turner\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

This time, Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks has an ace up his sleeve.<\/p>\n

And Nicks can’t wait to use it, knowing Izak Rankine enters his first finals campaign in rare form.<\/p>\n

Rankine was serving a ban for a homophobic remark for Adelaide’s ill-fated finals campaign last year.<\/p>\n

\"Nicks\"
\n Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks rallies his troops in the big win over the Giants at Adelaide Oval. (Matt Turner\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

The Crows crashed out with consecutive losses, not winning a quarter in a dramatic downturn for the minor premiers.<\/p>\n

This year, Rankine tuned up for his finals debut by torching GWS with 35 disposals, four goals, three goal assists, and a dozen clearances in a 56-point win.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old had 10 score involvements all-up, plus 17 contested possessions.<\/p>\n

Those imposing numbers follow returns of 39 disposals and a goal, and 36 and a goal.<\/p>\n

“He’s getting involved a lot more,” Nicks said of Rankine.<\/p>\n

“He has been doing some stuff that the last few weeks that we just love.<\/p>\n

“He’s getting reward for that hard work, he’s building cohesion with our rucks, connecting with our midfielders.”<\/p>\n

Adelaide’s soon-to-be-retired great Taylor Walker booted six goals before a parochial 52,332-strong crowd at his last home-and-away game.<\/p>\n

\"Walker\"
\n Adelaide great Taylor Walker runs out with family ahead of the win over the Giants. (Matt Turner\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

The club’s all-time leading scorer booted three majors in an opening 10-minute burst that set the tone for Adelaide securing a top-six slot and avoid the wildcard finals.<\/p>\n

“We get another chance to be fresh, 14 days or thereabouts … that will be a bonus for big Texan,” Nicks said.<\/p>\n

“There’s no doubt, when he’s able to be fresh – we saw it against Collingwood, we saw it again tonight, especially when we gave him an opportunity in that first quarter. Yeah, he’s not a bad player.”<\/p>\n

\"Hamilton\"
\n Crows captain Jordan Dawson tackles Giant Riley Hamilton at Adelaide Oval. (Matt Turner\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

The Crows banked their highest score of the season – 24.13 (157) – against the Giants with Nicks adamant his team has the attacking force to win finals.<\/p>\n

“We’re going to continue to try and win,” he said.<\/p>\n

“If that says we have got to move the ball a little bit more and take some risks – we have got no fear with that.<\/p>\n

“We’re super-confident that, yeah, we can bring it when we need to.”<\/p>\n

Emerging small forward Zac Taylor is set for scans on an injured hamstring that could end his season.<\/p>\n

License this article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide ace Izak Rankine is in hot form ahead of first finals campaign. (Matt Turner\/AAP PHOTOS) This time,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4567,4568,395,23,4569,1610,4570,4574,152,4571,3170,4572,4573,33],"class_list":["post-78232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-adelaide","tag-aap","tag-aapnews","tag-adelaide","tag-australia","tag-australian-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-daily-news","tag-global-news","tag-news","tag-news-app","tag-news-headlines","tag-news-today","tag-today-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}