‘They love a fight’: Mark Ricciuto on the Crows Collingwood clash
As the AFL Premiership Cup touched down in Adelaide, InDaily sat down with Crows legend Mark Ricciuto ahead of the Adelaide Crows and Collingwood qualifying final on Thursday night.
It was 27 years ago when Mark Ricciuto and the Adelaide Crows were about to face Melbourne in a qualifying final after finishing fifth place in the regular home and away season.
They famously lost that game by eight goals, which changed the course of their finals series. They went on to win their second consecutive premiership that year, in 1998.
“We did get badly beaten,” Ricciuto told InDaily. “And I remember from that time onwards, [head coach] Malcolm Blight just absolutely flogged us on the training track the whole way through, right through to the grand final day.
“And I remember every week, all the players were whispering, saying ‘God, I don’t know if we’ll be able to run the game out on the weekend’ – we’d trained that hard.”
It was that year that Ricciuto played in his first and only premiership win with the Adelaide Crows.
Although they went on to win the flag, Ricciuto said “I don’t think anyone really wants to do it the hard way, but sometimes you have to”.
“Finals are all about making the most of your moments,” he said. “Because sometimes you don’t get a second chance, and if you can do it the easier way, the better.
“We found a way to win even though we lost the first game.
“You’re thinking week by week, even back then – and that’s what the Crows have been doing this year.
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“You can’t afford to look far ahead, because what I’ve always found through my career and still today…as soon as you start looking too far ahead, you trip up.”
Ricciuto retired at the end of 2007 as one of the most decorated players in AFL history, with a Brownlow Medal, a premiership medallion, eight All-Australian jumpers and three Crows Club Champion awards.
He was only 23 years old at the time of his premiership win and Ricciuto admitted “you think at that time… we’ll win more, but they are very, very hard to win”.
“After that, we had opportunities all in the early 2000s and…in ’05, we won the minor premiership and we lucked out in the finals,” he said.
“We just didn’t get it right in September.”
Ricciuto said the one thing that is “key to winning premierships” is “you don’t have to be the best side all year, but you have to be the best side in September”.
“And in ‘97 and ‘98, we were the best side in September,” he said.
“We weren’t the best side over the whole year, and then in other years, we were probably arguably the best side in ’05…but we weren’t the best side in September.
“You’ve heard some of the coaches say now, what’s done is done. It’s the start of a new season this week.”
The Adelaide Crows will play in their first final since 2017 on Thursday night against Collingwood.
“Like any side, they’ve just got to take their opportunities,” the high-profile media commentator said.
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“They’ve got to probably play in a similar fashion to the way they’ve been playing – that’s what’s got you there.”
The Crows will be without their star forward, Izak Rankine, after he was banned for four weeks after saying a homophobic slur to another Collingwood player.
Rankine will only play again this season if Adelaide lose a qualifying final en route to the grand final.
Riccuito also missed out in playing finals in 1997. When the Crows won its first premiership Ricciuto was injured, sidelined with a groin injury as well as “two hernia repairs, two conjoint tendon repairs and osteitis pubis”.
Injury meant other star players like Tony Modra and Matthew Liptak also missed playing in the 1997 premiership game.
“The players have to just move on and focus on the job they’ve got this week,” Ricciuto said.
“They can’t be focused on Izak Rankine not being there because every week it’s very rare for a side to have everyone fit the whole time.
“Whether that’s Max Michalanney or Josh Rachele or Luke Pedlar or whoever it is. Just about every side in the finals has got players out.
“The players will just be focused on what they’ve got to do as individuals and what they’ve got to do as a team.”
Ricciuto said “the way they’ve played all year has been great preparation for them”, coming into the finals series.
“Coming from where they’ve come from – 15th on the ladder. There was this huge expectation at the start of the year, and they’ve had plenty of challenges along the year,” he said.
“At the start, people were saying ‘they can’t beat top eight sides’. And then they started beating the top eight sides throughout the year.
“[People said] ‘they couldn’t win away from home’, at the start of the year – they started winning away from home.
“Their defence wasn’t good at the start of the year. Now they’ve got one of the best defences, if not the best defence, in the competition, so they’re ticking a lot of boxes.
“They love a fight – their biggest loss is only 19 points, so they definitely have a crack, and they’ve had a few bad first quarters in the last six or so weeks, and they’ve been able to steady and come back and win those games as well.
“I think they’ve had plenty of the right experiences to be able to handle big occasions, and the last game against Collingwood in Adelaide was a record crowd.
“It was a finals like performance – that’s as close as you get to a dress rehearsal for a final, and Thursday night might be bigger than that.”
