IT'S THE big danger for Adelaide and Richmond – how to prevent the curse of the rested qualifying finallists from repeating two years in a row.
This time 12 months ago, it was Greater Western Sydney and Geelong who were bundled out at the penultimate stage of the season.
The introduction of the pre-finals bye presented a unique challenge, dividing the footy community about its merits and whether playing only two games in a month would have a detrimental effect on a team's performance.
Initial evidence suggests it did, but if Geelong beats the Crows at Adelaide Oval on Friday night, and the Giants upset the Tigers at the MCG on Saturday afternoon, then those whispers will turn into a roar.
The Crows have changed things up. Not just in response to last year's results, but also from their remarkable round 19 draw with Collingwood.
With a nine-day break after a 47-point win against St Kilda in round 18, the Crows' high-performance staff gave their players a light week on the training track.
The move backfired early as the Crows trailed by 50 points early in the third quarter against the Magpies before storming home with 13 goals in the second half to secure a share of the points.
"We had a situation earlier in the year against Collingwood, we came off a nine-day break and we backed the group off and we didn't come out and play anywhere near the level we played the previous week," Crows coach Don Pyke said.
"We're mindful of that, but these are the things you learn.
"As you go throughout the year, you don't pull every right rein, you find at times you might have got something wrong.
"We don't know until tomorrow night, but we're very confident the way we've trained in the following two weeks after the qualifying final puts us in a good spot for tomorrow night."
During the two weeks between the qualifying final win over the Giants and the clash with the Cats, the Crows had a three-day training camp on the Gold Coast and also a match simulation session last Saturday.
Richmond, meanwhile, chose to keep its routine as normal as possible, keeping the same training schedule, going through a captain’s run late in the week, and then ramping things up for a heavy Saturday training session.
"We understood we had 15 days to prepare for this game and that's why we took the path we took, to not only try and freshen the players physically and mentally, but to also then to train them up to be ready to perform tomorrow night," Pyke said.
"The temptation is to go a bit easy and cruise your way through to the next week.
"We've probably taken a slightly different view – we want to train with a level of intensity and purpose that has got our guys ready to play given that we're not able to get a game in those in-between weeks.
"When you get out of that groove (of playing and competing), sometimes you don't get back into it.
"Ultimately, it's about preparing to perform, and we think we've given them every chance to do that."
