ADELAIDE wants in on Opening Round, with Crows chief executive Tim Silvers to push for his club to host a game at Adelaide Oval to launch the season next year.

The AFL added an MCG marquee game to its Opening Round this year, with more than 82,000 fans flocking to the Collingwood and St Kilda match on Sunday night ahead of the Labor Day public holiday on Monday.

But with the MCG in doubt to be available next year in the corresponding weekend due to the Australia and England 150-year anniversary Test match taking place, Silvers, who was at the launch of the season last week in Sydney with other club bosses, said the opportunity was ripe for the Crows to host a game.

"I see the intent of the AFL and I get it, having recently been up in the northern states for the last week. I see what they're trying to do, but when you do have a game in Melbourne as well it seems to reduce that objective," Silvers told AFL.com.au on Monday.

"We're chatting today on a public holiday here in South Australia and there's no game of footy, so what a great way to launch the season if the Adelaide Crows were to play a game today or even the Sunday night game. I just think it would be a nice way to really bring footy into the state of SA, remembering it's a footy heartland state."

Silvers said the Crows are keen to be a part of the weekend, after two games in New South Wales and two games in Queensland were played in the League's third year of splitting its games to start the season.

"We had a discussion last year and there are some challenges with access to Adelaide Oval that I think we can work through if logic prevails," he said.

"Knowing next year the centenary Test match would be on this weekend so the MCG won't be available, so I'm sure we'll be putting our hand up to play a game at Adelaide Oval here in Opening Round."

In a wide-ranging interview ahead of the Crows' first game of 2026, Silvers wasn't shying away from the club's ambitions.

GREATER EXPECTATIONS

ADELAIDE'S minor premiership last year saw it claim the most wins (18) it has ever achieved in a home and away season. But two defeats in the finals at Adelaide Oval made for a bitter end to 2026, compounded by the loss of star matchwinner Izak Rankine to a four-game suspension on the eve of the finals due to a homophobic slur.

Silvers said Crows players had returned with extra resolve after their September lessons and despite a number of injuries over summer, he expects only Dan Curtin (knee) and Mark Keane (leg) to be unavailable against Collingwood on Saturday night.

"What I've found with our group is we've got no worries with the way they prepare, what they do in the off-season, they're professionals, they keep themselves fit, so they came back to the club in really good nick," Silvers said.

"You could see there's a bit of steel in the eye and a bit of a glint to make up for what was a good season in a lot of ways, but we were disappointed with the way we ended. That's going to be the fire in the belly that really drives us through this year.

"We have been struck by a few injuries, and with some long-term injuries to Dan Curtin and Mark Keane, but we've been conservative with a lot of other players and we expect basically every other player to be ready for round one. We'll be up and firing and can't wait to play Collingwood at the MCG and hope for a massive crowd."

Finishing in the top six on the ladder has made for a tougher draw under the AFL's fixture matrix, and it starts with four clashes against fellow premiership hopefuls – Collingwood, the Western Bulldogs, Geelong and Fremantle – but Silvers said the Crows were ready for that challenge.

"It's a risk to get too bogged into the detail of the draw. We know finishing minor premiers and in the top six we were going to be tasked against more challenging teams in our block and that was part and parcel of having a good year last year," he said.

"But big games against big teams in big timeslots – I think that's great for our club both on and off the field. Pressure is a privilege and for us to be able to play in big national games, under pressure, will set us up for the future because we're still continuing to build and we still have a young group. The more big games we can play, the better."

EXTENDING MATTHEW NICKS

IN DECEMBER, coach Matthew Nicks signed a one-year extension as coach to be tied to the club until the end of 2027.

He was due to come out of contract at the end of this year, but mutually agreed with Adelaide's administration that a short-term extension was the right path, with Nicks set to embark on his seventh season in charge this year.

Nicks admitted to allowing his players the time to "sit in the disappointment" of the finals results, and the Crows hierarchy did the same, but quickly wanted to lock in their coach after a return to September for the first time since the 2017 Grand Final.  

"When we were reviewing the year that was, we saw a lot of the positives that came out of it. We looked at what we'd been building with 'Nicksy' for a long period of time and it's tough for a coach to come in and the club has made the commitment to go through a rebuild, which was the first time in our history," said Silvers, who joined the club in 2021.

"He's developed a great culture, helped build a really good list, and we can see some positive momentum. We've been really aligned the whole way through and I've seen success and alignment between the positions of the CEO, senior coach, the chair and the GM of footy and we've been really aligned for a long period of time.

"We have belief in Nicksy and his vision so we wanted to get something done after the season and we mutually agreed to extend by the one year."

STICKING TO THE PLAN

ADELAIDE went through the long, dark days of a rebuild before seeing the light last year. That came with Adelaide ranked, on average, as the ninth oldest side and 10th  most experienced team to take the field.

"It probably caught us by surprise to finish with a record number of wins. We went from eight and a half wins the year before to 18 home and away wins, which is a club record in our 35-year history," said Silvers.  

"But we had momentum, especially towards the end. We won our last nine home and away games. When we were positioning the rebuild we probably weren't thinking we'd be in that top four position and it probably showed up a little bit in finals, but the list we've built now, we should be consistently playing finals. But it still comes down to hard work and execution."

The Crows are planning on appointing a new list boss within the next week to replace Justin Reid who took on a senior position at the AFL, with Hawthorn's Jarryd Roughead and Geelong's Simon Murphy considered leading candidates, as well as internal football operation manager Tom Hurley.

Adelaide revealed its five-year plan 'Earn The Pride' in 2023, by which it set lofty goals by the end of 2027 to have achieved: a third AFL flag, a fourth AFLW premiership, a membership tally of 100,000 and relocation to its Thebarton headquarters (by 2026).

The Crows had a record 81,000 members last year and are 6000 up on their number now at the same time of tally last year, with its new state of the art facility also on track.

"We're really happy with where we're positioned with the 'Earn The Pride' strategy and that was coming out of COVID and some challenging times for the footy club," Silvers said.

"We got up to 45,000 average crowd at Adelaide Oval last year which was a year ahead of schedule and the fourth highest in the competition and we got to play two finals. The progression on all our metrics has been really strong and a success so far but there's some pressure on the last two years and we have to continue to utilise that momentum."