THEY were probably among the three loudest roars heard on a rather noisy night at the Adelaide Oval. All within the space of a couple of minutes, and all three in response to Matthew Nicks' face being splashed on the big screen.

One of them was even accompanied with a standing ovation from multiple sections of Adelaide fans as their team approached their first finals win in nine years. 

So much so that even the usually unflappable Nicks couldn't help but splash a big smile in response to the overwhelming overflow of love coming his way. And he didn't hold back on expressing exactly how it felt in that moment, especially after he noticed a teenaged kid smiling back at him through the glass window with both his thumbs up in the air. 

"He was absolutely grinning, and it was one of those ones where it's just like watching a baby laugh, right? You couldn't stop laughing with it, so yeah, it was a good feeling," Nicks said. 

"The reason I don't smile every week is it's riding the rollercoaster. You need to stay level to a certain point and understand there's always work to be done. You know we're trying to develop.

"So you don't want to ride the highs every week. The same as you can't ride the lows. When things are really tough, you've got to find a way to be hardened as leader of the footy club."

It has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for Nicks and his team in the last week or so. There's been the speculation around his own future with the club. Along with doubts over whether the Crows will be able to get over the stigma of the one-two knockout blow in September last year after having finished as minor premiers.

CROWS v BULLDOGS Full match coverage and stats

While Nicks admitted to the "fair bit of pain" that his players have had to deal with over the last 12 months, he was adamant that the sentiment at the end of the night wasn't that of relief. But instead, more of furthering his belief in his team. 

"No, that's (relief) not the right word to use. I'm lying if I said when you come into games, you know your group's ready. You know they're good enough. But you come up against good opposition that might be slightly more ready than you are, and that's going to be our challenge over the next hopefully three weeks," he said.

"In those moments are we going to be as ready as our opposition? It's more reinforcing the belief that I have in them and we have in them as a coaching group. They just need to believe in themselves, and you get that through moments like tonight." 

In what proved to be an edgy back-and-forth contest, the phase of the game when the Crows really needed to lean on that self-belief came in the final quarter as the Western Bulldogs scored three quick goals to draw level with the home team when the momentum threatened to shift completely towards the visitors. 

Only for the Crows to break away in an inspirational period of play, where they sealed the deal. According to Nicks, it came down to a chat during three-quarter time around the structural make-up of the forward line, with veteran Taylor Walker providing pivotal inputs in his final AFL game at the Adelaide Oval. 

"We just drew up a little bit of a structural thing that we were noticing. They were able to slow our ball use, and we just tweaked something small, and it needed a diagram. Everyone learns in different ways. We'd already spoken, Tex and I on the bench, and you know he's like another coach for us. He suggested that we go through this with the group because I think it'll be a good one for the break, and they performed quite well, didn't they, in the last 10 or 15 (minutes)," he said. 

Though it was among the most significant wins of Nicks' career, it still doesn't fully ensure that the Crows have overcome the disappointment of last season. 

They now travel to Brisbane next to hunt down the wounded Lions to go one step further than they managed in 2025 and enter their first prelim final since 2017. But like he did with the suggestion of there being relief in the camp on Saturday night, Nicks also played down the understandable talk of the pressure that'll come with going one week deeper into the business end. 

"Yeah, again, you just use some different language to what we use. It's not pressure. We've waited 12 months for this night. We didn't wait. We went to work. We didn't release pressure. We know how good we are," he said.

"We know how good we can be, but we also respect that the opposition bring a certain game. And if you come up against teams that are playing their best footy, then you've got to be there as well. Tonight was a great contest, so we've just reinforced the belief in what we have. Now, we take even more confidence up to Brisbane next Saturday night and go on and take on the best."