Adelaide’s Riley Thilthorpe has dominated a record 98-point belting of arch foe Port Adelaide which lifts the Crows to top of the AFL ladder.<\/p>\n
Thilthorpe booted three goals in a 20.13 (133) to 5.5 (35) victory – the biggest margin in a Showdown – on a sodden Saturday night at Adelaide Oval.<\/p>\n
The Crows will sleep on top of the ladder, though Collingwood will likely re-take pole position on Sunday with a win over Richmond.<\/p>\n
Adelaide will finish the round no lower than second after logging five consecutive victories for the first time under sixth-year coach Matthew Nicks.<\/p>\n
The sole blemish on Saturday night was a hamstring injury to Max Michalanney, who was substituted in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Izak Rankine celebrates a goal for the Crows.\u00a0Photo by James Elsby\/AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The 201cm-tall Thilthorpe defied the heavy rain with his influential 19-disposal display featuring six clearances, and veteran Taylor Walker and Ben Keays booted three goals each.<\/p>\n
Adelaide’s Jake Soligo (35 disposals) and Sam Berry (20 touches) scored two goals each.<\/p>\n
On-baller James Peatling (26, one goal) and captain and 150-gamer Jordan Dawson (21, one goal) were also prominent, while Mark Keane and Josh Worrell ruled in defence.<\/p>\n
The Power slumped to an 8-11 win-loss record and added another player to their lengthy injury list with Lachie Jones substituted because of a corked thigh.<\/p>\n
Port vice-captain Zak Butters (34 touches), Ollie Wines (25) and skipper Connor Rozee (22) battled against the tide while Jed McEntee kicked two goals.<\/p>\n
The match began bizarrely when Port’s Miles Bergman roved the first bounce and launched a 50 metre kick – the wrong way.<\/p>\n
Adelaide’s Darcy Fogarty marked the Bergman blunder and missed the set shot, but his side enjoyed early control.<\/p>\n
The Crows created an ominous 3.6 to 0.1 lead before Port hit back with three consecutive majors of their own – a stunning McEntee shot from a boundary line reduced their deficit to five points at quarter-time.<\/p>\n
Adelaide then produced a game-breaking burst, scoring four goals to none in the second stanza as Thilthorpe took control.<\/p>\n
The big Crow scored with an audacious 50m left-footer on the run as Adelaide crafted a 29-point half-time advantage, 7.8 to 3.3.<\/p>\n
Thilthorpe had 14 disposals, his eye-catching goal and six clearances for the half and extended his influence with the opening goal of the third quarter.<\/p>\n
The strike was the first of five goals to Port’s two for the term as Adelaide led by a whopping 50 points at three quarter-time, 12.11 to 5.3.<\/p>\n
And Thilthorpe again took centre stage with the initial goal of a last term when Adelaide piled on eight goals to nil to cruise to victory and a 30-28 overall record against Port.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide’s Riley Thilthorpe has dominated a record 98-point belting of arch foe Port Adelaide which lifts the Crows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-23810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}