ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig says it’s impossible to tell whether his side is better placed going into the finals this year than it was in 2007.

The Crows only survived one week of post-season action last season, bundled out by Hawthorn, but they seem on paper to be in a slightly better position going into September this time around.

Adelaide finished the regular season with one more win (13) than last year, which helped the club secure a home final, as opposed to the away elimination final of 2007.

The Crows also finished moved up three spots, from eighth to fifth, after 22 home-and-away rounds, but Craig said Adelaide would focus on the future rather than entertain comparisons with the past, as it prepares to take on Collingwood at AAMI Stadium on Saturday.

“Are we better placed this year? I don’t know,” he said on Tuesday.

“We were confident going into the elimination final against Hawthorn last year. We’d won our last four games leading into it and we’ve one five out of the last six now.

“We’re confident and we should be confident, just as Collingwood will be confident going into the game.

“I don’t get too tied up in last year. We get asked a lot of questions about [the premiership years of] 1997 and 1998 and, I mean, that’s 10 years ago.

“And all that [1998] says is that you can win some finals and grand finals from different positions and, in that particular case, that this football club had some personnel at the time that were able to do it.

“If we were playing Hawthorn again at the Telstra Dome, both sides were exactly the same and had the same run in, then I’d be able to answer that question.”

The Crows have contested the finals in all four years under Craig, including preliminary final berths in 2005 and 2006.

Re-signed until the end of 2011 this season by the club, he has been criticised for his overall record in finals, which currently sits at two wins from six starts.

The Adelaide coach said the club hadn’t made any changes based solely on the results of its recent September campaigns.

“I don’t think there’s a constant [between the losses]. The personnel changes in your playing squad, you’re playing a different opposition and you’re playing at a different venue,” Craig said.

“You can only say that [you need to change something] if you’re comparing apples with apples and, obviously, you’re not.

“Are we doing things in our coach’s box at the moment, which are different to 12 months ago? Absolutely we are, and so we should be, but those changes aren’t based on one incident.”