Four years later, Hawthorn player personnel and strategy manager Chris Pelchen was given six years to reinstate the club’s position as a powerhouse in the competition.
But Adelaide coach Neil Craig cannot and will not put a time frame on his club’s third flag.
Craig has taken the Crows to finals in each of his four years as coach, but hasn’t tasted premiership success since his role as a runner with the club in 1997-98.
The majority of premiership teams over the past decade have been built around early draft selections gained from time served at the bottom of the ladder.
Or in Geelong’s case, handy father-son acquisitions like Gary Ablett and Matthew Scarlett.
The Crows, who have had just one top-five draft-pick in 19 years, are against the idea of ‘bottoming out’ and are set to prove there are other ways to build a successful side.
Craig said this ‘different’ approach required removing the ceiling of expectation.
“I don’t put a time frame on it (the next flag) because it’s not fair on the players - it could be this year,” Craig said.
“If I were to say, ‘It will be 2011 before we win a flag’, what kind of message does that send to our supporters or our players? It gives you too many outs and I know our playing group doesn’t want that.
“We pride ourselves on, every year, giving the maximum that we possibly can and we feel like we get the best out of each other.
“I think it’s a cop-out to say it’s going to be another three years.”
Adelaide, who boasted the oldest playing list just two years ago, has farewelled more than a dozen veterans in the past three years including club champions Mark Ricciuto, Ben Hart and Nathan Bassett.
Now the Crows have an average age of 23 years and 14 days, including 18 players entering either their first or second year at the club.
Craig was confident the recent high-turnover rate of players would have his side well placed for years to come.
“Each year we continually improve. Sometimes, with improvement you can lose personnel like Nathan Bassett, Ben Hart, Kris Massie and Matthew Clarke and people think you’re going backwards for a period of time. Short-term, you might be, but long-term you’re going forward and that’s where I feel the club is at,” he said.
Adelaide fans have become accustomed to supporting an ultra-competitive team that is always around the mark come finals time.
And Craig said he still expected to be judged on a yearly-basis, despite the immature nature of the squad.
“Our supporters are people who judge, and so they should because it’s their club, but I think they’re tough, fair and have a lot of football intelligence,” Craig said.
“They’ll see what we’re tying to do and they’ll make the judgement as to whether we’ve maximised the talent we’ve got, or not.”
