Adelaide Crows land for Dubai encounter

Dubai: Adelaide Football Club will be looking at an experimental side to hand them a season-opening win in the NAB Cup match against Collingwood in Dubai.

"A victory here is not on top of the priority list for us during this match," Adelaide Crows coach Neil Craig told Gulf News.

Craig landed in Dubai early yesterday with a travelling party, including 39 senior players and 25 staff members for the season-opener to be played at the Ghantoot Racing and Polo Club on Saturday.

"Most clubs would normally treat such a match as an opportunity to experiment. We too are inclined towards experimenting with some of the players by giving the youngsters a chance to prove themselves in certain positions," Craig said.

"If we wanted to win the match outright then we would have opted for our first-choice squad. However, the competitive edge will always be there."

This is the very first time that a NAB Cup match is being held outside Australia and the Adelaide coach is looking at this as a rare chance to blood some youngsters.

"We are pleased to play outside Australia and give the sport a new venue while also giving the numerous Australians here something to cheer about," Craig said.

The coach admitted he and his squad have been pretty impressed with what they have seen of Dubai. "For most of the youngsters, especially, this is the first time out of Australia. So that should help build them up as well," he said.

"This will be a good cultural experience too."

During their build-up for the match, Adelaide will continue with their regular training programme with a sessions planned at the Police Academy.

The official press conference will be held after the arrival of Collingwood from their training base in South Africa.

The NAB Cup match will be preceded by a curtain raiser between local clubs Dubai Dingoes and Dubai Heat.

Basic Rules

- Aussie Rules is a native game that has existed since the 19th century. The game lasts for four quarters and in the NAB Cup, each period will be 20 minutes long. Each team aims to get the ball to the end of the ground they are kicking towards and score a goal. Each goal is worth six points but during the NAB Cup, any goal kicked from outside the 50 metres line is worth nine points .

- There are four goal posts at either end of the ground, the two bigger ones signifying the goals, the smaller ones allow for a point to be scored if the ball enters between them and the bigger post. No more than 18 players of each team are permitted to be on the field at any time.