AFL finals are all about pressure, both physical and psychological. Adelaide didn't cope well on either front last week. How it fares second time around on Friday evening is going to be one fascinating exercise in human behaviour.
Why? Because the upshot of last week's failed test is that the Crows this week are under as much heat on the psychological front as we've seen any finalist for a long time. Let's count the ways.
There's the historical stuff. Like the fact that if Adelaide loses to Hawthorn on Friday night, it will be the first minor premier since North Melbourne in 1983, some 42 years ago, to go out of finals in straight sets.
Or that since the current system of the final eight was introduced in 2000, there's been just three semifinals in which the team finishing first played the side which had come eighth, with the top team romping home by 74, 83 and 39 points in those examples.
Or the anxiety-inducing stats about qualifying final losers versus elimination final winners before and after the advent of the pre-finals bye in 2016.
Whilst it's arguably as much a consequence of a further tightening of the competition as the benefits of a "freshening-up week" on the eve of the finals, from 2000 until 2015, only four of 32 knock-out semifinals were won by the elimination final victor against a qualifying final loser. Since 2016, it's been eight of 18.
And there's the still oft-repeated throwbacks to the Crows' last finals turnout prior to last week, the now-infamous 2017 Grand Final disaster against Richmond. Suffice to say if the Crows lose to Hawthorn this week, it will be remembered just as infamously.
It seems unfair in one sense that a team can barely put a foot wrong all season, deliver a sub-par but hardly completely embarrassing performance in its first final for eight years, and now teeter on the precipice of that sort of humiliation.
But that's finals. Ask Geelong of 2008, winner of 23 from 24 games before Grand Final day, about how it works. You won't get a lot of sympathy.
Adelaide, obviously, needs to focus on the process, not the ramifications of this clash with the Hawks. And at least it has some handy precedents to work with, Friday night being the third meeting of these two teams in just the past three months.
Even there, however, danger lurks. For typically of this year's top half of the ladder, the differences between first and eighth are minimal. Two games split one apiece, the first won by the Hawks on a bitterly cold Launceston Friday night in June, the second in which the Crows prevailed by just 14 points at this same venue.
Hawthorn might have finished eighth, but was just a game and a speck of percentage away from fourth. It has won nine of its past 12 games and the three it lost were by 13, 14 and 10 points all at the interstate homes of final eight opponents. That's solid form.
On the Footyology podcast, Rodney Eade says the AFL seeking to introduce a 'last disposal' rule to replace 'insufficient intent' is the result of poor rulemaking from the league.
Adelaide, given its pre-existing anxiety, will certainly want to avoid a repeat of its Round 21 win over the Hawks, when it allowed its opponent the first five goals of the game. A repeat of those shenanigans and you'll be able to hear the clenching of collective butt cheeks from within South Australia.
On the line here, too, potentially, is the eternal debate about what wins finals. Adelaide statistically has had a better balance between offence and defence than any other team this season, but its dismal 8.7 (55) against Collingwood last week was its third lowest score of the season from a decent 50 inside 50s.
Hawthorn's defence, meanwhile, has been a strong suit, the Hawks ranked third for fewest points conceded, and keeping GWS to comfortably under 100 points last week despite conceding a whopping 72 forward entries.
In that regard, it's worth noting Adelaide and Hawthorn are ranked one and two in the competition for the application of midfield pressure. Crows skipper Jordan Dawson, disappointing last week, and Hawk tyro Jai Newcombe -- who starred -- are clearly going to be keys to creating requisite scoring opportunities for either side this week.
But they're opportunities which need to be taken. And on that score, individually there'll be few players under more pressure than Crows' key forward pair Riley Thilthorpe and Darcy Fogarty.
The former competed hard but still had some "clanger" moments he'd like back again, while Fogarty had the proverbial "Barry Crocker", fumbly, hesitant, nervous-looking and finishing scoreless, having taken only two marks.
Fogarty, one of 16 Adelaide players who were in their first final last week, at least gets a second bite. But it really is "last chance saloon" time now. For who knows when that opportunity comes around again?
Adelaide made some catastrophic mistakes after the disaster of the 2017 Grand Final (training camp, anyone?) But one thing it did get right was the belief that opportunities simply have to be taken when they're presented.
It's taken the Crows another eight years to even get close to the same point again. There's never been a more critical time for a whole club to show that it has learned that lesson well.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY .