What an exciting match it is shaping up to be, when Geelong head to Adelaide Oval to kickoff Gather Round against the Crows on Thursday night. 

The Cats will be looking to build on their strong win over Melbourne last week, but they face an impressive Adelaide team that has started the year strongly. 

It is a bit of a case of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object this week, with Geelong's dominant defensive unit set to take on Adelaide's highly touted forward line. 

Here are the main things to watch on Thursday night. 

Ladder  

Adelaide: 5th (3-1) 
 
Geelong: 8th (2-2)

Points For 

Adelaide - 500

Geelong - 384

Points Against 

Adelaide - 341

Geelong - 283

Nullifying the Crows Forwards

There is probably no bigger challenge in the competition right now than trying to stop Adelaide's forward line, the Crows are comfortably the highest scoring team in the league averaging 125 points per game, across the opening month of the season. 

Riley Thilthorpe (14 goals) sits tied at the top of the Coleman Medal leaderboard, closely followed by Darcy Fogarty (12 goals), Taylor Walker (10 goals), and do not discount the impact of Ben Keays (eight goals) so far in 2025. 

One key strength of the Crows is their ability to hit targets heading forward, currently taking the most marks inside 50 of any team in the competition. 

While it certainly will be a challenge, there is no team better suited to handle it than the Cats who are currently conceding only 70 points per game to opposition teams. 

Suppressing Jordan Dawson's Influence

Obviously for Adelaide's forward line to have the impact that they have had, someone has to be getting the ball down there and Jordan Dawson has certainly been heavily influential in 2025. 

The star midfielder ranks 13th in the AFL for disposals across the opening month of the season, while also ranking in the competition's top 20 for tackles, inside 50's, uncontested possessions, centre clearances and goal assists. 

Dawson averages 23 disposals and four inside 50's across eight career appearances against Geelong, collecting 27 possessions in the most recent clash late last year to nearly lead the Crows to victory at GMHBA Stadium. 

Controlling the disposal count

The two teams have shown very different ways of registering their wins so far in 2025, Adelaide controlling the disposal count while Geelong has been beaten in that statistic in three of their first four matches. 

The Crows have a total differential of +160 disposals in their opening month of the season, only being beaten in that statistic once which came against North Melbourne, a match they won comfortably anyway. Adelaide have accumulated the second most disposals of any team in the competition so far this year. 

Geelong on the other hand have a more direct correlation between the disposal count and their win-loss record. They matched Fremantle in round one and dominated the category against Melbourne last week, but have a -95 disposal differential in their two losses against St Kilda and Brisbane. 

This will be an intriguing area to watch on Thursday to see what strategy the Cats deploy.