The Cats have travelled to Adelaide to face the ladder-leading Crows in a Friday night blockbuster that will decide who takes top spot.

Cats Media has identified three points of interest to follow throughout:

The view from the top

The equation is simple for the Cats: win tonight and enjoy that rare air at the top of the table.

Both Geelong and Adelaide have just four losses to their name in 2017, though the Crows enjoy a two-point buffer thanks to the Cats’ round 15 draw with the Giants, and a significantly better percentage. Whoever suffers loss number five will forgo their rights to first.

In the scheme of the season, first position means so much more than bragging rights. With Greater Western Sydney snapping at the heels of these two sides, there is a genuine chance the loser of tonight’s Adelaide Oval blockbuster could see themselves slip out of the top two over the remaining five or so weeks of the season. It’s not an unmitigated disaster, but the consequences will be felt in September.

While the team finishing first gets the “easier” match-up of facing the third seed, those teams in third and fourth fail to earn themselves the right to a home final – and with the Cats the only Victorian side currently in the top-four, that means you’re likely to start your finals campaign on the road.

Win tonight and the Cats are a step closer to controlling their own finals destiny.

The clouds of injury

Patrick Dangerfield. Rory Sloane. Jake Lever. Josh Jenkins.

These are all players critical to their respective sides and how tonight’s result pans out. All, at one point or another this week, have been in doubt.

As it stands, Jake Lever has been ruled out for the Crows with a hamstring, while Rory Sloane has ticked enough boxes to date to be named following his concussion last week. Josh Jenkins has seemingly recovered from food poisoning.

The domino still yet to fall, however, is Patrick Dangerfield.

We’re all aware of his heroics and sheer dominance against the Hawks last week. A collision with Jarryd Roughead forced the Geelong midfielder from the ground in the first term and despite returning to the game, Dangerfield’s movement was inhibited to the point where he could only sit at full forward.

There, he loomed as Hawthorn’s worst nightmare; kicking 5.6 in a match-winning performance. But he may not survive the six-day turnaround to face his former side Adelaide tonight. 

Mid-week, Geelong coach Chris Scott rated Dangerfield a 40-60 chance to play as he recovers from bone bruising.

"If there is any risk that he [Dangerfield] is going to compromise himself towards the end of the season, then it is unlikely he will play," Scott told reporters.

We’ll find out soon enough, though it’s hard not to feel this blockbuster needs the no.35.

Patrick Dangerfield is in doubt to face his former side with bone bruising. (Photo: AFL Photos)

The Shootout: Take 2

The last time these two sides met in round 11, we expected to see a shootout at Simonds Stadium. We didn’t get it – only 23 goals were kicked for the night.

So what to expect this time around at the Adelaide Oval?

Back then, the Crows had scored 161 more points than any other team in the competition. That margin has since decreased to 152 points, with South Australian rivals Port Adelaide the next best side and the Cats the next at 190 points behind.

Adelaide still clearly boasts the highest-scoring offence in the AFL, averaging 113.6 points per game, but the Crows have also maintained their ranking for average inside 50’s at second overall with 57.9. They remain league-leaders when converting those inside 50’s too, running at 42 per cent for scoring conversion and 24.2 per cent for goal conversion.

To wrap that in in a neat little bow, the Crows are simply the best offensive team in the AFL. Yet the Cats still do their fair share of damage too.

Geelong sits third in average points for at 101.7 and has made the jump from 10^th to sixth for inside 50’s with 53.9 per game. The conversion rate has dropped from second to third, sitting at 40.8 per cent but the Cats rank second overall for goal conversion at 23.8 per cent.

What it all means is that both sides get the ball to their forwards more than almost any other side in the competition, and goal from roughly one in every four of those forward entries.

It should spell an out-and-out shootout under the Friday night-lights. But we’ve been wrong before.