WHEN the contest is even, the effort equal on both sides, the coaches on a tactical par, sometimes it is not the many plays that go right that count, but the few instances when they go wrong.

It is not the carefully and cunningly laid plans, but when they come unstuck. Even beneath Telstra Dome's roof, an AFL footballer is horribly exposed.

For Adelaide, it might have been as early the mid-point of the first quarter when captain Mark Ricciuto hurt an ankle flying for a mark and had to retreat to the rooms, scarcely to be seen again until after half-time.

But the Crows rearranged themselves and did not miss a beat. In the sort of form they exhibited in the first quarter, no one player matters anyway, but the sum of them all. They are drilled as is an army. Soon they led by four goals.

The turning point might have missed, so imperceptibly did it pass, no more than another nick in the fabric of the match. Nick Del Santo roved a pack, but when he might have been expected either to run with the ball or handpass it sideways, he was seized by inspiration and off one step kicked a torpedo punt high across the milling lines.

Stephen Milne, one-out with Graeme Johncock, needed no second invitation. His goal precipitated two more for Fraser Gehrig, quickly. Another for Nick Riewoldt near the end of the quarter, realised after after a long siege, gained the Saints the lead that was by then their due.

St Kilda's remained ascendant at the start of the third term. Riewoldt's 10th mark and second goal, three minutes in, signalled the end of Kris Massie's watch on the Saints' superstar. Ken McGregor took up the detail.

Although it was scarcely McGregor's doing, St Kilda's next two kicks towards Riewoldt both were ill-directed, enabling the Crows to clear. The mood of the match changed enough that the Crows kicked the next two goals to tie up the scores.

Riewoldt asserted himself again. So, less probably, did Shane Birss and St Kilda held sway. Robert Harvey played with the zest not of a near 36-year-old, but two 18-year-olds. But, cruelly, when his pass to Lennie Hayes in the back-pocket was ruled too short for a mark, Brent Reilly smuggled the ball away from both and kicked to Ricciuto. He goaled, and the game had another direction.

The last quarter was manic, for by now, the premium on every slip and hesitation doubled. Luke Ball, more like his old (young) self last night, ghosted past two, but was arrested by Reilly, leading to another goal for Ricciuto.

Justin Koschitzke loosened the knots in Saints' stomachs with a heroic mark and goal. But Leigh Fisher spun into trouble in their back line, letting in Brett Burton for an opportunist's goal.

Then Harvey might have had a shot at goal. but — too selfless by half — tried a left-foot pass. It missed fractionally, whereupon the Crows whisked the ball to the other end for Scott Welsh to tie up the scores again.

But in the frantic, furious final minutes, the Saints neither fumbled nor froze. Riewoldt, now marked again by Massie, was their model. Two more marks made 18 for him for the game.

Statisticians will call most uncontested, a misnomer, for each demanded that he beat his opponent for willpower and running. He is blessed, and so are the Saints to have him. Harvey was where he has been more or less for 20 years, where the ball was.

The wonder of all,in such a ferocious game, is not that there were some mistakes made, but that there were so few. They are catalogued here as the exceptions, not the rule. In the end, the game was won, not lost. The same might yet be said of the Saints' season.