Adelaide Crows’ Matt Crouch believes 21-year-old teammate has the potential to rank amongst the league’s finest midfielders

Veteran Crow Matt Crouch says Adelaide Crows’ emerging midfield force Jake Soligo has the potential to become one of the AFL’s elite on-ballers.

Continuing his breakout season, Soligo snagged a Showdown medal for best-afield in the Crows' win against Port Adelaide on Thursday night.

The midfielder racked up 28 disposals and made 10 solid tackles in another performance, impressing Crouch. He told reporters on Friday:

"He's tough. He's clean around the ball, his workrate is massive as well, “Soligo "absolutely" has the attributes to be among the competition's best midfielders,

"He's very clean and he's a good decision maker, "And as you saw last night his contest stuff is just massive so his development has been really good."

Crouch, whose 150th AFL game ended in victory, was pleased by Adelaide's inexperienced defenceanother, which played a key role in the result agaist the Power.

Luke Nankervis (9), Irishman Keane (17 games), Josh Worrell (25), Max Michalanney (30), and debutant Dan Curtain had only restricted Port to two goals after quarter-time.

"It's really promising,"We spoke post-game about the defenders and how well they stood up for us," Crouch added.

"And you forget how little footy they've actually played together so it's very exciting for this footy club to see those guys playing some great footy."

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Adelaide Crows beat Port Adelaide in Showdown 55 on Thursday night

Crows cruise to victory against Port Adelaide

The Crows had the lead throughout the game against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night, eventually storming to a 12.6 (78) to 5.18 (48) win.

An eventful week indeed for Adelaide, with legendary former Captain Rory Sloane announcing his retirement, recruit Dan Curtin making his AFL debut and Crouch celebrating 150 games .

Speaking to the media on Friday morning, Crouch, apparently impressed by the solid connection between the midfield and forward line, relayed Adelaide’s confidence in their winning abilities:

“We want to give our forwards the best chance, we know if you get Tex (Taylor Walker) or Fog (Darcy Fogarty) one-on-one they’re pretty dangerous.

“To be able to give them a good chance to play one-on-one….“Every time we see Tex or Fog or Ranks (Izak Rankine) one-on-one, we actually kick it to them and see what they can do and it puts their defender under pressure, that’s how we want to play all the time.

“We were confident that if we got the ball in there, we would score.”

Crouch disclosed that his 150th match celebration was with good mate Sloane’s retirement, fulfilling his desire to give the former Skipper a notable send off. He said:

“You don’t play for milestones, you play to win games of footy, but I am really proud to play 150 games for this footy Club and it means a lot.

“It was a great tribute to Sloaney, to send him off the right way and we played a great brand of footy, it was good fun,” he added.

The Crows would host last year's beaten grand finalist Brisbane in round nine before moving on to Collingwood at the MCG.