Adelaide’s SANFL side has had a narrow loss in its first official trial of the year, falling to Norwood by four points.

The game at Norwood Oval was a tight contest for all four quarters, with only a point in it at both the main and three-quarter time breaks.

Elliott Himmelberg (three), Tom Lynch, Lachlan Gollant and Matthew Wright (two each) all kicked multiple goals.

State League coach Michael Godden said that Norwood brought its A-game which was great for the Crows to compete against. 

“It was a great contest Norwood were fantastic and that's what you want –  you want to put under pressure early and we trained a lot of things under pressure against ourselves so it's nice to play against someone who plays slightly differently,” Godden said.

“We did some good things and we did some things we need to improve on, it’s a good learning for us.

“It was also fantastic to get some game time at this level into the development players because these guys are local league footballers who most have never played league football let alone reserves, so they’ll learn from it and they’ll improve and it just gives us more depth as the year goes on.”

Godden noted a few young Crows that impressed on Saturday.

“Lachie Gollant up forward, I thought he really is a dangerous player today, he launchs himself at the ball so he was really solid. 

“Down back, I though James Borlase in particular was good – he's just learning his craft as a key defender but he came off at the right times took some nice intercept marks also spoiled really strongly.”

Defender Tom Doedee got through his returning game from injury well.

ADELAIDE             4.1         6.3            9.4         11.5        (71)
NORWOOD          2.1         6.2            9.3         12.3        (75)

GOALS: Himmelberg 3, Lynch 2, Wright 2, Gollant 2, Newchurch, Clarke