Newcombe or Day? Who should Dunkley tag in Grand Final qualifer?

The Lions are through to their fifth straight preliminary final thanks to a 53-point win over the Crows on Saturday night.

It was a domination from start to finish by the reigning back-to-back premiers, who booted five goals in the first three minutes and 10 seconds of the match.

While the Lions started hot, they were helped by their ability to limit Adelaide’s stars.

Throughout the game, Josh Dunkley had the role of shutting down Izak Rankine, which saw the Crows’ superstar limited to just two touches in the first quarter and eight for the first half, seeing his influence curtailed.

With the Lions marching on to a preliminary final clash against Hawthorn, the former Bulldog now faces the likely task of trying to minimise either Will Day or Jai Newcombe.

Between those two, Josh Jenkins believes that Dunkley should go to the latter.

“I'd go to Newcombe straight away,” Jenkins said on SEN’s Crunch Time.

“I would take away the one that you're most certain you can take out.

“Newcombe is going to be in and around the footy; if Newcombe plays a great game, he probably has 10 clearances.

“I reckon Dunkley can take away six, seven or eight of those clearances and make (Josh) Ward do that or make (Connor) Macdonald coming up do that.

“Make someone else have to do that or make Day have to go in there and do that and then he can't get on the outside and burst away.”

But for co-host and Dunkley’s manager Liam Pickering, he believes the three-time premiership player should limit Day’s influence.

“I'd go to Day,” he explained.

“I mean, he'd have a great battle with Newcombe. They're both very similar, tough inside mids.

“Dunks probably (has) the best balance in his game of most of the midfielders in the comp, because he's so hard, he's so tough.

“He's a good size, like he's 190 centimetres. That's why I think that Day is that bit of class that Hawthorn gets.

“’Cos if Day can get the ball, no problems, but if he gets the ball and is able to run, it's a whole different game.

“Newcombe is a really good finals player; he's a really good big game player, so I think he's gonna be hard to stop anyway.

“I would take away their class.”

The Lions will look to progress into their fourth straight Grand Final next Saturday when Brisbane travels south to play Hawthorn in a preliminary final.

SEN will have live coverage of the match across our radio network and on the SEN app from 1pm AEST, with the match beginning at 5:15pm.

The winner of the clash will face either Fremantle or Sydney in this year’s Grand Final.