Your mission – should you choose to accept it – is to get from Domain Stadium to Perth Airport before the last flight to Adelaide departs in less than an hour.

That was the challenge facing the Crows travelling party in Western Australia on Sunday.

To aid recovery ahead of consecutive six-day breaks between games, the Club decided it would be beneficial for the players to get back into their own beds on Sunday rather than spending another night in Perth.

Pretty straightforward, right? Not quite.

Complicating the issue was the curfew affecting flights into and out of Adelaide, which restricts operations between 11:00pm and 6:00am. As a result of the curfew, the latest-possible flight out of Perth was at 6:10pm (local time).

The game, which started at 2:40pm, was expected to finish at approximately 5:10pm, giving us exactly one hour to complete all our post-match duties (which are usually stretched out over a couple of hours) and make the 20-odd kilometre bus trip from the ground and be at the flight gate.

Some members of the Perth media, who were forewarned Senior Coach Don Pyke was set to deliver one of the shortest post-match press conferences in AFL history, said it couldn’t be done.

“One traffic delay and you’re stuffed!”

They were right – we couldn’t afford any delays, on the road or on the field.

We were either going to fly as one, or not at all!

With everything timed to the minute, two lengthy score reviews during the game had the usually cool as a cucumber GM of Football Administration Phil Harper, who had the undesirable task of coordinating mission (near) impossible, starting to sweat.

‘Harps’ had already made a pre-game detour to the airport to drop off all the checked luggage to help speed up the check-in process.

Thirty-three goals and a recalled bounce or two later, the final siren sounded at 5:16pm – six minutes over time.

We now had just 54 minutes before take-off.

Physical Performance Coordinator and match day runner, Matthew Bode, was in the showers before the players had time to take their mouthguards out.

When the players jogged into the change rooms, there was confusion over whether there was even time to sing the Club song! The compromise was a hilarious ‘fast-forward’ version of ‘The Pride of South Australia’.

The team whizzed through the song so quickly that Charlie Cameron, who stopped to see some friends and family on the boundary and Josh Jenkins, who was doing a TV interview, arrived in the rooms to see the circle breaking up.

A stern reminder to be on the bus by 5:30pm bellowed through the rooms.

Players ran from the locker room to the showers for a quick rinse and gathered their belongings.

Support staff, who had started the pack-up at three-quarter time, hurriedly grabbed guernseys, GPS units and everything else destined for the plane.

Pyke was whisked to his post-match press conference, where he answered a handful of questions before being whisked back out and straight onto the bus.

Forward Tom Lynch received a rousing applause and the ‘gold medal’ for being the first player on the bus, some 13 minutes after the siren had sounded.

#gold medal for first player on the bus in a time of 13 minutes is @tom_lynch27! And we're on our way! #weflyasone pic.twitter.com/ZNkdka34oc — Adelaide Crows (@Adelaide_FC) August 14, 2016

Players, coaches and staff continued to pile onboard.

Shortly after 5:30pm, the bus started to roll towards the exit gates – and was immediately stopped by Jenkins and Media Coordinator Ryan Smith, who went back for the media backdrop, banging on the door.

In a scene out of an action film, the pair climbed aboard the (very slowly) moving vehicle and we were on our way – that was until the bus got stuck in the bottleneck surrounding Domain Stadium, where 20,000 other people were also trying to get home.

The situation was looking dire. Thoughts started to turn towards the 30 rooms on hold back at the Perth team hotel – in case of this exact situation.

Eventually traffic subsided, the driver put his foot down and inevitable jokes about the bus not being able to go below 50 miles an hour were made.

Where are these two when you need them?! #weflyasone pic.twitter.com/atx2uZlN6P — Adelaide Crows (@Adelaide_FC) August 14, 2016

Approaching 6:00pm, with the plane on the tarmac and the bus not yet at the airport, we were at serious risk of having the bags Harps had diligently dropped off removed from the plane!

Fortunately, the very helpful Virgin Australia staff agreed to leave our bags on the plane and the airport was in sight. Eddie Betts’ wife, Anna – determined not to attempt the security line with two young children on her own – was waiting curb side as the bus neared the terminal.

With youngest son Billy strapped to her chest, Anna removed the witches hats protecting our reserved parking spot and the bus pulled in. At an Olympic walk race pace, the travel party moved quickly towards the terminal, grabbing pre-prepared food on the way.

One open security lane slowed our progress, but in a minor miracle we made it to gate No.43 at exactly 6:10pm for our 6:10pm departure! Everyone quickly found their seats, and the exhausted players grabbed ice packs and tucked into dinner.

We’d done it. With not even a minute to spare.