Adelaide and Carlton great Eddie Betts had returned to the Blues before assistant coach Scott Burns arrived at West Lakes.

But that has not stopped Burns from admiring one of the game’s best small forwards from afar.

Betts left Carlton and was picked up by the Crows as a restricted free agent at the end of the 2013 season, playing 132 games for Adelaide and kicking 310 goals for the side.

The now 34-year-old then returned to the Blues at the end of 2019 and, on Monday night, revealed he would hang up his boots after his 350th AFL game against GWS this weekend.

Speaking on Tuesday, Burns said Betts would go down as one of the AFL’s all time greats and his contribution to the Crows would never be forgotten.

“He’s a star, Eddie,” Burns said.

“To play 350 games is a terrific effort and it will be interesting to see how many small forwards have played 350.

“I’m like everyone else, you sit back in awe at some of the things he’s done on the footy field.

“(I have) certainly a huge amount of respect for what he’s done off the field as well.

“If they’re not playing at the same time as us, I’ll certainly be putting the TV on to see how he goes and hopefully he can go out with a bang.”

Adelaide fought hard in its match against top-placed Melbourne on Sunday and got within less than a goal in the third term.

Burns said it was disappointing to then let the match slip away late in the final quarter.

“It was just that last minute and a half (against Melbourne) which is frustrating when you put up a reasonable performance up until that time,” Burns said.

“If you go back to the start, we didn’t capitalise early, it was 1.6 to one straight goal, so it would've been nice to have a little bit more of a buffer there.

“But really pleasingly, the boys came back aggressively in that third quarter. There's definitely been improvement.

“The development of those younger players is so important for our success 12-24 months down the track.”

Adelaide takes on North Melbourne at Adelaide Oval on Sunday in the final match of its 2021 campaign and Burns said the side was determined to end the season on a high.

“We’ve played some quality teams over the last two weeks and we’ve been in those games but we couldn’t quite finish them off unfortunately,” Burns said.

“We’d love to go away with a win.”