Brad Crouch will play football this weekend, but Crows coach Don Pyke isn’t sure yet whether that will be in the AFL or the SANFL.
Crouch injured his hamstring in the lead up to the Crows’ Round Three clash against Richmond and has been sidelined since.
The 22-year-old trained on Wednesday morning along with Wayne Milera, who has also been sidelined with a quad injury.
At his best, Crouch has shown he is an elite midfielder, but having missed the past three games, Pyke said he wasn’t sure whether the ball-magnet was ready to slot straight into the senior side.
"Both of them (Crouch and Milera) trained fully this morning, so that’s great, they’ll be both available for selection," Pyke said.
"It makes it for an interesting discussion … at match committee.
"That’s something we’ll discuss and assess - he has missed those games and therefore whether we need to bring him back through the SANFL or not - we’ll cover that."
Pyke said he expected his players to bring a ruthless mindset into Saturday’s match against a winless Fremantle outfit.
The Dockers have endured a tough start to the season - their latest loss a four-point defeat at the hands of Carlton last weekend.
Pyke insisted Fremantle was playing better football than it is getting credit for and that the level of competition within the League this season meant his side couldn’t afford to take the Dockers lightly.
"A lot has been made of Fremantle and their start to the season, but I looked through their side last night, I had a look at some of the footage from the games they’ve played and they’ve been right amongst it in the last three games," he said.
"Against Carlton they lost by under a goal, they’re basically level with North [Melbourne] and with West Coast … as much as they haven’t had a win, they’re doing a lot right.
"We prepare on the basis of a Fremantle side coming over that will be desperate for a win, as we are after last week (when the Crows lost to Hawthorn).
"But we’d be disappointed if they had more motivation than our guys. We control how we play and how we turn up and our mindset - that’s the same every week, it doesn’t matter who the opposition is."
