Adelaide has made two changes for its Indigenous Round clash with North Melbourne on Saturday.
Premiership defender Najwa Allen returns to the side, while young forward McKenzie Dowrick is set to play her first game for Season Seven.
Dowrick, 22, made her debut with the Crows in Season Six’s Round 10 win against St Kilda.
The skillful, 172cm, left-footer from Western Australia lined up in 12 AFLW games for Brisbane and West Coast, before moving to SA and was selected by the Crows as a replacement player ahead of last season.
Defender Marijana Rajcic and forward Lisa Whiteley have been omitted.
“MJ is one of our great leaders, an unbelievably strong voice, a competitor like you wouldn’t believe and this is just part of football,” Crows AFLW Senior Coach Matthew Clarke said.
“She had a really good pre-season but she’s had three games, including the trial game, which were probably below her standard and therefore team selection pressure means she misses out this week.
“But she’s just got to go back to the fundamentals of her game but we’ve got great confidence that’s exactly what she’ll do and she’ll be doing everything she can to get herself back amongst it.”
Clarke said Dowrick had impressed during pre-season and at training the past few weeks.
“McKenzie’s pre-season has been really strong and her challenge was to bring her conditioning up to AFLW standard,” Clarke said.
“But she has worked so hard for the past eight weeks in that area and therefore when an opportunity presented itself, she was top of the queue.”
Adelaide will wear the Indigenous guernsey it donned in Season Six - the same design the Club's AFL and SANFL teams have worn in 2022.
The design highlights the coming together of the men’s and women’s teams on their reconciliation journey, as well as acknowledging the impact that the many members of the Crows family have left on the Club since 1991.
The Crows play North Melbourne at Unley Oval on Saturday at 12.10pm.
Tickets available here.
IN:
Allen, Dowrick
OUT:
Rajcic, Whiteley
Adelaide’s Round Three AFLW Team is:
