Defender Max Michalanney has recovered from a thumb injury and will be available for selection to face St Kilda in Sunday’s season opener.

Michalanney dislocated his thumb in the Club’s internal trial game in Port Pirie which saw him miss practice games against Port Adelaide and Brisbane.

But Crows High Performance Manager Darren Burgess said the 21-year-old had made a full recovery and would push his case for selection this week.

“Max was able to run straight away so hasn’t missed much at all, and been involved in main training for the past 7-10 days, so he will fully train this week and be available for the weekend,” Burgess said.

Fellow defender Mark Keane has also recovered from a minor hip strain against Brisbane in the AAMI Community Series game and will be available for selection.

Wingman Chayce Jones is facing 1-2 weeks on the sidelines as he recovers from a shoulder injury he sustained in a SANFL trial game.

“Chayce is recovering from that AC joint, he’s running, changing direction and moving really well,” Burgess said.

“We expect he will join in training next week and be available for Round 2 or possibly Round 3.”

Burgess said he was pleased with Adelaide’s pre-season as a whole and credited the playing group for the work they had put in during the off-season to lay a strong foundation for the year ahead.

“Certainly from an availability point of view we are in really good shape,” he said.

“We’ve been able to hit all the training loads we wanted, and were able to hit a lot of the running targets in footy drills which was a focus for us.

“Both from a strength and running point of view, they’re in as good a shape as we could get them in, and that’s a real credit to the boys and the amount of work they were able to do in the off-season and Christmas break which has allowed us to do a lot more footy.

“We had a really solid session (last) Friday, basically a game’s worth of loads mixed in with some match sim and drills and skill execution.

“Then they had the weekend off and as we know it’s game time (now) so there aren’t too many weekends off from here on.”

INJURY LIST

Chayce Jones (AC joint) 1-2 weeks