The Crows will go into Saturday’s clash with Geelong at Simonds Stadium as named.
Young onballer Jarryd Lyons will start as Adelaide’s substitute. Nathan van Berlo, Riley Knight and Matt Crouch will also begin the game on the interchange bench. The Cats are also unchanged, with forward Josh Walker to wear the green vest.
With the top eight teams finalised, clubs have adopted different approaches to selection for Round 23. On Thursday, van Berlo said it was important for the Crows that they carried good momentum into the finals series, which starts next week.
“What selection happens at other teams is totally out of our control. All we’re fixated on is putting forward a strong performance against Geelong this weekend,” van Berlo said.
“But the one thing we are able to control is the momentum that we’ve created over the last month of footy, and that is a really important thing, I believe, going into September footy.
“This week is a really important game for us to continue that form that we’ve had over the last month, but also to give us confidence moving into the huge games to come.”
Van Berlo will play his 200th game against the Cats. See VB’s career in stats
The Crows will be aiming to record their first victory at Simonds Stadium since 2003. Read all the Stats That Matterahead of Saturday’s clash, which starts at 1:05pm local time.
“We certainly know it’s a really tough environment and a tough ground to play at,” van Berlo said.
“I know over my period of time at the footy club it’s been a really difficult task for us to head down there and play good footy.
“So that’s our challenge ahead of us this week and that’s where our sights are firmly focused. Then we’ve got some bigger fish to fry in the weeks to come after that.”
Unfortunately, there will be no post-match function at Simonds Stadium due to a tight travel schedule, which will see the team return to Adelaide immediately to begin preparations for the 2015 AFL Finals Series. The finals fixture for Week One will be released by the AFL following West Coast’s clash with St Kilda on Saturday night.
The team is:
IN: -
OUT: -
B: Jake Lever, Kyle Hartigan, Rory Laird
HB: Luke Brown, Daniel Talia, Ricky Henderson
C: Brodie Smith, Patrick Dangerfield, Rory Atkins
HF: Charlie Cameron, Taylor Walker, Eddie Betts
F: Tom Lynch, Josh Jenkins, Richard Douglas
RUCK: Sam Jacobs, Scott Thompson, Rory Sloane
INTERCHANGE: Riley Knight, Nathan van Berlo, Matt Crouch, Jarryd Lyons (sub)
