ADELAIDE will look to shake its positioning up throughout the NAB Challenge in preparation for a season of limited interchange rotations.
The interchange cap is set at 130 a game in the NAB Challenge, before dropping to 120 for the season. Having finished season 2013 as one of the most prolific users of the interchange bench, Crows coach Brenton Sanderson said his side would be one of the hardest hit by the cap.
To counter it, he said he would test players in a variety of positions in the lead up to round one to work out who could remain on the ground rather than be interchanged.
"That's what the NAB Challenge is for and for us, looking at [an interchange] cap of 120 … we'll look where we can play guys in varying roles," Sanderson said.
"Some of our midfielders will play forward, some of our midfielders will spend time across half-back, we're probably the club that's most affected by the cap.
"We were up around 150, 160 over the last couple of seasons so it's a significant adjustment for us.”
Adelaide has named a plethora of key forward and ruck options for Sunday's game against Port Adelaide, with James Podsiadly, Shaun McKernan, Josh Jenkins, Sam Jacobs and Angus Graham all vying for a few spots.
Jacobs and Graham are the club's only specialty ruckmen, but Sanderson said only one would play in any given game during the season. The way the game is headed, he said, the other ruckman must primarily play forward.
"McKernan, Jenkins, Jacobs, Graham, all those guys have had good summers, you can probably only ever play two though – one ruck and one key forward who goes in the ruck," he said.
"If you're in form, you play, sometimes you just pick yourself.
"We'll have a look at all those four rucks at some point in the NAB Challenge and ultimately by round one we'll pick our best line-up.”
Podsiadly and Eddie Betts will be Adelaide's two most closely watched players on Sunday, in their first hit-out in a new-look Crows forward line.
Sanderson said both had enjoyed stellar pre-seasons and was looking forward to finally watching them play in his attacking 50.
"[I'm] really excited to see how those guys jell together," he said.
"The chemistry's really important so we'll play those guys as much as we can tomorrow.
"Guys like Betts and Podsiadly who haven't had much exposure to our forward line against another opposition. But they've been working really well over the summer so it'll be good to see how they play.”
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