THE LURE of finals won't change the way Adelaide coach Brenton Sanderson handles this weekend's clash against West Coast or how he picks his team.

With Essendon banned from participating in this season's finals campaign, the Crows are one of several sides that can sneak into the top eight. But for that to happen, the Crows need to beat the Eagles on Saturday night and hope cross-town rivals Port Adelaide defeats Carlton.

The Crows also need the Brisbane Lions to lose in Geelong, and Collingwood defeats North Melbourne.

To overtake Carlton's percentage, the Crows must make up a 63-point for/against differential between the sides, meaning if the Blues lose by 30 points, Adelaide must win by at least 34 to finish the season with a superior percentage.

Sanderson said while his team's finals dream was again alive, the focus should only be playing well enough to beat West Coast.

"We need Port to win here against Carlton … so we'll keep one eye on that, but our focus should be to go over to West Coast to win and win well," Sanderson said.

"It shouldn't change whether you go more attacking or you try and lock them down, we'll just go over there and try and win as best we can.

"If you go into a game thinking we'll just make it a shootout and score as many points as we can, you could almost go the other way too and [think] we want to try and prevent West Coast from scoring as much as possible."

Sanderson said the feeling of wishing his club's fiercest cross-town rival well was a strange one.

"They trained before us this morning and a couple of our staff had a bit of overlap and there was a bit of friendly banter that we're obviously hoping that Port win well this week," he said.

"It's not very often that a Crows staff member says that or Crows coaching staff says that we hope Port play well this week, but ultimately we need them to win and to win well."

Ruckman Shaun McKernan is a possibility of returning to the senior side as Sanderson battles to combat the ruck combination of Dean Cox and Scott Lycett.

Cox has averaged 27 hit-outs and five marks a game this season, while 20-year-old Lycett has been in solid form since breaking back into the Eagles side in round 18.

McKernan hasn't played for the Crows since round 19, but Sanderson flagged his return after the club's win over Melbourne last weekend and confirmed he was a genuine chance to play on Saturday.

"I've liked (Sam) Jacobs, he's been really good the last three or four weeks as the solo ruckman, but we'll certainly talk about trying to combat Cox and Lycett," he said.

"That'll be something that'll certainly come into debate and discussion at match committee today."