ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig says the club's first challenge in its quest to return to the finals next season is to rejuvenate a "sick and sorry" playing list.

The Crows started and finished the season with their injury toll in double digits.

The curse claimed two more victims on Saturday with defender Graham Johncock (ankle) and onballer Brad Symes (concussion) leaving the field in the third quarter of the 28-point win over St Kilda at AAMI Stadium.

After the game, Craig said several other players including Ivan Maric (hip), Brodie Martin (hip), Ricky Henderson (hip) and Chris Schmidt (knee) were scheduled to have minor surgery in the coming weeks.

"We've got guys going in for operations as early as next week and some of those guys played tonight," Craig said.

"We need to get our squad healthy again over the break, so that we don't enter the season with 12 or 13 players on your list injured. To try and play a season like that is just too difficult.

"If we had to play again next week without Brad Symes or Graham Johncock … well I'm not sure where we'd go."

The club has already had preliminary discussions about proposed changes to the pre-season training program, which will commence on November 1.

Regardless of the injury count, Craig said 2010 had been a year of underperformance for the Crows, who were tipped to challenge for a place in the top four.

"Our performance against St Kilda demonstrates that it is possible for us to play that sort of football, but consistency will be our biggest challenge," he said.

"We're still going to be a very young side next year but hopefully we've given our supporters some hope.

"The last 10 weeks have showed that there's a level of effort there that we would expect … but the challenge to get back into the finals, which is going to be a major exercise in itself, means we need to improve the way we play the game. Not the effort, but the way we play the game."

Andrew McLeod, Simon Goodwin, Brett Burton and Trent Hentschel were farewelled with a motorcade after the game.

The St Kilda players joined the crowd of 38,000 in honouring the retirees and Craig said it was one of the more emotional moments he'd ever been involved in.

"It was one of the special nights at AAMI Stadium," he said.

"I've never seen anything like that in my life."