THE CROWS could welcome back two familiar faces when they head to the MCG to tackle Carlton on Saturday.
Chris Knights, who hasn't played since straining his quad in the NAB Cup grand final, trained on Friday and should be available for selection.
Kris Massie (hamstring) and young midfielder Bryce Campbell have also overcome injuries and could be considered.
Exciting forward Brett Burton was pleased to add some depth to the group, but said the availability of experienced players wouldn't detract from the club's main focus of promoting youth.
"It's obviously important to always have experienced guys in the side, but we had a few younger blokes in on Saturday and still had a win," he said.
"I guess the mandate from the start of the year was to play those younger guys. We did that through the NAB Cup and, on the weekend, we had to call on Jarrhan Jacky to play as well, and I thought he did all right.
"A Massie and a Knights definitely add strength because they've played some footy. Campbell has still only played the two AFL games, so he's still young, but to have those guys come back into the side will certainly strengthen it.
"But it's not dire straits if those guys don't come up, because we have given those younger guys a go and they have proved they can play good footy and win us games."
Draftee Patrick Dangerfield, who was an emergency last week, could also push his name ahead on the selection table after booting eight goals for the Geelong Falcons on Saturday. Dangerfield spent most of the day at full-forward and helped his side to a handy win over TAC Cup rivals, the Calder Cannons.
Adelaide held-off Fremantle to claim its third win of the season on Saturday in a dour, error-riddled game. Burton said the team was confident of putting in an improved performance against the resurgent Blues.
"I didn't think we were in good form on the weekend. It felt like we were pretty scratchy and we obviously overused the ball a bit by hand," he said.
"It was better than the Hawthorn game, because we didn't have any run against them. I guess we'd like to balance that up in the next couple of weeks, but it's better to have too much handball than not enough, because it does generate run and falls into the category of trying to play a fast-moving type of footy that provides high scoring.
"I wouldn't say we were at our best on the weekend, but we were able to grind out a win. Hopefully we can improve again this week."
The Crows defence will again be put to the test this week against Carlton spearhead Brendan Fevola. Fevola slotted seven goals straight in the Blues' win over Melbourne on Sunday, and Burton said 'Fev' was an even better player this year with the likes of Chris Judd and Nick Stevens in the team.
"You only have to look at Lance Franklin for Hawthorn to see how supply effects your performance. He's getting gifted the ball by a lot of left-footers in their team with great skills," Burton said.
"Obviously, there are some right-footers in there as well, but the supply to the full-forward definitely does dictate how you play.
"When you're in the forward end, you're in the lap of your midfielders and defenders a lot. You can have so much talent, but if the ball isn't delivered to you correctly, then it makes your job hard. Obviously having blokes like Judd, Stevens, Murphy and those guys delivering the ball to Fevola how he wants it certainly does help.
"If we can put enough defensive pressure on through the midfield, we'll be confident our defence can go with Fevola and the Carlton forwards one-on-one."
In other injury news, Trent Hentschel is likely to have his comeback from injury delayed by a week after straining his hamstring in the Woodville-West Torrens reserves on Friday night.