ADELAIDE coach Neil Craig says his ruckmen’s ability to compete at the stoppages will go a long way towards deciding Sunday afternoon’s clash with league leaders St Kilda at Docklands.

The Saints added more muscle to their big man brigade on Thursday by recalling former Geelong premiership player Steven King to the 25-man-squad.

King will resume his partnership with former Eagle Michael Gardiner who has been in hot recent form.

The Crows have been hit by injuries to key talls Brad Moran, Jon Griffin and Shaun McKernan and will attempt to counter the Saints pair’s combined, 350 games of  experience with a duo with a total of just 44 games.

Ivan Maric will carry the bulk of the ruck load with three-gamer James Sellar in support, while in-form forward Kurt Tippett remains in the goalsquare.

Maric and Sellar have been competitive against inexperienced Richmond and Fremantle ruck combinations over the past fortnight, but Craig admitted the battle with Gardiner and King would be another step up for the developing duo.

“We’ll have to be at our best in that [ruck] area and give Ivan and James as much support on the ground as we possibly can,” Craig said on Thursday.

“We see it [the match-up] in a positive manner in terms of their development and what they need to be exposed to.

“There’s something James Sellar will be able to take out of the game rucking against Gardiner and King.

“It will add to his curriculum vitae and he needs that. We can talk about it as much as we like, but we won’t get it playing for Glenelg. He has to play for us and play against that opposition to gain that experience…there’s no magic to it.”

Sellar, 20, was brought into the side following the knee injury to Moran and has showed significant improvement.

The former first-round draft pick said he was looking forward to the challenge of taking on the bigger and stronger pair of Gardiner and King.

“I’ll prepare the exact same way as I have over the past two weeks and try and play the exact same footy, which means watching the footy, jumping hard and aggressive at it and then trying to butter up with second efforts on the ground,” Sellar said.

“Ivan does the bulk of the work and I’ve really enjoyed working with him over the past couple of weeks. I really like the way he goes about his footy.

“Hopefully, we’ll develop a partnership out there and the harder he works and runs the easier it makes it for me when I’m out there on the ground and vice-versa…we’ve focussed on making it as easy as we can for each other.”