ADELAIDE'S injury concerns ahead of the upcoming AFL season are extensive, but the club can at least look towards 2008 knowing key forward Trent Hentschel will be there.

Ruckman Ivan Maric has had surgery on a troublesome hip, deepening the Crows' big-man crisis.

Adelaide is already without the services of John Meesen after knee surgery and with Maric out for at least two months, it will go into round one without a back-up for lead ruckman Ben Hudson.

Hudson, meanwhile, is returning to competition this year as something of an unknown quantity after missing 2006 because of a knee reconstruction.

Maric had arthroscopic surgery on his left hip after missing much of pre-season training.

"Maric returned to full training in late January but pulled up sore late in the week," a club spokesman said.

Amid all that bad news was the positive sight of Hentschel smiling broadly when asked about his progress.

Late last season Hentschel mangled his knee in one of the most horrific injuries seen at an AFL ground in recent years, and it was unclear for several weeks whether he could recover sufficiently to withstand the rigours of football.

However, Hentschel recently completed the third and final reconstructive operation to correct the damage and said he was convinced he would return as "good as new" next year, setting a mid-February date for his comeback match.

"The surgeon said it should be as good as a new knee, so that's really positive and gives me hope I can get back to where I was," he said.

"There were doubts if I could come back in the first couple of weeks after the operation, when you're told they're not sure how it'll go.

"But once he'd done the op he was very positive that it would get back to where it was before."

The shy and retiring Hentschel said he was lifted out of despair by the support of fans and fellow injury sufferers.

He found particularly helpful the kind words of Australian basketballer Neil Mottram, who made a full recovery from a similarly horrific injury and went on to win an NBL championship with the Melbourne Tigers.

"I was down to start with but there's a lot of people in worse cases than I am; I'm nowhere near the worst," Hentschel said.

"I've had a fair few letters that have lifted my spirits and even people writing in about how they've had worse things happen to them, so it's all positive."