Nathan van Berlo believes Adelaide’s structure will help the Club replace injured midfielder Rory Sloane, who will miss at least a month with a fractured jaw.

Sloane, 25, will join fellow first-choice midfielders Richard Douglas (foot) and Brad Crouch (foot) on the sidelines. Adelaide’s injury list, which also includes Josh Jenkins (hip), Ricky Henderson (pectoral) and Cam Ellis-Yolmen (hamstring), is testing the Club’s depth.

On the weekend, the Crows fielded their youngest team of the season, including six players with 25 or fewer games of AFL experience.

Van Berlo acknowledged the loss of 2013 Club Champion Sloane would hurt, but said the performances of Jake Kelly and Jake Lever in recent weeks gave the Crows confidence they could help fill the void created by the swelling injury list.

“He (Sloane) is a really important player for us, obviously. But we’ve had a number of guys come in over the last couple of weeks and play their role, which is what we expect,” van Berlo said on Monday.

“We like to think that we create enough of a framework that guys know, when they come in, what their role is and how they go about playing it, whether you’re Rory Sloane or one of our youngest players.

“Those roles won’t change too much and this week will be no different. If there are a couple of changes, whoever comes in will be expected to play their role to the best of their ability.

“If that happens, it helps to provide that weight of numbers that we can get the job done on Saturday afternoon.”

Sam Kerridge and Brodie Martin are among the players in the SANFL pressing for selection.

Kerridge hasn’t played at AFL level since the opening round of the NAB Challenge after injuring his hamstring at training. The strong-bodied onballer has spent the past two weeks in the State League, and been one of Adelaide’s better players in both matches.

“Sam has had a couple of weeks back now. I guess that’s up to the match committee and where they see him at. He’s certainly put in some solid performances in the SANFL,” van Berlo said.

Van Berlo, himself, is no stranger to injury having missed all of last season with a ruptured Achilles.

The hard-running onballer said he was still adjusting to being back at AFL level after a full year out.

“I’m still getting there. It’s been great to get back out there with the boys, but there are certainly areas of my game I want to keep improving on,” he said.

“The game is always evolving. The speed of the game feels like it’s forever increasing. The demands of training have changed even just in 12 months as well.”

The Crows broke a run of two straight losses with a win over an undermanned Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium on Saturday night.

Van Berlo said his team was happy with the result, but that there was still plenty of room for improvement.

“No doubt, it wasn’t the prettiest of games to watch but we won away which is what we set ourselves to do,” he said.

“I think we’re tracking pretty well at the moment. We’re 4-2 and playing some pretty reasonable footy. We realise we’ve got a long way still to go on our journey to where we want to get. We’re making some improvements week-in and week-out, so hopefully we can get to the point that we want to sooner rather than later.

“It’s only six rounds in, so it’s hard to gauge exactly where we’re at but on the weekend we made some good improvements from the previous weeks.”