Griffin rolled his ankle in the Crows win over Essendon last weekend and was considered in doubt to make the trip to his home town of Perth, but coach Neil Craig said the in-form big man now was a certainty to play against the Eagles.
“Jon Griffin got through training, which is good for him and good for us. He trained really strongly, so the team at the moment will be unchanged for this week,” Craig said on Thursday.
There was some more good news to come out of Thursday’s closed session, with injured trio Brett Burton (knee), Chris Knights (foot) and Will Young (knee) all set to return through the SANFL this weekend.
Star veteran Andrew McLeod (knee) and All-Australian defender Nathan Bock have been ruled out of action this week, but Craig said he expected both players to be available for selection next week.
“Andrew just needs to do a bit more work and he agrees with that as well. He’s a very proud player. He’s very diligent with his preparation and he’s got a great feel for what he needs to do before he makes himself available,” Craig said.
“Hopefully, he’ll be available for selection next week as we would like to think Nathan Bock would be … I’d be very surprised if Nathan didn’t play next week.”
The Crows could be faced with a rare selection dilemma next week, with Bock, McLeod, Burton and Knights all expected to push for a recall.
Craig said it was possible all four players could line up in the SANFL next weekend.
“It’s been four or five weeks since Andrew has played and if he needs to play in the SANFL for a period of time he’s more than happy to do that,” Craig said.
“We’ll need to make a decision on that, as we will with Nathan Bock because they have both missed a fair bit of footy.”
Adelaide and West Coast have faced off in some blockbuster games over the last decade, including two preliminary finals.
The Eagles have maintained an impressive winning record over the Crows in that time, but will start underdogs this week on the back of a six-game losing streak.
Adelaide has only beaten West Coast at Subiaco three times in the club’s history and Craig said his side would value a win against the bottom team this week like any other.
“Our record against West Coast is pretty poor. We’ve been over there [to Perth] when we’ve been in good form and they haven’t been in good form and we’ve copped some bad losses over there … it was 2005 the last time we beat them over there,” he said.
“It’s not a heavyweight billing because of where both clubs sit on the premiership ladder, but with where we sit at the moment we value any win we get. I don’t think we’re in a position to pick and choose which wins we value.”
Adelaide is yet to win away from home this season and Craig said it was important the club’s younger players experienced success on the road.
“We don’t want to have a group of players - and this has happened in the AFL - where [the thinking is] we’ll just win our nine or 10 games at home and everything will be hunky-dory,” Craig said.
“We’ve got to be better than that and so far this year we haven’t, apart from when we played Melbourne at the MCG , looked like winning [away].”
