Adelaide AFLW Senior Coach Matthew Clarke has not ruled out a return for veteran Chelsea Randall this weekend, but concedes the star utility is likely to be sidelined for at least another week.

Randall returned to main training this week for the first since being placed in concussion protocols.

The former Captain has not played since Round Five, and Clarke said she was progressing well, but the Club would continue to take a cautious approach with a return to footy.

“She’s joined back in (training) with the group, but she’s still progressing,” Clarke said on Thursday morning. 

“Today is another opportunity for her to get out there, when she’s 100 per cent right she’ll be ready to play.

“I don’t think it will be this week. As I said, today is another milestone for her, but I reckon we’d probably want to get a little bit more in before.”

Clarke said the 34-year-old’s long-term wellbeing remained top priority and the club was buoyed by her recovery so far.

“Anytime anyone is out of your team it’s concerning, anytime it’s concussion it’s concerning, but probably no more so than anyone else in these situations,” Clarke said. 

“It’s not ideal but she’s being really well looked after and making good progress. While those things are happening, we stay positive.

“Ultimately, she’s going through the right protocols, the team are looking after her really well and being really appropriately conservative. But I’ve got great confidence she’ll be back sooner rather than later.”

The Crows’ front half has had to adjust with Randall and fellow forward Caitlin Gould (wrist injury) on the sidelines.

And despite going down to Richmond last weekend, Clarke was encouraged by how the group had responded with two key stars missing through injury.

“(We’ve) been pretty good up until last week,” Clarke said. 

“Obviously Caitlin and Chels have missed since the Hawthorn game and our forward line has had to restructure a bit, but I think they’ve been holding up really well.

“(Against Richmond) it probably wasn’t our offense to be honest, it was more of our defence on the weekend, you could argue the forward half functioned reasonably well. 

“We just let ourselves down defensively a few times.”

Seventh-placed Adelaide will look to bounce back when it faces sixth-placed West Coast at Norwood Oval this Saturday afternoon.

The match will be played as part of the AFLW’s Pride Round, with the Crows donning their special Rainbow guernseys.

Clarke expected it to be a tough battle but believed his side was up for the challenge.

“It’s the nature of AFLW - (with a) 12-game season, every game is critical,” Clarke said. 

“Obviously we dropped one last week we would have liked to have held on to but we get the opportunity this weekend to bounce back. 

“The reality is we’ve just got to fight really hard over this last month and give ourselves an opportunity.

“I think a few times we’ve spoken about building our game over the season, (and) last week was sort of a step back but equally I think there’s enough there to know if we can get it right at the right end of the year, we can be really competitive.”

Adelaide will name its team for this weekend on Thursday at 5.50pm (ACDT).

The Crows take on the Eagles at Norwood Oval on Saturday at 12.35pm.

Tickets available here.