Adelaide is preparing to return to action following a mid-season bye with a clash against Geelong at Adelaide Oval this Thursday night.

Senior Coach Matthew Nicks spoke to the media prior to training on Monday and touched on the following topics.

Taylor Walker set for likely AFL return

Adelaide all-time leading goalkicker Taylor Walker returned from a minor hamstring injury a fortnight ago in the Crows’ SANFL game against Glenelg.

Walker stood tall in his first SANFL match since 2014, booting five goals as the Crows upset last year’s grand finalists.

Nicks said Walker was likely to earn a recall to the AFL side for this Thursday night’s match.

“He (Walker) went back, and to his credit, he led extraordinarily well,” Nicks said.

“It's amazing when we get reports back from our young players on things they experience, and how they talk about his leadership, you know, on field, even leading into the game.

“If he's good to go after training, he'll come in.

“Tex and I have spoken, Tex at his best, he's a walk-up starter for our team, so on field leadership, what he brings from a talent point-of-view, his experience, the whole lot.”

Mid-season check-in

The Crows entered the break with a 6-5 win-loss record, and after a gruelling first-half fixture, sit eighth on the ladder. 

Nicks said the break had come at a good time for the players and coaches, as they looked towards having a strong second half of the year.

“We don't really stop. I mean, we obviously have four days off for our playing group, which is important,” Nicks said.

“We don't call them days off, we call them opportunities to rejuvenate, get themselves recovered, and ready to go for that second half of the year and our bye drops right in the middle of the season, which works quite well. 

“I think we'll benefit from that as a group. You get to that point after around 10 games that the group at times can grind into that bye, but they came back really refreshed. 

“They had a really good session last week, and we go into a big Thursday night game, so it's a great way to start the second half of the year.”

Work ons for second half of the season

The Crows will be looking for more consistency in their game during the second half of the season.

And, according to Nicks, an area that the Crows have been working on improving is their ball movement from defence to attack.

“It may be that you’re not seeing a product that's exactly where we want to be, and we openly talk about that,” Nicks said.

“We'd like to get a little bit more attack and a little bit more zing off half-back in our game, and off intercept.

“That's something we've been working on for months now, and we'll continue to

work through that. We know that we're going to have to be better than what we were in the first half of the year.

“We respect our opposition, we respect the game, we're always looking at game trends, but we also have confidence in what we're doing, we believe in our game plan.”

Mark Keane close to a return

Defender Mark Keane is edging closer to a return to competitive football after fracturing his ankle during a match simulation training session in January.

Nicks was expecting Keane to return through the SANFL soon and said once available for the AFL side, would be a welcomed addition.

“I think we’d all agree on the season he had last year, he was one of the strongest backs in the competition last year,” Nicks said.

“He does add to our group in a number of different areas, not just defence.

“He’ll play a little bit of SANFL footy, we’re unsure of how much, we’ll see where he is at.”