ADELAIDE assistant coach Mark Bickley says key defender Ben Rutten is likely to line up for the Crows in their round-one clash with Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium, despite missing the bulk of pre-season through injury.
Rutten had foot surgery in early February to relieve plantar fasciitis and missed the entire NAB Cup.
Rutten has missed the most training of any player at West Lakes, but Bickley is adamant his fitness is up to scratch. However, his lack of ball work poses an issue.
"I saw Ben Rutten today and he looks really impressive," Bickley said after training on Tuesday.
"In terms of fitness it looks really good for him, I guess the thing we need to do is make sure he gets plenty of touch - he hasn't done a whole lot of training so we'll endeavor to get him to touch the ball as much as we can over the next 10 to 12 days."
Bickley didn’t rule out the possibility of Rutten lining up for his SANFL side West Adelaide this weekend in order to gain some much-needed match fitness.
"There's an argument for it and against it, so we'll go through that process and see what's best for Ben and his preparation," he said.
"The likelihood of Ben playing much footy for West Adelaide this year is fairly low, so if Ben goes back (this weekend) it's likely he's probably going to play in the reserves for West Adelaide.
"Is there much benefit in him doing that?"
The 169-match veteran averaged more game time than any other player in the competition last season and Bickley said his experience gave him an advantage in recovering from injury.
"He knows what he has to do to play well and I'm pretty confident he'll come up and perform strongly for us," Bickley said.
In further good news for Adelaide, Bickley predicted the return of All Australian midfielder Richard Douglas for the Gold Coast match.
The 2010 club champion was rested from last Saturday night's NAB Cup Grand Final due to hamstring tightness, but is set to return to the starting 22 for round one.
"We're really confident with Dougy," Bickley said.
"He probably could have played last week but we just wanted to make sure he was absolutely cherry ripe for round one.
"He's a really valuable member so I'd expect Richard will play as well."
Bickley said forward Chris Knights would also "come into really strong" consideration for round one having played out a full game last weekend with SANFL side Woodville/West Torrens.
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