Experienced Crow Rory Laird attempted a switch from defence into the midfield a few times during his career.

But the attempt made in the past 12-18 months is the one that has stuck.

Laird has been one of the Crows’ top performers this season, averaging 32 disposals a game, and is rated elite amongst the competition in clearances with an average of 6.9 per match.

Speaking to the media from the Club’s Melbourne hotel room on Thursday, the 27-year-old said he was enjoying his role with Adelaide’s midfield brigade.

“The transition, initially, I tried it a few times over the years and it didn’t really work,” Laird said.

“It’s been a matter of actually spending a bit of time at training and with the coaches and working out what they want to see out of me.

“I was able to actually be gifted a bit of time in there, a bit of continuity, it wasn’t just a pinch hit for one game and back to the backline, I was actually able to practise and get a feel and a flow for it.

“I’ve been lucky enough to pick it up pretty well and it’s sort of working for me at the moment.

“Hopefully I can continue to improve on some certain areas of my midfield game and keep learning the position.”

Laird said he was happy to return to defence against Hawthorn this weekend if needed to help halt the Hawks’ forwards and 2018 Brownlow Medallist Tom Mitchell.

“They’ve got a few high quality small forwards and obviously Luke Breust heads that,” Laird said.

“I’ve had the pleasure of playing on him over the years and he’s a really high quality player, super dangerous around goal.

“We’ve had some guys in the past couple of weeks do a few jobs - we saw Harry Schoenberg go to (Darcy) Parish and then Benny Keays played on Elliot Yeo a little bit on the weekend. 

“I’m sure at some point someone will look to put a bit of time into him (Mitchell), even if that’s me for a certain amount of time throughout the game as well.”

Laird said the team was eager to put in a strong performance during its Round 19 clash with the Hawks and hoped to finish the 2021 campaign well.

“We are just looking to improve on the form we had and kind of what we were doing, especially in the first half of the year,” Laird said.

“The past two weeks have been disappointing with both the result and the way we have played.

“We want to win every game possible, so we will look to do that against the Hawks this week.”

Adelaide takes on Hawthorn at Marvel Stadium on Saturday night at 7.10pm (ACST).