Adelaide Crows back rocking ruckman Reilly O’Brien against experienced Port Adelaide duo Paddy Ryder and Scott Lycett

Adelaide players are backing emerging ruckman Reilly O’Brien to counter Port Adelaide’s experienced pairing of Paddy Ryder and Scott Lycett in Saturday night’s Showdown, with Josh Jenkins no guarantee to return.

Reilly O'Brien competes with Rory Lobb of the Dockers. Picture: James Elsby/AFL Photos/Getty Images

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Adelaide players are backing emerging ruckman Reilly O’Brien “to the hilt” to counter Port Adelaide’s experienced pairing of Paddy Ryder and Scott Lycett in Saturday night’s Showdown.

O’Brien is coming off a career-best performance in Sunday’s dour win over Fremantle and in five games this season is averaging 31 hit-outs and four marks - two of which are contested each week.

He was far too good for Fremantle’s Rory Lobb on the weekend but will have to take on premiership ruckman Lycett and All-Australian Ryder at Adelaide Oval in his biggest test this weekend.

Reilly O'Brien beats Rory Lobb in a ruck contest against Fremantle on Sunday. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images)

“It’s a huge challenge for Rob but we back him in to give a good account of himself, we’ve seen over the last few weeks in such a short period of time he’s developed at a high level,” Crows wingman David Mackay said.

“His competitiveness once the ball hits the deck is outstanding and we saw on the weekend he was able to have a real influence for us, so it’s a huge challenge for him but the type of character he is he will embrace it and go after it.

“We certainly back him in to get the job done this week ... we back Reilly in to the hilt because we understand the work that he’s done, we’ve seen it behind the scenes over a number of years to get his opportunity and the type of person he is - he’s a driven character, really competitive, so we back him in no matter what the challenge is he faces.

“We’ve seen his development and there is certainly more to come and we are pretty excited that he can keep developing along that path.”

O’Brien’s form means Jacobs may not be a walk-up start in the AFL side when he does return from knee surgery and Josh Jenkins is having to earn his spot back after being replaced by Elliott Himmelberg, but Mackay said that’s what you want from an AFL list.

“Obviously we want everyone performing at their peak but it’s a difficult game and super competitive,” Mackay said.

“Guys getting left out of the team gets a lot of air time externally, but internally we understand that if we want to get to where we want to as a footy club it takes 40 players on our list.

“Match committee select a 22 each week to best represent us each week and that changes all the time. This notion you only need your 22 or 25 is pretty inaccurate, it’s our whole list, right down from the young rookies who are driving the selection pressure it requires everyone and that’s how we look at it.”

While the Crows may go into the Showdown as slight favourites this weekend, Mackay said they were well aware of how difficult the Power will be to beat.

“Port are a fantastic side, they’ve been going really well, they’ve got a group who play for each other and play their role really well,” he said.

“It’s going to be a real challenge, we’ve got to make sure we in the ball at the source and that’s what’s driven our game the last three weeks.”

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