Adelaide Crows recruit Shane McAdam says his fitness has improved dramatically in his first AFL pre-season but he still has a long way to go

Mature-age Crows recruit Shane McAdam might look like a ready-made AFL forward but admits talent will only get him so far and he must improve his running capacity to break into the senior team.

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Mature-age Crows recruit Shane McAdam might look like a ready-made AFL forward but admits talent will only get him so far and he must improve his running capacity to break into the senior team.

The 23-year-old kicked three goals and found the footy up the ground in a lively performance in Saturday’s trial game against Port Adelaide where he showed all the hallmarks that made him a pre-selected draftee from Sturt last year.

McAdam leapt high in marking contests, won the footy at ground level and kicked a brilliant crumbing goal with a right-foot snap as he and fellow recruit Tyson Stengle combined for seven goals.

But McAdam - who has gone from the Halls Creek Hawks to Sturt and now the Crows in three years - says he doesn’t know if he’ll get an opportunity in the first JLT Series game against the Power in Port Pirie this Saturday.

Star midfielder Brad Crouch is expected to back up and play after 25 touches on the weekend but Hugh Greenwood has been ruled out with an abdominal strain and may return via a SANFL trial game the following week.

“It’s good to get the first hit-out done, get a few kilometres in the legs and play with my teammates, I really enjoyed that,” McAdam said after Saturday’s loss to the Power.

“It’s good playing alongside Tyson (Stengle) and the rest of the team, I was trying to push up the ground a bit more to get my fitness up.”

McAdam in action for Sturt last year. He joined the Crows via a trade with Carlton last year after the Blues pre-listed him as a mature age recruit. Picture: Matt Turner.

Fitness has been the biggest challenge for McAdam who oozes natural talent but has done most of the pre-season away from the main group so not to overload his body.

“Tough. Very tough,” he said of his first AFL summer.

“It’s different to what I’m used to obviously coming from amateurs, it was a big step up at Sturt and even bigger to the AFL.

“So I’ve found it really tough the workload but at the same time I’m really enjoying it.

“I’ve been doing a lot on my own, building that workload because I came from a long way back, but I’m feeling a lot fitter now than when I first came in.

“But for AFL standards I’ve still got a long way to go.

“I’ve had to be patient, it’s not frustrating because I knew I was coming in a bit underdone.

“Talent can only take you so far and as I realise now coming to an AFL club you definitely need to work hard.

“I knew it was going to be brutal but it hit me again once I started training. The first couple of sessions you’re alright and then you have to back it up the next day and the next day, and that’s what got me the most.

“You’ve got to always prepare for the next day after you’ve done a big session ... Bed early and up again to do it all again.”

McAdam playing WAFL footy with Claremont in 2015 before returning to Halls Creek in 2016.

McAdam didn’t come through the NT state under-18 program and admits he didn’t work hard enough as a junior while playing school footy.

“When you’re younger you don’t realise how hard you’ve got to work so I didn’t take the right pathway to get into the AFL system,” he said.

“Then as I got older I realised I had to pull my head in.”

McAdam - a nephew of 1989 Magarey Medallist Gilbert McAdam - said he loved last week’s AFL Indigenous All Stars Summit in Adelaide.

“I’ve never been on anything like that before so I really enjoyed it. I caught up with a few boys from Halls Creek, there are a few of us on a list now, and I barely get to see them unless I go home,” he said.

“The cultural stuff was great to connect us all together because I didn’t really know a lot of them, I’d only seen them on TV, but when we came together it felt like I’d known them for years.”

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