Adelaide Crows’ star midfielders expected to be fit and ready for GWS Giants clash

The Adelaide Crows have received a huge boost for the clash against Greater Western Sydney Giants at Adelaide Oval with Matt Crouch expected back and Rory Sloane is hopeful.

Adelaide’s Rory Sloane sits on the bench injured next to Eddie Betts in the round 11 match against the Melbourne Demons at TIO Stadium in Darwin. Picture: Scott Barbour/Getty

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ADELAIDE is confident midfield ball magnet Matt Crouch will return from injury against GWS on Saturday night and has refused to rule co-captain Rory Sloane out of the Adelaide Oval clash.

While Crouch, who has missed three matches with a hip/abdominal injury, is expected to prove his fitness at training during the week, assistant coach Ben Hart revealed Sloane’s right hamstring strain is “minor” and that he was running at the club on Monday morning. Star onballer Sloane hurt his right hamstring in the second quarter of Saturday night’s thrilling two-point comeback win against Melbourne in Darwin and was ruled out for the game. “Sloaney has a grade one hamstring tear, the fact it’s low grade is good news, but it’s the first time he’s ever done a hamstring and it’s in a place where it can heal pretty quickly,” Hart said. “So we’re still pretty hopeful with him. He’s probably 50-50 at the moment. He’s run this morning and he’ll just do a little bit more and tick a few boxes as the week goes on.”

Hart said Crouch was close to playing against the Demons after training fully all week before making a late call on his fitness.

“He just couldn’t get through a couple of moments which are pretty crucial for him at the stoppage but he’s improved again by having the weekend off, so he should be right to go,” Hart said. “But he’ll be a test again, so we will wait to see.”