Thursday, 21 September 2017: Adelaide coach Don Pyke is hopeful that if they win through to the grand final, Mitch McGovern will be available.
Injured Adelaide forward Mitch McGovern will push for an AFL grand final recall, should the Crows win through on Friday night.
Coach Don Pyke confirmed on Thursday morning that McGovern will miss Friday night's home preliminary final against Geelong because of hamstring soreness.
Embed from Getty ImagesMcGovern suffered the injury last Saturday during match simulation.
Adelaide will make at least two changes, with defender Brodie Smith undergoing a knee reconstruction after their qualifying final win over Greater Western Sydney.
Vice-captain Rory Sloane will return from having his appendix removed and either Andy Otten or Wayne Milera are the candidates to replace McGovern.
"He was probably going to struggle this week - we're hopeful he could be right for the following week," Pyke said of McGovern.
"He's made some good progress since Saturday.
"It was a bridge too far for tomorrow night, but we remain hopeful.
"Should we progress, we'll give him every chance."
Sloane will go into the midfield and if Adelaide only make two changes, as expected, Pyke said they had several options for someone to switch to half-back and fill Smith's role.
"Obviously Dave McKay went back and did a good job against GWS," he said.
"We have (Paul) Seedsman down back before, we've had (Richard) Douglas back.
"We have to make sure we maintain the right balance of our team and get the blend right.
"(That's) in terms of not only our running capability, but also our tall/small numbers and those sorts of things - against a Geelong side that we know has real strengths and some real weapons."
