ADELAIDE veteran Richard Douglas is confident the Crows have got through the worse of their hamstring crisis, having tinkered with their training program.
Half-back Wayne Milera became the eighth player to succumb to the hamstring curse, ruled out for one to two weeks after failing to finish last weekend's win over Carlton.
Skipper Taylor Walker, All Australian midfielder Matt Crouch, Eddie Betts, Kyle Hartigan, Kyle Cheney, Sam Gibson and Lachlan Murphy have had various degrees of hamstring injuries in just the first eight weeks of the season.
"There's been a trend with the hamstrings and we feel we've got to the bottom of it, we've tweaked a few things and hopefully now we can put it all behind us, see the back of that and second half of the year, get all these boys back and it will be nice to have a full-strength list to pick from," Douglas told reporters on Wednesday.
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"The game's changed, there's a lot more high speed in the game these days and with training loads, so it's a constant battle for those guys (the high-performance staff) and with us to make sure we've got enough conditioning in and recovery from week to week to give us the best chance to perform on game day.
"It's a tough role for (the high-performance staff) – they analyse and they've got a lot of people trying to take over their job and telling them what to do – but we've got full faith in what they do in best preparing us for game day and training.
"A lot of guys who have had hamstring issues have probably come off a limited preparation, so you probably can't underestimate what effect that has on guys."
The Crows have 14 players, or almost a third of their list, either facing fitness tests or unavailable through injury for Showdown 44 with Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Saturday.
Three of those – Walker, vice-captain Rory Sloane (foot) and forward Riley Knight (general soreness) – were put through their paces on Wednesday, with medical staff waiting to see how they recover before declaring if they're ready to play.
"(Walker) trained strongly, with both him and Sloaney, it's how they pull up tomorrow," Douglas said.
"It'd be nice to have both of them back.
"They trained well, it's just a matter of how they pull up, so fingers crossed all is well."
Douglas has been outstanding in recent weeks playing as a high half-forward rotating in the midfield.
Ahead of his 21st Showdown, and 227th game for the Crows, the 31-year-old was keen to play on next year.
"You always have one eye on the future," Douglas said.
"I'd love to get another contract and hang around as long as I can."
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