ADELAIDE has been dealt a massive blow ahead of Saturday night's clash against Collingwood with gun defender Rory Laird withdrawn.

The 22-year-old, who missed four games with a toe complaint earlier in the season, has hip soreness and the club has decided not risk him.

Laird has been one of the Crows' best this year and has soared into All Australian calculations on the back of a string of exceptional performances.

Former Magpie Paul Seedsman replaces Laird in the selected side and will take on his former teammates for the first time.

Jake Kelly has been added to the emergency list.

Collingwood made one change for the clash with Levi Greenwood replacing the injured Alex Fasolo.

Crows assistant coach David Teague believes there is still much improvement needed at his club.

"We don't think the way we're playing now is going to be good enough at the end of the year," Teague told reporters on Friday.

"We think we have got some areas to improve and we're going to need to improve on those.

"It's a whole game thing. Some of our defence we want to improve, some of our offence - they are just small things we want to tweak.

"We won't go into the exact details but we have got quite a few areas we want to improve on.

"Having said that, we're doing a lot right at the moment too."

Adelaide expects Collingwood to offer a stern test as the Crows mark the 300th AFL game milestone of onballer Scott Thompson on Saturday night.

"Their pressure is probably one thing that I have noticed ... it has been really good lately," Teague said of the Magpies, who have won three consecutive matches.

"Any team that brings good pressure asks a good question of the opposition. And it's one we're looking forward to answer this week.

"We feel that the pressure games are going to be finals-type games so we want opposition to bring pressure and we want to be able to stand up and handle it and we'll find that out tomorrow night."