ADELAIDE is sweating on the fitness of captain Taylor Walker after the spearhead injured his right ankle in the Crows' 30-point loss to Geelong at Simonds Stadium on Saturday night.
But the Crows are hopeful star defender Daniel Talia has escaped with just a corked hip after he hobbled from the ground late in the contest.
Five talking points: Geelong v Adelaide
Crows coach Don Pyke said it was "too early to tell" the severity of Walker's ankle injury.
"He's got a little tweak on the ankle, so we'll see how that settles down in the next day or two and we'll see how it comes up," Pyke said after the match.
In a rare occasion this season, Talia was beaten by Cats power forward Tom Hawkins who booted four goals to propel Geelong to a timely victory.
The Crows were forced to switch Kyle Hartigan onto Hawkins as Talia spent much of the final term icing his injury on the bench.
Pyke said Talia should be fit to take on Essendon at Adelaide Oval next Sunday.
"The suggestion with Daniel is that it's just a cork, so we're hopeful. We'll get that looked at and hopefully he'll be right for next week," Pyke said.
Small forward Charlie Cameron also sent a scare through the Crows' camp after he landed awkwardly, jarring his knee in the process, in a final-quarter marking contest.
Cameron returned to the field and should be available for the clash against the Bombers.
"He's fine. The reports are that he's just tweaked that (knee) so he might be a bit sore for a couple of days but we expect him to be fine," Pyke said.
The Crows were kept to their lowest score of the season, 7.13 (55), and were well beaten in inside 50 entries (46-55) as they lost their first game since round eight, coincidentally also against Geelong.
"The supply tonight wasn't great," Pyke said.
"I thought in the last quarter the guys kept plugging away and we started to get some ball in there but we just couldn't finish our work.
"Credit to Geelong, they were too strong."
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Pyke said it was up to his players to bounce back strongly to keep pace with the logjam of teams fighting for a top-four berth.
The Crows have games against Essendon (Adelaide Oval), the Brisbane Lions (Adelaide Oval), Fremantle (Domain Stadium), Port Adelaide (Adelaide Oval) and West Coast (Adelaide Oval) to round out their season.
"As we've seen in this comp, and the results continue to throw them up, there's no easy games," Pyke said.
"We're in a situation where we need to win and we've got to keep winning to give ourselves the best chance of going forward."