JAMES Podsiadly could play an important role in Adelaide's finals aspirations this year, even if he fails to break back into the club's senior line-up.
The 'J-Pod' has been in extraordinary form in the SANFL in recent weeks, taking 29 marks and booting 20 goals over the past fortnight.
At the weekend against Glenelg, Podsiadly booted eight first-half goals to finish with 11.6.
But it's the 33-year-old's work off the field that could have the greatest impact for the Crows this September.
Josh Jenkins - fresh from a career-best haul of six goals against West Coast on Sunday - said Podsiadly had helped improve the forward line's contested marking.
The Crows are second in the competition for marks inside 50 and seventh for contested grabs. The forward line is dangerous - Taylor Walker and Eddie Betts have both kicked 54 goals so far this year, while Jenkins has 41 to his name.
"I'll continue to work hard on some of my contested marking and things like that … James Podsiadly's been a great help in the latter part of the year working on those aspects," Jenkins said.
"It's more about a change in mindset … often throughout the season you can just look to get to the next game, just try and recover and put yourself in cotton wool.
"But we've really challenged each other to do extra marking and that's not just myself and him, 'Tex' has been involved with that, (Tom) Lynch and the defenders get involved as well.
"We've just challenged each other to train a little bit harder and do a little bit more work and the results show."
Podsiadly is expected to retire from football at the end of the season, although Jenkins said he was hopeful the Crows would be able to hang onto the experienced forward in some capacity.
"You'd like to think [we can retain him], I think he's made it open that he's keen to hang around in football anyway in some sense," Jenkins said.
"He's got the fitness background and he's obviously got a great football experience and journey.
"It'd be great to have him around and we'd be fortunate if he chooses to stay with us."
Adelaide will fly to Melbourne on Friday before making its way to Geelong to take on the Cats on Saturday.
If North Melbourne beats Richmond on Friday night, then the Crows would secure a home final with a win over Geelong .
Regardless of how the first week of the finals was shaping up on Saturday morning, Jenkins said the Crows would be out to do one thing only.
"We've got a simple focus and that's just to win the game," he said.
"We've put forth probably four, five, six good games of footy now ... that'll be our aim again this week. If you look past that or you look at the external things then you lose focus of what you need to achieve and the results won't fall your way."
