PORT ADELAIDE will give onballer David Rodan until Saturday afternoon to prove he has recovered from a knee injury sustained in last week’s loss to the Swans.

Rodan had a light session at AAMI Stadium on Wednesday but was a no-show at Alberton on Friday.

Young forward Robbie Gray, who was not named in the Power’s 25-man-squad, joined emergencies Nick Lower, Damon White and Tom Logan in the sharp 45-minute session.

“David’s just a got a bit of a sore knee. We tossed and turned as to whether he would train today, but he’ll have a run over the weekend and the doctor thought it was best that David had the day off today after training Wednesday,” assistant coach Matthew Primus said after training.

“The docs are pretty confident he’ll come up to play, but we’ll suck and see tomorrow probably.”

“We’ll decide this afternoon which emergencies we need to hold out of the SANFL games on Saturday.”

One area the Power will be looking to expose this week is Adelaide’s inexperienced ruck division, which includes Jon Griffin and Kurt Tippett and also pinch-hitters Scott Stevens and Ken McGregor.

In the past two weeks Brendon Lade and Dean Brogan have dominated the hit-outs, but the Power onballers have been unable to capitalise on this advantage.

“We thought last week our stoppage stuff was pretty good against a team that is very good at shutting you down, so it’s more a matter of compliance from the onballers,” Primus said.

“We know that Brendon and Dean are going to give us first look at the ball most of the time, but we’ve got to realise that Griffin and Tippett aren’t no-hopers- they did a pretty good job against Dean Cox last week.

“I think the opposition have played us well knowing that their rucks aren’t going to win the hit-outs. We actually broke even with Sydney in the clearances and against Geelong we weren’t too far off.

“We know opposition sides are going to try and read us, which makes it a bit difficult, but we’ve had that problem for the last four or five years, so we’ll work around it.”

Primus said the Power were focused on preventing the 15-20-minute lapses that have so far cost them the opening two games of the season. He also said a fast start would be invaluable against the Crows on Sunday.

“I think the first 15 minutes are going to be important,” he said.

“Both teams like to dictate their style of play and I think, whoever can do that early, is going to be in control of the game probably, at least, until half time.”