ADELAIDE midfielder Brent Reilly has spent the past six weeks mastering the art of playing football one-handed while nursing his broken wrist and, on Tuesday, he was joined on the track by another teammate forced to follow his lead.

Rob Shirley dislocated the top of his left little finger last week and, like Reilly, was unable to grab the ball with two hands at the Crows’ light training session.

Reilly, who has not played since round one, was still sporting a cast on Tuesday morning, but was scheduled to have it removed after training.

Both Reilly and Shirley are expected to be available for selection on Thursday afternoon ahead of Sunday’s clash with Melbourne at AAMI Stadium.

Crows utility Scott Stevens said he wouldn’t be surprised if Reilly received an instant recall to the team.

“With a wrist injury, you can obviously still run and you would’ve seen Brent, over the past six weeks, doing most of the training,” Stevens said.

“He was throwing the ball instead of handballing it and working on his one-handed grabs, but they were the only things he was doing different from full training.

“His fitness would not have dropped off much and his form over the past couple of seasons [means he might come straight back].”

Ben Rutten, who was one of six Crows to play for the Dream Team on Saturday night, will also return to face the Dees, while young forward Richard Douglas will miss with a knee injury.

Stevens said a win over the struggling Melbourne was no guarantee for the fourth-placed Crows.

“Obviously, the last half of footy they played was exceptional after being 51 points down and coming back to win the game. They are not playing terribly right at this moment and they’ll get a lot of confidence from that win,” he said.

“We’ve got to prepare for them like any other team. It will be a tough competition and we’re going to have to win it – no-one is going to hand it to us.

“Just because a team is above another team on the ladder doesn’t mean they are going to win - ever.

“You can’t take your foot off the pedal ever because you never know what could happen and teams can score very quickly these days as Melbourne showed last week.

“Our last quarter of footy wasn’t great and Melbourne’s last half of footy was really good, so that’s what were looking at and focusing on.”