ADELAIDE defender Jake Lever has overcome an ankle injury and will take his place in the side for Friday night's clash with St Kilda at Adelaide Oval.
Lever rolled his ankle in the final quarter of last Friday night's 22-point loss to Geelong at Simonds Stadium.
He proved his fitness at the Crows' training session at Football Park on Thursday morning.
"He trained yesterday, trained again today, and apart from his confidence being low from me beating him at goalkicking, which he wanted me to mention, he's all good to go," Crows assistant coach James Podsiadly told reporters.
"He's playing."
Podsiadly also confirmed neither Kyle Cheney and Tom Doedee would come into the side as the replacement for small defender Luke Brown, who will be out for two to four weeks with a fractured cheekbone.
"Kyle Cheney and Tom Doedee were really close to playing, they're in really good form in the SANFL level, but Richard Douglas and (David Mackay) have played back there as well," Podsiadly said.
"They've showed some good signs down there."
Cheney, 27, played every game for the Crows last season, but missed the start of this year with groin and hamstring injuries.
Doedee, 20, is in his second season with Adelaide after he was taken with the 17th overall pick of the 2015 NAB AFL Draft.
Douglas or Mackay moving from the midfield to the backline opens the door for 307-game veteran Scott Thompson, Riley Knight or first-year player Jordan Gallucci to earn a recall.
"Thompson has been in pretty good form in the SANFL," Podsiadly said.
"We're really happy with how Thommo has progressed after a limited pre-season.
"When you play 300 games of football, you've got a pretty good base level of fitness, but the ability to repeat effort, tackle, get up, sprint, all those things take a bit of time when you haven't done much pre-season.
"He's going all right."
The Crows will need to generate more run out of their backline after the Cats successfully limited the influence of damaging defenders Rory Laird and Brodie Smith.
Laird – who is a contender for his first All-Australian honour with 31.6 possessions per game – was kept to just 20 touches last week, while Smith had just 11 (down from 20.4 per game this season).
Podsiadly, the Crows' defensive coach, expected the Saints to follow the same blueprint.
"The Saints bring that kind of pressure as well," Podsiadly said.
"Sitting down with those half-backs this week, we try to give them some tools on what they can do to negate those pressure forwards.
"Over the course of the season, those guys (Laird and Smith) have been pretty good."
The Crows were unable to hold their normal training session at Adelaide Oval, which is being used for the Socceroos' FIFA World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia on Thursday night.
