Burton should be fit to play Carlton - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Burton should be fit to play Carlton

By Daniel Brettig 26/08/2009 05:57:00 PM Comments (0)

Adelaide should be able to call on Brett Burton for their AFL finals dress rehearsal against Carlton after he breezed through the club's main training session on Wednesday.

Hard-at-it youngster Patrick Dangerfield also looms as a possible inclusion for the Crows following his strong work on the track and in the SANFL for West Adelaide last weekend, though, there is the slightest doubt surrounding Jason Porplyzia.

Porplyzia, who is fighting to shrug off a bruised hip, did not train outdoors with teammates but club officials are adamant he will take his place against the Blues on Saturday afternoon at Etihad Stadium.

Crows veteran Tyson Edwards said the sight of Burton and Dangerfield sprinting around the club's West Lakes base gave his side plenty of depth to choose from while also concentrating the minds of the incumbents.

"Having a guy like Brett available and seeing his history and what he's done for the football club, it's great there's some pressure there for spots," Edwards said.

"(Dangerfield) trained really well last week and again today so it's great to have these guys putting pressure on the guys in the side."

Edwards' 33-year-old body is not creaking anywhere near as much as might reasonably be expected, and he said he was confident of going on for another season of high quality midfield work in 2010.

"We pretty much wait until the end of the year, so we'll see what happens there (with contracts), but I'm keen to go, so it's just a matter of sitting down with all the older guys and working out who's keen and who's not," Edwards said.

"Reasonably (confident of another year) form wise it's been a pretty good year for me again, and I'm happy with my form and I still want to play, so that's the most important thing.

"I'm still pulling up and recovering well from games and haven't had too many injuries that play on your mind a bit and wear you down a bit.

"I've been lucky really my whole career with that, so that's maybe a reason why it's helped me get this far and want to keep going."

Carlton's much-publicised suspension of three latecomers to their Sunday morning recovery session drew a parallel with similar action taken by Adelaide when three players broke a late-season curfew in 2007.

Edwards said such episodes were important to building well-defined boundaries for behaviour.

"Every club has standards, I don't know the story there, but we have standards and each club is maybe raising the bar, whatever's happened there," he said.

"It is important to keep your standards at a high level and make sure you're on the same page.

"From their point of view they can really gel together and bond from that."

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