Adelaide’s vice-captain and premier midfielder Rory Sloane has fractured an eye socket and will miss the AFL pre-season competition.

Sloane will have surgery after suffering the injury on Friday in a training mishap.

The Crows say they expect Sloane to be available for the start of the premiership season.

“He has fractured his eye socket during some contested work at training this morning,” the club’s high performance manager Matt Hass said in a statement.

“He will have surgery once the swelling reduces, which will likely rule him out of the pre-season competition.”

The Crows have also lost defender Jake Lever for about three weeks because of a hamstring strain.