Injured Crow bullish for AFL grand final

Injured Adelaide forward Mitch McGovern is bullish about recovering from a hamstring strain and playing in the AFL grand final.

McGovern missed Adelaide’s 61-point thrashing of Geelong in Friday night’s preliminary weekend at Adelaide Oval.

But Crows coach Don Pyke says the high-leaping forward is in the selection frame for the premiership decider.

“We will give him every chance,” Pyke said after the Crows’ 21.10 (136) to 10.15 (75) triumph over Geelong.

“He’s running to a reasonable level now.

“Clearly he will have to do some training at a pretty high level this week for us to feel comfortable taking him in.

“But I spoke to him just before and he’s in a real positive mindframe.”

Pyke, in his second season as Crows coach, has guided the club to a first grand final appearance since 1998.

The American-born 48-year-old, who played in four grand finals for two premierships with West Coast, said he would instruct his players to embrace the hype.

“I am fortunate, I have been to four and you have to (embrace it),” he said.

“It’s not a normal game … this is where you’re playing for the premiership and it’s a different week but you embrace the excitement of that week.”

Pyke said he would let his players enjoy their preliminary final triumph – briefly.

“We will go through some of the logistics of the week … and then we will concentrate on what we need to do, which is play a game of footy and win a game of footy,” he said.

“That is how we’ll approach it … it’s exciting. These games are what we play for.”

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