Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks has ruled out applying a hard tag on Essendon captain Zach Merrett in their Friday night encounter.
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But Nicks says the in-form Bomber playmaker will demand some attention.
"He is one of the standouts this season in the competition ... it won't necessarily be a hard tag," Nicks said.
"But we have got a lot of respect for the way he plays."
In the corresponding fixture last year at Melbourne's Marvel Stadium, Merrett torched the Crows with a masterful 39-disposal display in an 18-point win.
The skipper is set for All Australian honours for a fourth time this year - he's averaging 28 disposals and five tackles and been instrumental in the Bombers' rise to sixth on the ladder.
Essendon will rise to second spot ahead of weekend games with a win against the Crows, who are in 14th place and set to miss the finals for a seventh-straight season.
Adelaide's Nicks will again field an inexperienced batch including Hugh Bond (one game), Zac Taylor (three games) and Billy Dowling (five games).
"These are guys that have done their work at SANFL level, where we would have areas that we work with them on and say: 'OK, we need this to a certain standard before you come into the AFL side'," Nicks said.
"And Bond is a great example of that."
Bond was drafted with pick 50 at the 2022 draft as a midfielder but was recently redeployed to defence at state league level, prompting a strong stretch of form rewarded with an AFL debut last weekend.
"It wasn't a surprise that he had that in his game, it was just whether he was able to do that at the highest level," Nicks said.
"It was a pretty strong performance so he's going to have to back it up again - that's the toughest part, isn't it, doing that week-after-week."
Australian Associated Press
