Adelaide are wary of the effect recalled Essendon player Scott Lucas can have on Friday night's AFL round opener at AAMI Stadium, beyond simply the goals he will kick himself.

Lucas' inclusion provides a twofold headache for the Crows' defence, given that his presence will automatically reduce the amount of attention available for Bombers spearhead Matthew Lloyd.

In 2007 Lucas and Lloyd took turns to terrorise Adelaide's usually sturdy backline, Lucas bagging seven in an upset round one win, before Lloyd rammed through five late in the year at Telstra Dome to ensure outgoing coach Kevin Sheedy never lost to the Crows in Melbourne.

Crows fullback Ben Rutten, likely to get Lloyd while Nathan Bock minds Lucas, said there were multiple flow-on effects from the latter's inclusion, which arrives two months after he damaged knee ligaments in round one.

"Having two quality players and obviously getting Scott Lucas back is going to be a big bonus for them," Rutten said.

"We haven't gone too well against them.

"If both of them are firing it makes it really difficult, not only defensively but if you have a couple of quality forwards it can take a bit of attack away from your defence."

Essendon's Jobe Watson, who earned three Brownlow votes the last time the teams met, went into some detail about Lucas' value to Essendon before teammate Adam Ramanauskas blurted that he adds "about 500 goals" to the Bombers' set-up.

"He has been one of the top two or three players for the last two or three years ... his importance to the side and his ability to keep the forward line structure makes him very valuable," Watson said.

"It takes a lot of the heat off Matthew as well."

Lucas aside, Adelaide are expected to wipe the floor with an Essendon side battling all the issues associated with a long run of defeats.

As Watson put it, "the taste of defeat is heavily entrenched in our mouths".

But having fallen foul of a similarly lowly West Coast last week, Crows midfielder Nathan van Berlo said his teammates were all too aware of the need to front up on Friday night.

"We were very disappointed with the way we performed last week in Western Australia," he said.

"As of Monday we have moved on emotionally from the game, we pride ourselves as a footy club to be able to respond quickly from times when we have been tested.

"We have got a bit of adversity from last week's game and we have got a good chance to respond tomorrow night, so there is an expectation from the playing group that we will certainly go about doing that."

The Adelaide match committee expressed the sort of solidarity noted by van Berlo when they named an unchanged 22 for the contest.

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