Adelaide coach Neil Craig is counselling his players not to take a verbal match to the Barry Hall powder keg during Saturday night's AFL match against Sydney at the SCG.

Currently dealing with internal problems of their own in the shape of a club-imposed suspension for wayward defender Graham Johncock, the Crows will be stretching every sinew to return to the top eight.

They are also battling to avoid losing six

games on the trot in one season for the first time in their history - the club record streak of nine being spread across the barren years of 1999 and 2000.

Nevertheless, Craig was clear in declaring he did not want the personal issues line to be pushed with Hall in his first game back from a club-enforced break.

"I'd be really surprised if our players played him any differently to the way they have in the past," Craig said.

"Barry plays it really physically, I don't think that will change, I expect our players to play it physically and go really hard at the footy, when you get two opponents playing physically there'll be some verbals, (that's) the nature of the game.

"I certainly don't expect and wouldn't want our players to use Barry's personal situation (against him).

"I don't think we need that tool at all to get the result we want.

"I would like Barry Hall not to be a significant player in the game, whether he's frustrated or not frustrated."

Helping Craig to think his men will not need to resort to verbal sniping is the Crows' strong record over the Swans and Hall in recent years: they have not lost to them since late 2004.

Hall meanwhile has only been on the winning side in three of his 15 encounters with the Crows, and has been limited to the meagre return of 24.23 when pitted against Adelaide's defence for either St Kilda or the Swans.

There will be some Adelaide understanding of Sydney's internal struggle to put Hall right via the misadventures of Johncock, who has been dropped to the SANFL until such time as the players believe he is fit to play AFL football.

Always a rough diamond, Johncock has never fitted easily into the AFL cookie cutter due to questionable dietary decisions and a smoking habit.

Lately he has appeared an indecisive and muddled figure on-field, particularly when delivering kick-ins, something Craig put down to a recent drop-off in his preparation.

Johncock will turn out for Port Magpies with Power star Peter Burgoyne, also disciplined for off-field problems, and Craig reiterated the need to get it all together before Johncock returned.

"If we as a club have made that judgement on Graham, a judgement made in the spirit of care for a player, because silence would've been approval of a behaviour ... the club have a huge responsibility to help Graham in any manner we possibly can," he said.

"That can be talking to him about standards, helping him through standards, if he wants counselling in an area of his life, all those tools will be made available to Graham.

"The playing group have for a period of time lost a bit of confidence in Graham with the way he prepares, and of course that flows over to form, it's a combination of both."

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