Adelaide are braced for a head-on collision with AFL heavyweights St Kilda on Sunday, fervently believing they have improved enough to seriously challenge the Saints on their own turf.

The Crows warmed up for the contest by mauling an understrength Fremantle, and are now plotting for a match in which they can significantly enhance their 2009 credentials by putting in a strong performance against an unbeaten St Kilda.

Young midfielder David Mackay said Adelaide were closing the gap on the league's top echelon, and were ready for whatever the Saints would hurl at them in search of their 16th win in a row.

"We certainly believe we're improving every week and we're getting closer and closer to those top sides," Mackay said on Monday.

"This week we're really looking forward to meeting St Kilda head-on, we think we're ready for the challenge, and ready to meet whatever they put up against us.

"We're improving with our ball movement, improving our skill execution, which at the start of the year was a little bit down, especially against St Kilda when they really put us under the heat we weren't able to execute as well as we'd have liked.

"I think that's improved, we've worked on it a lot and we're certainly better placed playing them this time than we were in round two."

Adelaide's loss to the Saints early in the season, which coach Neil Craig actually lauded as one of his side's better displays, occupies a good deal of relevant prominence this week.

As an early indicator of where St Kilda stood it proved eerily prescient, given that Craig described their pressure at the ball carrier as the most outstanding he had ever seen.

"We were pretty pleased with a number of things we did in that game, but our last quarter was pretty poor and they ran all over us (to win by 32 points), Mackay said.

"We learned a lot from that game in that their pressure on the ball carrier was probably at a level we hadn't experienced before, it was very high, and also their contested ball, contested possessions were fantastic that night and have been since that game.

"It's one area they're very strong at, but we like to think we're pretty strong at and we're certainly improving all the time in that area."

The Crows will consider recalling forward Brett Burton and ruckman Jon Griffin this week, while Trent Hentschel will likely make his latest comeback from a knee injury via the SANFL.

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