Adelaide tagger Robert Shirley's hard-earned 150th AFL match was turned sour by a hamstring strain, leaving him in serious doubt to run with Carlton captain Chris Judd in round 22.

Shirley has had to fight for every single game of his career, but he has always excelled against Judd, who earlier this year rated Shirley his most taxing direct opponent among all the taggers who have attempted to curb his influence.

Early in 2009 Shirley found himself out of the side, and gave plenty of tips to Michael Doughty on how to handle Judd before Adelaide's win over the Blues in round nine.

Crows coach Neil Craig said Shirley may have to do the same again this week after grabbing for his hamstring during the second quarter of the Crows' 74-point hiding of West Coast.

"They might have to, depending on the extent of the injury," said Craig.

"Mick Doughty stood Judd out here earlier this year, but I thought until Robert finished (injured) after halftime, his performance on (Matt) Priddis was absolutely exceptional.

"So we keep our fingers crossed that it's not going to be a long term injury, we hope he can play next week.

"I got asked in one of the functions about Rob Shirley. There's a general impression out there that he struggles to get into the side and that's probably been a trademark of his career.

"But I also said those sorts of guys tend to pick up the best players in the competition every week.

"You tend to play pretty good players on good players, so that's the best way to describe Rob Shirley."

Craig said Shirley's resilience and ability to keep up a positive visage around the club despite his omission from earlier games had been important to team morale.

"He's very resilient, got great belief in his own ability. There would've been a lot of opportunity for him to chuck the towel in but he keeps bouncing back," he said.

"The thing I've enjoyed about Shirls this year, when he wasn't playing early in the year he was disappointed with it but he didn't let it get him down and he didn't let his disappointment spill over to the rest of the playing group.

"It's very easy for a guy who is 28-29 years of age, not getting a game early, to let that spill over to the team."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP