Adelaide forward Kurt Tippett believes the Crows' talent-laden attack has the potential to transform the club into a genuine AFL premiership contender this season.

Jason Porplyzia (57 goals), Tippett (55) and Chris Knights (43) shared the workload up forward in 2009 as Adelaide became one of the highest-scoring teams in the second half of the season.

But Tippett said the continued improvement of Taylor Walker (23 goals last season) and the addition of injury-prone big man Trent Hentschel, who managed just seven games in 2009, would make the forward line even more potent in 2010.

"Trent is very important to the side," Tippett said.

"We play a similar sort of style and if we are both there it will be hard to match up on both of us.

"There's a lot of talented guys in our forward line.

"Guys like Hentschel, Taylor Walker, Chris Knights and Jason Porplyzia can all kick goals.

"If we all share the workload we'll be able to kick some big scores and that would make us very hard to stop hopefully."

But Adelaide's forward set-up will have to make do without injured pair Knights and Porplyzia for Sunday's clash with Fremantle at Subiaco Oval, and the Crows were dealt a further blow when defender Graham Johncock was ruled out for a month with a broken thumb.

Tippett established himself as one of the best key forwards of the competition in the second half of last year, booting seven goals against Essendon in round 11 and bags of five in rounds 14 and 15.

The 201cm Queenslander, who knocked back a lucrative offer from Gold Coast and re-signed with the Crows until the end of 2012, said he hadn't been affected by the massive hype surrounding his progress.

"I just try to focus on the football and let everything else take care of itself," he said.

"You haven't got time in this day and age to worry about the outside influences."

In an ominous sign for opposition defences, Adelaide coach Neil Craig said there was still plenty of upside left in the 22-year-old.

"He's still a young and inexperienced player in terms of the game itself because he didn't start playing until later on as a young man," Craig said.

"Last year he could have games where you probably wouldn't notice him, then he'd come up and kick seven goals like he did against Essendon.

"So I think the consistency of being able to train and the consistency of performance I've seen in the pre-season cup is an improvement, but there's still an enormous amount to go.

"It's a bit scary ..."

Adelaide crushed Fremantle by 117 points when the teams met in round 15 last year but Tippett, who kicked five goals in that match, said there was no way the Dockers would be rolled that easily again.

"We are going to be in for an arm-wrestle and we are in no two minds about that," he said.

"Some of their players we don't know too much about but from all reports they're a quick, young side and we have to be ready for that."

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