Adelaide coach Brenton Sanderson says he won't gift AFL games to players despite his club's dwindling finals prospects.
Sanderson says he'll continue to pick a team each week that he expects to win, regardless of Adelaide's ladder position, rather than offer work experience to his younger players.
"You have got to deserve a game," Sanderson told reporters on Thursday.
"We won't pick a player just because we want to have a look at him - that is the wrong message to send to the rest of the group and our fans.
"We will pick a 22 each week which we think is going to be hungry and aggressive and which we expect to win."
The Crows sit 12th on the ladder, three wins outside the top eight, ahead of a home clash with Geelong on Sunday.
Sanderson conceded that Adelaide, who were beaten preliminary finalists last year, had gone backwards this season when rated purely on wins and losses.
"But I feel like we have got the bones of a really good young side that we're growing here," he said.
"We have gone backwards when you look at win-loss and exposure to finals action - we're not out of it yet, but we're chipping away in that bottom half (of the ladder).
"But it's important we finish the year off really well ... we have just got to fight it out to the last quarter of the last game, whenever that is."
Sanderson, who will lose star midfielder Patrick Dangerfield (shoulder) for Sunday's game, said Adelaide had never felt on top of their season.
"It feels like it has been like that since we were two (wins) and four (losses) ... we have been chasing our tail ever since," he said.
"I haven't been too disappointed with our form in the past two weeks ... it feels like we're in the game, but we're not in the game for long enough.
"We just lose concentration at critical times. We make fundamental errors with our skills at really bad times."
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