Geelong coach Chris Scott has explained Patrick Dangerfield's absence, while confirming small forward Brad Close also won't play in Round 3.
Dangerfield has had an interrupted pre-season after taking part in AFL Origin and will miss one to two weeks with a calf injury.
"The biggest issue at the moment is that he just hasn't had any continuity at training," Scott said at his weekly media conference.
"As much as anything, he is the one driving the fact that he feels like he needs a block of training to be really confident to play the way that he knows he can."
The hard-working Close is also set to be managed against Adelaide after a quiet start to the season.
"He is actually in a similar situation to Patrick, we don't think he has had an optimal preparation to this point and we would like to make the most of these long breaks between games, to get some more training in,” Scott said.
"He will get a little bit of VFL game time as well, and likely that it will be full game time.
"But we think we can put a program together for him to get him back to his best pretty quickly physically, and have him available for the Hawthorn game. It is quite a proactive move in our opinion."
Scott confirmed Ollie Henry was in the frame to return after responding to his omission with an impressive five goal Round 1 performance in the VFL, while James Worpel is no certainty to feature as he deals with an infected finger.
The premiership coach, meanwhile, refuted claims that he sprayed the Cats at quarter time of their Round 1 clash against Fremantle when they conceded eight goals, but admitted his approach was different to usual.
"I'd be disappointed if anyone thought that the extent of the changes that we made after a quarter time were driven by some harsh words at quarter time," Scott said.
"I've never bought that. I just think that's amateur stuff that people that don't know anything about the game talk about.
"‘Oh he must have revved them up, therefore they started trying'. That is just not what happened at quarter time.
"So if we start poorly this week, I'd like to think we come together, address the things that need to be addressed, make some changes and implement them.
"That's not as interesting, I get it, but I said to Nathan Buckley, ‘I don't always speak to them that way'. And his response was, ‘What are you talking about? It's pretty low level'."
