The future of dumped defender Graham Johncock remains in his own hands, according to Adelaide coach Neil Craig.

Johncock, who was controversially dropped for his 'standards of preparation' on Thursday, is still a wanted player by his coaches and team-mates but Craig said it would be up to the 25-year-old to keep his solid standing with the club.

"In the end if Graham can't get back to the standards that's required that'll be his call," Craig said.

"We want Graham to finish his career at our footy club at a very high standard."

Craig said it wasn't fair to elaborate on why Johncock was dropped but confirmed it was a decision driven by the leadership group.

"It's a combination of form and Graham probably losing focus on the things which are really important for our club and for him to play good footy," he said.

"That's tied up with training, that's tied up with recovery, it's tied up with lifestyle away from the footy club."

"Nothing disastrous, but not to a level which is conducive to playing at this level."

"Graham had received a lot of feedback on that so it wasn't just a one-off. What the playing group are now saying to Graham is we need to see a response in those areas, we know you can come up to those standards because we've seen that before."

Craig said Johncock's demotion highlighted the courage and the importance of the club's leadership group.

"If I was dictating it, if I was the one who was going to call all those situations, they wouldn't have been called. Do you know why? Because I wouldn't have known about them," he said.

"What you see here at the moment is a playing group having the courage to make a call on their team-mates about different aspects of their footy life and I think that's real power."

Meanwhile Craig said his team wouldn't be changing its approach against Barry Hall in his comeback game for Sydney on Saturday night.

"If you expect our players to comment to Barry about his current situation and his personal issues ... I would say no. But if you expect them to play hard, tough footy and run into him and verbalise him just like he verbalises other players - that's been going on for years," Craig said.

"I expect our players to try and get a hold of the ball to the best of their ability. And if we are talking about the back line here lets get it down to our forward line and score as quick as we can."

"I'm sure our players will respect what Barry's been through and play the game in a manner in which it should be played."