Lethal happy to hit the road

Their draw with Sydney wasn't the ideal result and coach Leigh Matthews admitted his side's performance was also some way short of what he has come to expect in recent weeks.

But perhaps Matthews can take heart that the stalemate with the Swans over the weekend might provide the perfect trial run for this Saturday's do-or-die encounter with the Crows at AAMI Stadium.

"They're not usually a really high scoring team. They play like the Swans really," Matthews said of 10th-placed Adelaide on Monday.

"Usually you have a low scoring game against the Crows because part of their modus operandi is to make it hard to score against them."

"We've been struggling to kick 10 goals against the Swans. The reason we drew on the weekend is we kept them to eight as well and that was partly because they missed a few."

Recent battles with last year's preliminary finalists have followed a similar pattern with Brisbane failing to kick greater than 11 goals in each of the sides' past three matches.

Matthews maintained the Crows are still capable of sneaking into the top eight.

"They're behind us on the ladder so they've had plenty of bad days as well but they're capable of playing well," said Matthews.

"The Crows in Adelaide is always a tough assignment."

Brisbane enjoys a decent record at AAMI Stadium - last year it smashed Port Adelaide by 12 goals at the ground - and has also had notable success away from home this season.

The Lions have defeated Carlton at the Telstra Dome, the Eagles at Subiaco and Collingwood at the MCG.

Matthews said that helps the players ready themselves for the anticipated hostile atmosphere in the city of churches.

"It means you know you can go and play well outside your home environment which is what you've got to do," he said of the trio of road trip wins.

"Even though Footy Park, as venues go, is a difficult one because the Crows and Port are pretty good teams, in my time we've done OK over there."

One major obstacle facing Matthews this week is the possible unavailability of key personnel.

He said in the midst of the club's recent five-match winning streak that the Lions were a match for anybody as long as they kept their star players on the pitch.

But Jamie Charman (calf strain) and Scott Harding (knee) are certain absentees for the Adelaide trip with crumbing forward Rhan Hooper serving the second game of a three-match suspension.

Brisbane also has until Tuesday morning to decide whether to accept the sanctions offered to reported pair Luke Power and Jason Roe.

Veteran Chris Scott is one candidate to replace Roe in defence while highly-rated forward Mitch Clark also came through last weekend's reserves outing unscathed and is in line to replace Harding.

"We've almost been waiting for Mitch to get through a reserve game so we can pick him for seniors," said Matthews.

"He's done that so he'd be a good chance of getting selected this week as long as he has a normal training week."

"If he trains normally this week, I'm pretty sure we'll be playing him."