The Sydney Swans are preparing to face a new-look Adelaide forward line in this weekend’s clash with the Crows at AAMI Stadium.

In the absence of Kurt Tippett and Taylor Walker, who will miss the rest of season with a knee injury, a new crop of forwards have stepped up for the Crows in 2013. Tom Lynch, Josh Jenkins and second-year player Sam Kerridge have all shown their capabilities in front of the big sticks for Adelaide in the first half of the season.

Speaking to SwansTV ahead of the team’s Tuesday training session, Nick Smith said the changes to the Crows’ personnel in recent months has created new challenges for the Swans defenders leading into this weekend.

“They’ve got a bit of a different look up forward this year, but they’ve got some new forwards who have been kicking goals, so we’re going to have to be on our game,” Smith said.

“We’ll look at all the vision from this year and get a good indication on how they are playing as a team and also the individual players as well.

“There is no way we’ll be going into the game underestimating their forwards because they have done some really good work this year.”

The Swans and Crows will both field very different line-ups to the teams who took part in the qualifying final at AAMI Stadium last September.

Like Adelaide, the Swans have also had to shuffle their side because of injury this season, and could travel west missing five players from last year’s final - with Sam Reid, Lewis Roberts-Thomson, Rhyce Shaw, Marty Mattner and Alex Johnson all missing from the Swans's most recent line-up.

Despite those missing from the back half, Smith said the Swans had been able to cover their losses with success in recent weeks.

“We have been hit by a couple of injuries with Rhyce Shaw, Marty Mattner and Alex Johnson all being out recently,” he said.

“I think Dane Rampe, Andrejs Everitt and Jarrad McVeigh have really come in and filled the void really well.

“In saying that, I’m looking forward to having the other guys back, but they are doing a really good job the guys who have come in at the moment.”

In particular, Smith highlighted the re-shuffle of co-captain McVeigh into defence as a positive for the team in the absence of the experienced rebounders in Shaw and Mattner.

“Macca is an awesome player and he’s really smart with the set-ups and all the match-ups and that kind of thing,” Smith said.

“He is really calm out there as well so he’s definitely a calming influence on the back six.”

With the round 12 bye just around the corner, Smith said he hoped the Swans could continue their run of good form this weekend following consecutive wins over Collingwood and Essendon.

“For the last three weeks, besides a couple of ten minute periods against Fremantle, we’ve been really happy with our form and we’re really looking forward to capitalising on that on the weekend against Adelaide and then having a break and reassessing for the second half of the year,” he said.

“I think our last two games, we’ve played some really good footy and are somewhere near where we want to be playing, and like we were towards the end of last year.

“Hopefully we can continue to play that style of footy.”