Adelaide will kick off the AFLW season without Chelsea Randall, but remain confident fellow co-captain Erin Phillips will play an early role in their premiership defence.

Phillips, who tore her ACL in Adelaide’s AFLW grand final win last March then had an arthroscope on her knee in December, has set her sights on an early-season return.

Co-captain Randall was coy on whether her teammate would feature in Saturday’s season opener against Brisbane.

“It’s the question on everyone’s minds and I have no doubt she’ll be playing this season – it’s just a matter of when that might look,” Randall told AAP at the AFLW season launch.

“So I don’t know if it’ll be round one but we’ll look to hopefully see her out there at some stage this season for sure.”

Randall, who tore her ACL in Adelaide’s first pre-season training session in November, said retaining the co-captaincy had been an important show of faith from coach Matthew Clarke.

“When you come and do such a serious injury, you can’t help but question ‘where do I sit, where to now, what does my role look like?'” Randall said.

“So his belief in me that I can still be able to do that role and help assist in our midfield as a coach as well was really important to me.”

Randall was confident the Crows could mount a strong premiership defence, despite injuries and the AFLW expanding to 14 teams.

“It’s really hard to know where you stand this year and with four brand new teams into the competition this year, it’s like you’re walking back into unknown territory again,” Randall said.

“So much player movement’s happened and occurred and we’ve had quite a few injuries. You just want to be able to perform and continue to grow another level.”