{"id":111408,"date":"2025-09-01T18:53:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T18:53:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/111408\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T18:53:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T18:53:25","slug":"adelaide-crows-forward-josh-rachele-fails-to-recover-from-knee-injury-for-final-against-collingwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/111408\/","title":{"rendered":"Adelaide Crows forward Josh Rachele fails to recover from knee injury for final against Collingwood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adelaide forward Josh Rachele has been ruled out of a comeback in the qualifying final against Collingwood.<\/p>\n

The dynamic attacker had hoped to play on Thursday night for the first time since suffering a knee injury on July 6.<\/p>\n

But Rachele, while close to returning, has been scratched from selection for the Adelaide Oval final.<\/p>\n

“He won’t be available for Thursday night’s game, but tracking really well, training really well,” Adelaide’s coaching director Murray Davis told reporters on Monday.<\/p>\n

“And (he) continues to knock on the coach’s door and remind him of how well he’s going.<\/p>\n

“He’s pretty close \u2026 but just at this stage, won’t be available.”<\/p>\n

Rachele tore the posterior capsular in his left knee along with sustaining a bone compression injury in a round 16 clash against Melbourne.<\/p>\n

He has re-joined full training and would be “in the mix” for the Crows’ following final, Davis said.<\/p>\n

The winner of Thursday night’s fixture advance to a home preliminary final after a week off. The loser is pitched into a sudden-death semi-final the next week.<\/p>\n

Rachele’s unavailability is a blow to the Crows, who will be without fellow goalsneak Izak Rankine, who has served one game of a four-match ban for a homophobic slur.<\/p>\n

Rankine saga gives Adelaide its chance to grow from adversity in premiership hunt<\/a><\/p>\n

After a dream home and away season, adversity is officially on Adelaide’s doorstep courtesy of Izak Rankine. How the club deals with this will define the current era under Matthew Nicks.<\/p>\n

Rankine was suspended for an offensive comment to a Magpie opponent during their round 24 encounter.<\/p>\n

If the Crows down the Magpies, Rankine’s season will be over. He will be available for the grand final if Adelaide lose the qualifying final, but then progress to the premiership decider.<\/p>\n

Rankine has been sent to Italy to avoid the Adelaide spotlight but will soon return to the South Australian capital.<\/p>\n

\"Adelaide<\/p>\n

Izak Rankine ban for a homophobic slur means he will only be available if the Crows lose their week one final against Collingwood and then go on to make the grand final. (Getty Images: AFL Photos\/James Elsby)<\/p>\n

“He will be back by the time we play, that’s all I know \u2026 it’s certainly not a concerted effort to keep him away,” Davis said.<\/p>\n

The Crows have cleared Max Michalanney to return on Thursday night after he missed the past four games with a hamstring strain.<\/p>\n

Utility Luke Pedlar is also in the selection frame after recovering from a hamstring injury which sidelined him for the past two matches.<\/p>\n

The Crows pipped Collingwood by three points at Adelaide Oval in round 24, ending an 11-game winless streak against the Pies dating back to 2016.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

But Davis forecast a different style of game than the recent encounter, which became a rain-affected tactical slog when both clubs deployed a loose man in defence.<\/p>\n

“It was a real battle of who would hold their nerve for the longest,” Davis said.<\/p>\n

“Both teams probably look at that game and think there were things that we could do differently.<\/p>\n

“A little bit of it may be condition-based. In regards to that night, it was fairly slippery and pretty wet at different stages so that did contribute to it.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure both teams will have different levers that they can pull (on Thursday night) if they need to.”<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adelaide forward Josh Rachele has been ruled out of a comeback in the qualifying final against Collingwood. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,17652,10990,6092,2649,12413,3899,58464,45746,6642,588,85,79615],"class_list":["post-111408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-ban","tag-collingwood","tag-crows","tag-final","tag-homophobic-slur","tag-injury","tag-izak-rankine","tag-josh-rachele","tag-knee","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-unavailable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}