\n Former no.4 pick Sid Draper continues to rehab a groin injury, with Adelaide content to play the long game\n <\/p>\n
Sid Draper in action during round two, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
ADELAIDE has urged patience with top draft pick Sid Draper, who remains on light training duties as he continues to rehab a groin issue.<\/p>\n
Draper’s training loads were managed before the Christmas break and while the club says he’s benefitted from some time off, the 19-year-old is not yet back to full training.<\/p>\n
The No.4 pick in the 2024 draft, Draper played 10 senior games last season – he was either subbed on or off in eight of them – and the Crows say they won’t rush the teenager as he continues to build up his body and manage his injury.<\/p>\n
Sid Draper is helped from the ground during round two, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
“He’s a young talent who started the year extremely well and got a taste of the AFL,” teammate Alex Neal-Bullen said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“For us as teammates, you want to make sure you’re not throwing him into the deep end and expecting too much. We’re making sure his body is ready to go when he gets a taste of AFL again and gets back on the track.<\/p>\n
“We don’t need to expect too much from him at this moment. We want him to feel extremely confident in his body and his physical shape and I think we see that … he looks like a young adult now. I’m not too sure how far away he is from joining the group, but once he gets in you’ll see his strengths on show.”<\/p>\n
On Monday, Crows coaching director Murray Davis urged patience with Draper, a local product who arrived at the club with much fanfare at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n
“Sid has had a really good break and got himself near returning, which is exciting,” Davis said.<\/p>\n
“We have to be patient with Sid, and that’s what we’ve done. But he won’t be far off returning to the whole training group.<\/p>\n
“When you’re a young player coming into an AFL system, you’re always trying to get that balance right between developing your body and being able to cope with playing AFL footy.”<\/p>\n
Sid Draper (right) and Taylor Walker celebrate a goal during the match between Adelaide and Geelong at Adelaide Oval in round five, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
While Draper has had a frustrating off-season, another high draft pick – Daniel Curtin – is continuing to impress as he pushes to play as an inside midfielder this season.<\/p>\n
The No.8 pick in the 2023 draft, Curtin impressed as a defender as a youngster before exploding as a wingman in 2025, playing all 25 games for the Crows.<\/p>\n
As his body has continued to develop, he is expected to be given some more time on the ball in 2026.<\/p>\n
“We’d like to think so,” Davis said.<\/p>\n
“Dan has done a lot of work in developing his physical capabilities but also learning his craft. He’s got some players alongside him to learn from and that will be something we’ll look to explore.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former no.4 pick Sid Draper continues to rehab a groin injury, with Adelaide content to play the long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85,83],"class_list":["post-415362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415362","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=415362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}