{"id":43400,"date":"2025-08-04T18:16:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/43400\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T18:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:16:14","slug":"essendon-ruckman-sam-draper-wooed-by-adelaide-coach-matthew-nicks-weighing-up-move-to-brisbane-lions-matthew-lloyd-and-jimmy-bartel-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/43400\/","title":{"rendered":"Essendon ruckman Sam Draper wooed by Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks, weighing up move to Brisbane Lions; Matthew Lloyd and Jimmy Bartel comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

A phone call from Adelaide<\/a> coach Matthew Nicks might just have swung the heart of Essendon<\/a> ruckman and free agent Sam Draper. <\/p>\n

Nine AFL journalist Sam McClure believes the injured ruckman was deciding between staying at the Bombers or joining Brisbane<\/a>, but is now once again considering the Crows.<\/p>\n

Draper, a South Australian, had initially been linked with a move to Adelaide, but the Lions’ need for a number one ruckman seemingly pushed them into favouritism.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Geelong star learns fate after bump that floored rival<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: AFL investigating bottle thrown towards player, umpire<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Magpies legend eyes all-time record with fresh contract<\/a><\/p>\n

The 26-year-old has missed most of the 2025 season with a torn Achilles, but McClure said that hasn’t dampened Adelaide’s attempts to lure him home.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sam Draper of Essendon.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“This is an extraordinary set of circumstances because Sam Draper was picking between Essendon and Brisbane, both of which had offered long term deals, but a phone call from Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks on the weekend directly to Sam Draper may have just changed things for that player,” McClure told Nine’s Footy Classified.<\/p>\n

“It now has him seriously reconsidering the Adelaide Crows as a suitor, such was the vigour and excitement that Matthew Nicks had for Draper on that phone call.<\/p>\n

“This is the latest chapter of a coach getting personally involved (in list management).”<\/p>\n

Essendon great Matthew Lloyd<\/a> believes his old club’s struggles may just cost them the star ruckman.<\/p>\n

“Essendon is in trouble in terms of its position (on the ladder), (Draper) might be thinking to himself ‘am I going to get success there?’,” Lloyd said.<\/p>\n

“At the Adelaide Crows or Brisbane Lions, it would just be about which lifestyle he wants because both are heading in a pretty good direction.<\/p>\n

“He would be the no.1 ruck at Brisbane. They are desperately needing a ruckman, but I can understand what Nicks is doing. You can see what happens when a ruckman gets injured.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think Draper is a great forward, but he can do that, playing both together.”<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

Sam Draper of the Bombers and Reilly O’Brien of the Crows.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Lloyd added that he doesn’t believe the compensation pick would be worth letting Draper walk, if the Dons had the choice, unless they were handed a first-round pick.<\/p>\n

Footy Classified is now available as a podcast! Subscribe\/follow via Apple<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or Google Podcasts<\/a><\/p>\n

The extra layer with Adelaide is they only recently re-signed no.1 ruckman Reilly O’Brien on a three-year deal through to the end of 2028.<\/p>\n

Brownlow Medallist Jimmy Bartel doesn’t see how the Crows could play O’Brien, Draper and key forward triumvirate Taylor Walker, Riley Thilthorpe and Darcy Fogarty all in the same side.<\/p>\n

“If you look at how tall the Crows already are in the forward line, would that be the best place for his football?” Bartel added.<\/p>\n

31-year-old Brisbane ruckman Oscar McInerney has struggled to play consistently this season with various issues, while back-up Darcy Fort, also 31, has been serviceable as a back-up, including playing in the 2024 premiership.<\/p>\n

Footy Classified contacted Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks, who declined to comment on the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A phone call from Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks might just have swung the heart of Essendon ruckman and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-43400","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43400","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=43400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}