Crows rookie Darcy Fogarty looms as replacement for injured Mitch McGovern

ADELAIDE coach Don Pyke has pinpointed last year’s first-round draft pick Darcy Fogarty as the obvious replacement for fallen forward Mitch McGovern.

ADELAIDE coach Don Pyke has pinpointed last year’s first-round draft pick Darcy Fogarty as the obvious replacement for fallen forward Mitch McGovern.

McGovern will miss the next two months of the AFL season after badly injuring his ankle when he was crunched in a collision with teammate Richard Douglas in the final minute of the Crows’ five-point Showdown 44 loss to Port Adelaide last Saturday.

Pyke says teenager Fogarty, 18, who debuted against Essendon in round one and has played four games, is the logical man to fill the high-flying McGovern’s shoes.

“We’ll have a look at all the options but he’s a young guy who has come in and shown some capacity at the level,’’ Pyke said.

“It will just be a question of how that looks from a balance point of view and whether it’s worth to continue to give him opportunities and see if he can progress.

“He’s shown a bit in games and he’s obviously got some growing and developing to do but we knew that coming in as a first-year player, it’s not easy coming in as a first-year forward, so we’ll weight that up.

“From a size point of view he’s similar (to McGovern), it just depends which way we want to go.’’

At 193cm, Fogarty is listed as being 3cm taller than McGovern.

Before the Crows trained today, Pyke said captain Taylor Walker, defender Kyle Hartigan and forward/midfielder Riley Knight were are on track to be available for Friday night’s home clash against the Western Bulldogs.

Walker, who has missed games with foot and hamstring injuries this season, suffered glute soreness in the Showdown.

“I expect he’ll train fully, so he should be fine,” Pyke said.

Hartigan has missed the past three games while Knight has missed two with hamstring soreness.

Former Kangaroo Sam Gibson (hamstring), midfield speedster Curtly Hampton (groin) and defender Alex Keath (ankle) also should be available this week.

Pyke said he is disappointed but not upset by the Crows' long injury list.

“We’ve had some setbacks in terms of an availability viewpoint but it’s also created an opportunity for guys and we’ve seen some guys really step forward,’’ he said.

“The wheel will turn. We’ve got five guys coming back this week, that’s the start of it for me.

“Hartigan, Gibson, Keath, Knight and Hampton will come back. I expect in three weeks time we might end up with 40 guys available, at which point we’re dealing with a different scenario.

“That’s just life. You don’t get a linear curve like that the whole time and everything the way you want it.

“We need to be able to adapt and so far we have and we will continue to.’’

[e-mail]