‘It’s an injury, it will heal’: Adelaide Crow Tom Doedee tries to stay positive after confirming he has ruptured his ACL

A pragmatic Adelaide defender Tom Doedee says his ruptured ACL is “just an injury” but he does fear missing out on what the Crows might achieve this season.

Tom Doedee of the Crows walks from the ground at half time after rupturing his ACL. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

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A pragmatic Adelaide defender Tom Doedee says his ruptured ACL is “just an injury” but he does fear missing out on what the Crows might achieve this season.

The 22-year-old had scans on Sunday which confirmed he had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during Saturday’s loss to Hawthorn and he will have surgery in coming days.

Doedee said he felt a “pop” in an innocuous incident at Adelaide Oval after a manoeuvre he would have done “300 times” in pre-season training.

Young Crows defender after rupturing his ACL on Saturday. Picture: AAP Image/David Mariuz

“It was really innocuous, I went in to try to tackle (Jarryd) Roughead, he made a slight change of direction and I planted my foot,” Doedee said.

“I felt a pop, ran down to the pocket and thought I might go off and see how it is, and they thought the worst.

“Like (Alex) Rance said the other night I’ve got a great club, great culture, a great supportive family and a beautiful partner to help me out so in terms of the recovery if the worst is to be then it’s just an injury.

“There was plenty of support, I had everyone come up and say ‘are you all right’ and when I told them they thought it was an ACL they were surprised because of how innocuous the incident was, it was so little.

“It’s a 12-monther but it’s an injury, it will heal so it could be worse.

“I just put it into perspective, there’s a lot more to life than football and as much as I would like to play every game because I think we’ve got something special brewing here it’s just part of it and I might have to sit out for the year and wait until next year.”

Coach Don Pyke said he was disappointed for his emerging defender who was coming off a breakout season in 2018.

“We feel for him and we’ll get around him, as footy clubs do and look after our own,” Pyke said.

“It’s not ideal, we start the season with high hopes and lose a player of Tom’s ability and who people love watching play, but we’ll have to find someone to replace him.

“We’ve got to move on, that’s the unfortunate reality, we will support him as we will but we’re looking for someone to come in and take his spot.

“We’ve got Kyle Hartigan who missed out and was close and Andy Otten who was a carry over this week.

“So we have a couple of guys who can fill that void but I just feel for Tom, (a) fourth-year player who came off a great season last year, we’ll just take a minute and feel for him and potentially what’s in front of him.”

Compounding Doedee’s knee injury was a high ankle sprain to midfielder/forward Richard Douglas who was also having scans on Sunday.

Douglas is expected to be assessed later this week before the Crows fly to Sydney to play the Swans on Friday night.

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