Essendon will be without ruckman Sam Draper for the immediate future as he undergoes a “period of unloading and loading” as the cult hero deals with a lingering hip issue and coach Brad Scott isn’t sure when he’ll return.
Draper had played every one of the Bombers’ opening 13 games before missing last week’s clash with Fremantle as the Dockers ended Essendon’s four-game winning streak.
Scott confirmed Draper, who has been unable to train after the injury worsened, would remain off the track and would need to rest, then build himself up again before being considered for a playing return.
He conceded that might not be on the schedule the club hoped for and would be dependent on how Draper’s hip responded.
“He’ll go through I’d say the next two weeks of unloading, and then we’ll have to reload him,” Scott said on Wednesday.
“He won’t play the next couple of weeks. It’s just been gradually getting a bit worse.
“We just made the decision that we want to get him absolutely 100 per cent before we play him again.
“When you’ve got a player who’s dynamic and powerful and he’s struggling through a season, it’s not going to help us to just continue to go down that road.
“So it’s that unloading phase, get some treatment in and then reload him.
“Hopefully, that’s a few weeks … but it’s really hard to be definitive as to when he’s going to be back.”
It leave Essendon veteran Andrew Phillips and emerging big man Nick Bryan to carry the load, which they did against the Dockers without much success.
But they will get the chance to improve that effort against Port Adelaide on Saturday night.
“I wouldn’t have said our rucks were beaten,” Scott said.
“We were a bit disappointed with our midfield group and I know they‘ll respond this week.
“But the two rucks has been the preferred structure for us all year, and even without Draper we’ve got options.”
Scott said the club was resisting the urge to bring in last year’s top draft pick Elijah Tsatas who has been impressive in the VFL since overcoming a knee injury which prevented him from playing until this month.
“The temptation is, your excitement gets the better of you and you want to bring him him,” he said.
“The tendency of young players is to come in and go ot, but Elijah is one player I can see when he comes in, you expect he’s going to stay there and we want to set him up for that.
The Essendon coach also labelled criticism of key forward Sam Weideman, who hasn’t kicked a goal in four weeks, as “unfair”, declaring the former Demon was a victim of other issues in Essendon’s game at the moment.
“He’s just trying to work in. He’s at a new club, trying to fit in with a player he hasn’t played with before in Peter Wright,” Scott said.
“We always look at our forward structure in terms of the total output, and our forwards didn’t give us great output on the weekend. But they didn’t get great service, or a lot of service, either.
“It‘s extremely unfair to talk about one player when it’s the total mix we’re looking for.
“We wouldn’t be sitting here 8-6 without Sam Weideman ... we’ve got a lot of faith and confidence in Sam.”
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