New Adelaide coach Phil Walsh wants one thing from his club’s AFL pre-season matches – no injuries.
The Crows have already been rattled by a serious head injury to veteran backman Brent Reilly as they prepare for their opening pre-season game against North Melbourne on Sunday.
Reilly had emergency surgery a fortnight ago after suffering skull fractures in a training mishap.
“It was a really tragic accident that happened to Brent,” Walsh told Adelaide’s club website.
“He’s now home … he is making a strong recovery. He has still got a little way to go but we’re really hopeful that he’ll be back to full health.”
Walsh will take charge of Adelaide for the first time in an official match on Sunday in Port Lincoln and wants the pre-season games to be incident-free.
“Hopefully we can get through without any injuries, that is the main thing that I think all clubs want,” he said.
“But we’d like to think that we can expose some of our younger players who maybe some of our fans haven’t seen so far. We’ll give them a little bit of a look at it but we’re also up against three really strong teams so it will test just to see where we are.”
The Crows also have pre-season fixtures against Geelong (March 12) and Port Adelaide (March 21).