TOM DOEDEE is widely considered Adelaide's captain-in-waiting, with the defender's influence at the Crows stretching far beyond spoiling, stopping and intercept marking in the back half.
And Doedee, who falls out of contract at the end of this season, wants to be doing that for many years to come at Adelaide, with the 24-year-old confirming his intentions to sign a new deal with the club.
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"I want to be at Adelaide, it's as simple as that. It's just a case of figuring out all the details and that's between management and the Crows," he told AFL.com.au. "We'll get there, but there's no desire to move. We'll figure it out once it comes to it."
Doedee's focus for now is getting back to full fitness, as he and the Crows take a cautious approach to his hamstring tendon injury that ruled him out of the second half of Adelaide's season last year.
That severe setback followed his 2019 campaign, which was cut short after round one when he suffered a season-ending knee injury that required a reconstruction. He returned to play following last year's COVID-19 enforced break before going down with the hamstring problem in round 11 against Collingwood.
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With the Crows keen to ensure Doedee's injury luck will change this season, the reliable defender has been eased through his pre-season program.
He is still eyeing off playing in Adelaide's AAMI Community Series, but has his main focus on featuring in round one in March.
"It's feeling pretty well 100 per cent. It's more just cautionary stuff at this stage so they're taking me out of a few of the conditioning and shorter sharper stuff that the hammy might not like, and a couple of little things popping up here and there," he said.
"But overall I'm doing all of the footy drills and main stuff, it's more just the little wrinkles here or there. But in terms of gym, contest work, cross-training, running and everything, it's pretty well all systems go.
"Considering the injury history I've had the last couple of years it's been about looking after me now so I don't have to worry about it during the season."
Being sidelined for the back end of the Crows' wooden-spoon season allowed Doedee to watch things from a different perspective. He saw how several weeks of improved performances led to a late-season spike in form, concluding the year with three wins from the final four games.
He also saw youngsters such as Lachie Sholl, Jordon Butts, Will Hamill and Elliott Himmelberg start to play more on instinct and back themselves, and new coach Matthew Nicks' game style start to sink in.
"We reflect on it as a disappointing year as a club, especially when you look at the win-loss record and the expectations we had going into the year," he said.
"But one thing that is tough to see externally, [compared to] what we found internally, was the development we showed from where we started pre-season, to coming back from the COVID break when we probably weren't where we needed to be, and as the year went on we slowly gained clarity on our roles.
"We got fitter, we got stronger, our skills were better, our training standards improved.
"We feel like what happened last year has only motivated us to get better."
Doedee announced himself as a key plank of Adelaide's future in 2018, when he played 20 games and finished second in the NAB AFL Rising Star to former Magpie Jaidyn Stephenson.
Despite two injury-hit seasons Doedee's leadership credentials have come to the surface, with many viewing him as a likely successor to skipper Rory Sloane.
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Doedee was last year elevated to the Crows' leadership group as its youngest member and he is keen to learn from Sloane and former skipper Taylor Walker to grow those ambitions.
"Leadership has been a huge part of my life since I can remember really, going back to basketball teams in under-10s and under-12s and I felt leadership was something I naturally gravitated towards," he said.
"There's obviously going to be external chatting but the biggest thing with me being 24, and the senior boys we've got around, is to continuing to learn and continue to develop personally as a leader and then we’ll see where it goes from there if it leads to anything bigger.
"I'm content at the moment just trying to do my best as a leader for this group but then also learning from those boys because they're pretty influential and well versed in the role."
