Porplyzia, 25, experienced soreness around his pelvis and back on day one of pre-season but was able to push through the discomfort, recording a personal best time in the club’s three-kilometre time trial before Christmas.
The Crows’ leading goalkicker returned in the New Year ready to work but the pain around his waist quickly worsened, leaving him unable to bend down.
“Even before we came back for the start of pre-season I felt it getting sore. I tried to push through it, but it wasn’t getting any better,” Porplyzia said.
“It really held me up for a while and the problem was that it was such an unusual sort of thing to occur that it took a while to get a diagnosis.”
There were fears Porplyzia had suffered a potentially serious disc injury, but he was eventually diagnosed as having instability around his pelvic joint.
He was pulled out of training and placed on a rigorous core-strengthening program in a bid to rebuild the muscles around the area.
“The doctors and the physios seem to think the injury could be a result of years of not using the muscles in the pelvis and glutes properly,” Porplyzia said.
“Hopefully, the core-strengthening program will get the muscles going again and build them up so that they’re able to take the workload a bit better.
“At the moment, the load isn’t being carried in the right position and it’s putting stress on the wrong areas.”
Porplyzia tried unsuccessfully to return to the field last month, but believes he’s made good progress over the past two weeks.
“It feels like we’ve been going around in circles for a month, but I think we’ve turned a corner now,” he said.
“I’m back into running and doing some training with the footballs this week, so I’ll build that up. Hopefully, it’s only another couple of weeks before I’m back into full training and playing games.”
Porplyzia is unlikely to be fit for Adelaide’s NAB Challenge game in Alice Springs next weekend - against the loser of Friday night's NAB Cup clash between St Kilda and Collingwood - but Nathan Bock (calf), Kurt Tippett (leg soreness), Scott Thompson (knee) and Brad Symes (knee/whooping cough) should all be available.
The Crows were bundled out of the NAB Cup after a lack-lustre performance against Port Adelaide on Saturday night.
Coach Neil Craig was scathing of his side’s performances post-match, suggesting the players went into the game with a poor attitude and got what they deserved in the 56-point drubbing.
“The only positive is that it’s only February because you wouldn’t want to serve that up when your playing for keeps and when you’re playing for a legitimate prize,” Craig said.
“If we serve up that sort of effort, or if any team in the AFL serves up that effort, you’ll finish bottom.”
Craig said it was possible the Crows had been seduced by predictions they would be a top-four side this season.
“You can go round in circles finding out why the thirst for competition wasn’t there. I’m more interested in how we’re going to address it and get rid of it,” he said.
“I still believe we have a squad here that if we get this part of our game in order we’re ready to challenge for higher places on the premiership table, but this was a bit of a step backwards [on Saturday].”
