Essendon ruckman Sam Draper has undergone surgery today on his groin.

Draper battled a groin injury in the second half of the year and his conservative rehabilitation program has not successfully relieved him from discomfort. 

Essendon General Manager of Performance Daniel McPherson confirmed the news. 

“Our initial approach was to undertake a conservative rehab approach with Sam given the time of year. We’ve been monitoring his progress daily and his improvement has been slower than we would have liked to this point,” McPherson said.

“With pre-season approaching, we want to give Sam the best chance to return to training pain-free, and surgery gives him the greatest assurance of this. The plan will be to build him up leading into Christmas before integrating him back into main training in January.

“The role Sam plays requires power and agility to enable him to run and jump, and this injury has prevented him from being able to do that. It hasn’t improved at the rate we would’ve liked, so it was decided that surgical intervention was required.” 

Essendon will provide further updates as his rehabilitation progresses.