Adelaide small forward Lachlan Murphy says he has always put his body on the line when playing football.

Although that came at a cost late last year with the 23-year-old requiring surgery on a bulging disc in his neck, Murphy says he won’t be changing the way he plays the game.

Speaking to Belinda Sloane on this week’s episode of The Crows Show, Murphy said the neck injury, which forced him to miss the first two AFL games of 2022, had made him more aware about the importance of recovery.

“I guess footy is not easy… (it is) a contact sport and things like that happen,” Murphy said.

“I was always smaller than everyone else growing up and I still am - I used to always get crunched.

“I guess it’s sort of woken me up to things outside of football more - probably with understanding my body a bit more.

“I was really aggressive in trying to get better all the time but I probably didn’t recover as well as I should’ve and that probably contributed to the neck injury a little bit.

“There’s risks associated with everything in life and playing footy shouldn’t really be dangerous.”

Murphy missed the first half of pre-season with the neck injury and he made his return through the SANFL before playing his first AFL game for the year in the Round Three Showdown win against Port Adelaide.

The 176cm forward, who has averaged 13 possessions across the three matches he’s played so far this season, said the Crows were “heading in the right direction”.

“I think we are going well,” Murphy said.

“We are definitely building, in the last three weeks (we’ve had) two wins and a loss to Essendon, which was disappointing but it was a close result.

“We’ve still got such a young group and young players like Lachie Sholl and (Jordon) Butts playing 20 to 30 to 40 games now and it’s really showing on game day.

“Hopefully we can get a few more wins.”

Also on the Crows Show this week, Lachlan Gollant chats about his rise to the AFL, while Chayce Jones joins Tom Doedee to discuss his Crows Whopper Moment.

The Crows Show airs on Channel 7 on Saturday at 12.30pm.