Adelaide's first pick at this year's AFL national draft will be sacrosanct as the Crows enter the exchange period intent on adding further youth to their list.

Crows coach Neil Craig all but ruled out trading away pick No. 10 under any circumstances, not even for Collingwood's highly-rated goal sneak Alan Didak.

Craig said it would take "something extraordinary" to wrest pick 10 from Adelaide's grasp, ahead of several years where the draft pool will be heavily affected by the entry of expansion clubs.

"We're open minded in the trade (period); It's just that history tells me that unless you're in the right circumstances some of those players are really difficult to get and we still need to have a youth policy," Craig said of Didak.

"If you talk to all clubs they really will basically say `don't even talk about the first round', occasionally it happens, but most clubs say `let's not even talk about first round, let's talk about swapping places in the second and third'."

Miracle trade deals excepted, Adelaide will use the exchange and draft months intent on stocking up on more youth, while at the same time investing more resources into the likes of Kurt Tippett, Taylor Walker, James Sellar and Trent Hentschel.

Jason Porplyzia and Richard Douglas will remain the central planks of any future Adelaide forward line, while Craig is convinced that in Nathan van Berlo, Chris Knights, Bernie Vince and Ivan Maric he has the core of the club's next premiership midfield.

"The development of our forward line will come from what we've got and that's one of the reasons we played Kurt Tippett this year," Craig said.

"We haven't played Taylor Walker yet, but I think he's got some real talent and can play AFL football too.

"Trent Hentschel, everyone's got their fingers crossed for him, but he's a bit of an unknown.

"So we've got some people in the area that can come in and develop, like Jon Griffin, who I think can come in and play up forward for us."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP