PORT Adelaide coach Mark Williams says overtraining in pre-season is partly to blame for the current injury crisis facing the club.

The Power started the season with a near-full list to choose from, but have watched the number of available players dwindle over the past two months.

Promising youngsters Robbie Gray, Hamish Hartlett, Nathan Krakouer, Nick Salter and Matthew Lobbe have all fallen victim to soft-tissue injuries, while Marlon Motlop is recovering from a second break in his foot.

Defender Michael Pettigrew is yet to play a game this season because of patella tendonitis and draftees John Butcher, Jasper Pittard and Andrew Moore have also spent significant time on the sidelines through injury.

Midfielder David Rodan injured his knee in an innocuous pre-season training drill and Warren Tredrea, Steven Salopek, Brett Ebert and Jacob Surjan have also picked up collision or in-game injuries.

The recent spate of soft-tissue and recurring injuries prompted the club to review its fitness and medical departments over the mid-season break and Williams said the investigation had uncovered a problem with the pre-season training program.

“We thought we trained too hard over the pre-season and not just the new guys, but everyone in general,” Williams said.

“We didn’t make the finals last year, so we wanted to take our training right to the edge and maybe we took a few of the players over the top. It’s always a very fine line, but we want to be a fit club and we want to be a team that is really confident in its ability to run out games.”

Gray, Krakouer and Hartlett have played a combined total of 14 games this season, prompting Williams and his fitness and medical teams to send two of the injury-plagued trio to the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra for further testing.

Gray, Hartlett and midfielder Travis Boak, who has battled groin and hamstring soreness in the past, spent a full day at the AIS and Williams said he was confident the exercise would help the Power better manage their star trio.

“We made some minor adjustments to what we do and it’s fantastic that the doctors, physios and fitness people are open to finding other things. We’ll search wherever we can to get the best results for our players," he said.

However, rest is the only cure for Krakouer, who Williams confirmed was suffering from osteitis pubis.

“Krak has OP (osteitis pubis) and he’s had it for so long I can’t even remember. People that know OP know that it takes a long time to get over, but we’re thinking he’s a couple of weeks away from playing again,” he said.

Skilful defender Pittard (hamstring) has returned to action in the SANFL and fellow draftees Butcher (back) and Moore (groin) are expected to join him in the coming fortnight.

Butcher spent three months on the long-term injury list recovering from pre-existing stress fractures in his back, but Williams was confident the teenager could now put the debilitating complaint behind him.

“We quizzed our medical staff and asked them, if they had the same presentation or injury report prior to the draft that they do now, would they still pick those same players? The medicos were pretty adamant that most players have some form of injury [when they get drafted to a club] and that most of them get over it,” he said.

“We’ve been a bit unfortunate with a couple of picks [in the past]. We didn’t pick Joel Selwood because of his knee. It’s easy in hindsight to say ‘you knew he had that injury’ when a player suffers a reoccurrence but you can miss out on some very good players if you eliminate them based on childhood injuries.”