Sturt Football Club midfielder Tom Lewis hopes to make SANFL league debut after injury, draft pain
He suffered a double blow which might have been enough to crush most young footballers, but Sturt’s Tom Lewis has achieved a brilliant feat just seven months after a season-ending knee injury.
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As Tom Lewis led his teammates around the course for Sturt’s opening 2km pre-season time trial, all he could think was “I’m not coming second in this – I’ve trained the whole year for it.”
So he won it and, while the victory may seem like a minor one, for Lewis it meant a whole lot more.
This time last year the 19-year-old had just been overlooked in the AFL draft and then tore his ACL a few months later in April.
Most young footballers would have been crushed by the double devastation.
But not this tough midfielder.
“Early on I struggled a fair bit mentally with not being able to train every day and then watching my teammates go out and play as a team each week,” Lewis says.
“But I thought ‘what’s the point sitting down and wasting time?’
“So I set my mind to getting back as quick as I could.”
Lewis describes the year off football as “almost a blessing in disguise”.
Eight months after knee surgery he has run a half-marathon, learnt to kick as well on his right foot as on his natural left and says he is fitter now than he has ever been.
He’s also training for a sprint triathlon.
Lewis’s supreme fitness has come through a lot of hard work – after his knee reconstruction he did 200 single-leg squats on each leg every day for three months straight – and a stack of mental toughness.
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And it’s helped him tick off a list of goals he set out after doing the injury, including winning that time trial.
“It was a good start, it’s not going to set me up for round one, but it’s a good starting point to get ready for next season,” Lewis says.
“I’m really happy with the progress. It’s obviously early days but as long as I keep ticking boxes I’ll be happy.
“I’m hunting down that round one spot for sure.”
Lewis, who still holds AFL aspirations, is yet to make his league debut but was a key part of SA’s 2018 under-18 championship-winning side.
The Double Blue was considered among the most unlucky prospects not to find an AFL home in that year’s draft.
He also won Sturt’s reserves best and fairest the same season, which included a highlight against the Eagles where he recorded 30 disposals, 11 tackles, eight inside-50s and a goal.
So the step up to seniors in 2020 is not out of reach, and Double Blues coach Nathan Grima agrees.
“Once he got his head around the disappointment, he just set himself to be good to go for us in 2020,” Grima says.
“The way he’s going, I think he’s going to play a lot of league footy.
“I think sometimes long-term injuries change people’s thinking on the game. He’s so mature for his age and I hope he gets a good run at it now so we can see the best of him.”