Analysis: Why Nic Naitanui is set to make his own call about 2024 after complex, frustrating surgery
West Coast‘s plans for injury-cursed star Nic Naitanui are governed by a delicate balance. MARK DUFFIELD reports on the veteran’s hopes of playing on as he recovers from a major setback.
AFL
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
West Coast will leave ruckman Nic Naitanui to make the call on his 2024 playing future, with the club this week reaffirming its hope he will play AFL football next year.
It has been confirmed, both by Naitanui and Eagles footy boss Gavin Bell, that the major Achilles surgery he had five weeks ago was to repair a ruptured tendon.
The club’s position on the 33-year-old is governed by a delicate balance. The amount he is likely to be paid next year – less than $300,000 of the salary cap, the fact he has a contract for 2024 and last, but by no means least, maintaining the ongoing marketing benefits from having him at the club.
If Naitanui plays football anywhere next year the Eagles want it to be with them. And they want to maximise the chance that he stays involved with the club post his playing career. Fit or not, the Eagles view him as too valuable to lose.
It’s a pragmatic judgement but it runs the risk of feeding an already widely held perception about the Eagles: that their senior players have assumed too much power and the club has lost its capacity to make hard-nosed football calls on stars who held the club near the top of the ladder for a decade, but have now reached their use-by date.
Naitanui’s surgery means he will not be ready to resume full training and playing until April next year.
Medical opinion is that Naitanui should make a full recovery with one caveat. He must lose weight to lower the stress on his repaired knees and Achilles or any comeback will be doomed to fail.
Naitanui told Channel 7 this week he has important progress markers in his recovery from surgery coming in the next two months. If the veteran does not feel those updates indicate he will be able to return to something near his best, he may make a call on his 213-game career before the end of this year.
But if Naitanui feels he can go on the club will honour the contract. Coach Adam Simpson still holds hope that Naitanui will play next year.
“He had the surgery four or five weeks ago so for me nothing has changed. We will work through Nic and his recovery in the next monthly or two. I think list lodgement for next year … that is at the end of October,” Simpson told reporters this week.
“Hopefully he comes back and plays and gets through the recovery and does everything he can to play – that is the plan at the moment and that is what I am hoping for.”
Bell said the rehabilitation was progressing well and Naitanui’s moon boot was gradually being adjusted to allow for more movement in the repaired Achilles tendon.
“We are still hopeful that Nic will return to play AFL football,” he told SEN.
“The surgery that he has had is a very complex one. It takes a long time to heal and recover. He is still on crutches. He is still in a boot.
“In terms of where he is at right now they are still adjusting the range within the boot that his foot and his Achilles and so on can take. It is very early days for Nic. A long process in front of him. We are hoping to see Nic play for us again in 2024.”
Naitanui conceded the ruptured Achilles was “not the greatest of injuries, especially being a jumping athlete”. Scans revealed the extent of the injury when Naitanui was unable to make any significant progress with the sore Achilles tendon over the first three months of the AFL season.
“Some weeks I would be limping through and some weeks I would be jumping over hurdles and rucking and doing everything and thinking I was a week away, then it would get sore again,” he told Seven.
“It was very frustrating mentally.
“They pretty much go back in there, fix it all up, clean it all up and reattach it back to your heel bone.
“It has been really frustrating. I was ready to go. I would come in at 5.30 in the morning and train and I was doing everything I could.”
He noted he was contracted and if there was a glimmer of hope that he could play then he would, on the proviso he could offer something meaningful to the team. The deal breaker would be if he could not “play to the standard” he wants to.
“Any glimmer of hope I am going to take and want to play,” Naitanui said.
“If you are just loping around but not doing anything and not contributing and taking away from someone like a Bailey Williams, who has had a great season so far, that is when I would sit down and go, is it a selfish decision or a selfless one and make some calls.
“I am not just going to blindly go out there and say I am going to hang around for the sake of hanging around the footy club. I love the place but if I can’t play football, which is what I am paid to do, I don’t really want to be there just taking up space.”
Naitanui said he was annoyed by talk that: “Nic gets paid a million bucks to sit on his arse and doesn’t do anything”.
“I am in here training all day every day. I am nowhere near close to a million dollars.”
He added he had braced himself for premature retirement a number of times.
“I have done it 20 or 30 times in my career. I have written my retirement speech maybe 100 times. The nature of the way I play I know that footy can be limited for me. I have been blessed with 15 odd years of footy.”
Originally published as Analysis: Why Nic Naitanui is set to make his own call about 2024 after complex, frustrating surgery
Gather Round: Crows open again, Ken, Hawks set for blockbuster
One of the biggest moments of the AFL season came after the Power-Hawks final when Ken Hinkley told Jack Ginnivan he wouldn’t be flying to Sydney. Now we know when the rematch is coming.
Ralph: The key Dees developments that could save Goodwin’s job
Melbourne’s public review said it was capable of playing finals, but their game plan had to be refined, now the work begins for Simon Goodwin after a tumultuous 31 months, writes Jon Ralph.