AFL 2021: Port Adelaide young gun Connor Rozee on the serious footy injury that he carried through 2020

Port Adelaide young gun Connor Rozee is ‘flying’ on the track but, after some time off last month, he’s made a concession about the lingering foot issue.

Tyson Goldsack. Picture: SARAH REED

Connor Rozee does not expect to miss any games this year as he manages the foot injury that hampered his 2020 and has led to him resting for a few weeks this summer.

Rozee, 21, tore part of his right plantar fascia during Port Adelaide’s win over Carlton in Round 7 and had to battle through the problem on the Power’s run to the preliminary final.

The forward received up to four pain-killing injections before some matches last year but when his foot issue flared, he needed to miss three games.

Although he felt close to full strength in the loss to the Tigers, he needed to rest again last month.

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Connor Rozee, pictured at Alberton Oval last week, doesn’t expect to miss any games this year. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

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Rozee told The Advertiser the latest time off had helped and after a couple of weeks back on the track, he was “flying” and the injury had “pretty much fully healed”.

But he conceded his training schedule might need to be lightened at times this year.

“The weird one about that injury is you can’t really do anything about it other than pretty much just rest and let it heal itself,” said Rozee, who stayed in Adelaide during the off-season.

“I think there’s a surgery where you can fully cut it, but that’s worst-case scenario.

“It caused a few issues before Christmas with some tendons, just because I’ve been managing it, which of course leads to load in other parts of your foot that usually don’t get that sort of load.

“I had to have a few weeks off.

“But the last couple of weeks I’ve slowly built back and been pretty much 100 per cent.

“It’s probably felt as good as it’s felt since I’ve injured it.

“I should be right now for the rest of the season.

“I don’t expect to miss games but it’s going to be something that potentially with training my load might be a little bit less.”

Rozee felt back to full strength in the preliminary final agains the Tigers. Picture: Sarah Reed

Rozee said last year the injury affected his change of direction and explosiveness – two of his strengths.

“The games before that (preliminary final) I was still a bit tentative with it,” he said.

Rozee, who was runner-up in the league’s Rising Star Award and led the Power’s goalkicking in 2019, said the injury affected his form last year.

But he took confidence from his two-goal, 14-disposal performance in the preliminary final.

“That’s the one game in the second half of the season I came in feeling pretty much 100 per cent and felt like I had a bit of my spark back,” he said.

Rozee will test his foot when he lines up in the Power’s internal trial at Alberton on Saturday.

“It’ll be good to get some proper match play in,” he said.

Goldsack: Power has shades of 2010 Pies

- Simeon Thomas-Wilson

Port Adelaide development coach and Collingwood premiership hero Tyson Goldsack says there is a similarity between the 2021 Power side and the 2010 Magpies flag-winning team he was a part of.

But Goldsack, who is also classed as a ‘rookie’ on the Power’s list, said he had been extremely impressed with how “coachable” Port’s young list it as they look to build on their preliminary final in 2020.

The 33-year-old Goldsack was part of a Collingwood side that in 2010, after two Grand Finals against St Kilda, were the youngest premiership team in the past 38 years of league footy with an average age of 24 years and 57 days.

Tyson Goldsack with the Premiership Cup in 2010.

The flag by the Pies came after they made the preliminary final the previous year.

Port Adelaide enter the 2021 season with a similar average age in its playing list and while Goldsack said that was a parallel between the two there were some major differences at the Power’s end.

“Similarities is a strange one, the similarity is that we were a young team in 2010 (at Collingwood) and this is a young team now scattered with some really good experienced talent,” he said.

“So there are the similarities when it comes to the list but the feeling among the people is that there are no cliques they are just a big tight unit from what I can feel.

“There are no egos so everyone gets along and everyone is just happy to get down to work.”

Listed as a “rookie” Goldsack mainly coaches the Power’s emerging youngsters. Picture: Sarah Reed

After playing 165 games for Collingwood from 2007 to 2018, Goldsack came to Port Adelaide as its SANFL leadership player but to also work in the development space with the Power’s young players.

“That was one of the main things I noticed when I came in, you tell them to run and they run, tell them compete and they compete,” he said.

“They are a very coachable and likeable group and now they have finals experience under their belt on the back of last year.”

He said the challenge for the Power was to back up 2020’s efforts.

“We have all the foundations there after a really good year last year, now it is about can we replicate it under hopefully more normal circumstances this year,” he said.