Adelaide’s Brent Reilly cheated death, lost interest in football but now has new goals to achieve

HAVING cheated death and fought a long battle back to recovery, Brent Reilly was so down on the sport he loved that he thought he would never be involved in football again. Now, he is returning to the game and team that he loves.

• Ex-Crow Brent Reilly to coach amateur league club Henley Sharks
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• Brent Reilly speaks about his head injury at training

HAVING cheated death and fought a long battle back to recovery, Brent Reilly was so down on the sport he loved that he thought he would never be involved in football again.

“I thought I was done with it,’’ said Reilly, whose 203-game career with the Adelaide Crows was prematurely ended by a freak training incident that nearly killed him.

“2015 was just an awful year, so footy was the last thing on my mind. I was over it, I wanted to step away and not be involved again.

“It wasn’t just my own injuries and not being able to play footy again, but also the passing of Phil (former Crows coach Phil Walsh), who had been at my side every time I had woken up in hospital.

“That whole year was a disaster and I just wanted to get away from it completely, collect my thoughts and spend some time with (wife) Jamie.

ALL SMILES: The career of Brent Reilly, with wife Jamie and son Jax, has come full circle and he is now back at the Crows as a development coach. Picture: Matt Turner.

“If you’d told me then that I would be heavily involved in football again a couple of years later I would have said you were crazy.’’

Reilly, who last month was
appointed as a development coach at Adelaide and started at the club on Monday, nearly died on a
football field.

At 9am on Wednesday, February 9, 2015, he was rushed to Royal Adelaide Hospital after copping an accidental knee to the side of his head from teammate Sam Siggins during a pre-season training session at Thebarton Oval.

“It was scary,’’ Reilly, now 34, recalls. “It was just a regulation training drill and I went back into traffic to get a ground ball, was running a little too fast for my own good and ‘Bang’, I smashed my head into a teammate’s knee.

“That was at 9am and I can’t remember anything until 9.30pm that night. I woke up in ICU (intensive care unit) with 70 staples in my head; I was confused and disorientated and had no idea what had happened.

“I had a seizure while I was waiting for surgery and was rushed into emergency surgery. The diagnosis was a depressed fractured skull which required three plates, severe concussion, a fractured jaw and a case of dysphasia (speech problems).

“I did a good number on myself and wasn’t too far off (death). I can’t remember much of it but I feel that I am very lucky to be here after what I have gone through.’’

Brent Reilly in action for the Crows in 2005.

Reilly, drafted by the Crows at pick 12 at the 2001 national draft from Victorian TAC Cup side Calder Cannons, was so badly injured that he had to learn to talk and walk again.

“My speech was impaired, I couldn’t communicate what I was thinking, I had fears of looking like Shrek for the rest of my life — will I be able to read or speak to live a normal fulfilled life again?,’’
he says.

Three months after his shocking injury, Reilly emotionally announced his retirement at the age 31 — several years before he wanted to stop playing, whether it
be in the AFL or at a lower level.

“I probably knew my football career was over when I was lying in hospital,’’ he says.

“But to get told that I couldn’t play contact sport and that I’d never play football again was still very tough.

“It took me a little while to accept, but my whole motto from
the injury was ‘It is what it is and you’ve got to get on with it’, which I did.”

Reilly, a midfielder/defender who was an All-Australian nominee in 2012, recovered to such an extent that he was able to drive seven months after his injury and was soon back on the golf course. His current handicap is 4.8.

But after what he had endured and what the Crows had been through in their tragic 2015 season, he appeared lost to the sport he loved.

Reilly had simply lost his passion for football and had dedicated himself to working in the Wellbeing and Resilience Centre and with “Project Discovery” as part of the mind and brain unit at the SA Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) on North Tce.

Dr Andrew Potter and David Noble addressing the media about Brent Reilly’s condition after he fractured his skull.

“I was starting to prepare myself for life after footy and the injury probably helped me get the job because I was able to tell my story,’’ he says.

“I was talking to corporate organisations, sporting clubs and young athletes and students about my story and the importance of resilience and using that characteristic and positivity — your own positivity and the positivity of people around you — to bounce back from adversity.

“I had to be pretty resilient to overcome my injuries and I think that everyone is resilient in their own way.

“But with the research and evidence I’d learnt over two years, it really hit home to me that this is how I recovered from my injury.

“I think getting out there and telling my story has not only hopefully helped other people, but also helped me move on and defined my purpose in life.

“From the age of two, all I had wanted to do was to play sport at the highest level and football was the one that I chose.

“For it to be suddenly taken away from me, I had to work out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.’’

Through his role, Reilly met former North Adelaide and Footscray star Neil Sachse, who was left a quadriplegic after an on-field incident in a VFL game in 1975.

Brent Reilly had initially retired from the game in 2015.

The pair have grown quite close. But it was a call a year ago from good mate Jarrad Wright, who was drafted to Brisbane in the same year as Reilly was selected by the Crows, that reignited his passion for football.

“He was coaching at Henley (in the SA Amateur Football League) and rang me out of the blue about getting back involved,’’ Reilly says.

“I didn’t know too much about amateur football but we had a chat, I had a think about it and then decided to take a small, back-seat role, primarily looking after the
defensive group.

“A few rounds into last season I sent him a text message thanking him for getting me back involved because I’d got the passion for footy back again.’’

Henley won the division two premiership to regain division one status and when Wright was appointed coach of SANFL club South Adelaide in October, Reilly was offered the Sharks’ senior coaching role.

After having a weekend to consider the offer, he accepted and was relishing the opportunity of coaching his own team.

But, within 48 hours, the Crows asked him to apply for their vacant development role after former captain Nathan van Berlo quit to return home to Western Australia to join the West Coast Eagles coaching panel.

Brent Reilly recovering at the RAH after his surgery. Picture: Twitter

“It was a tough situation because I was really looking forward to coaching Henley and trying to have some success with them, but I found the Crows role — and the opportunity to work closely with (coach) Don Pyke — too hard to turn down,’’ Reilly explains.

“Having regained my passion for football I want to achieve good things in the coaching world and use what I learnt in my time away from the game to help young footballers with the resilience part of it and to be the best they can be.

“In my time away, I realised that the sport and helping people fulfil their potential is my purpose in life.’’

Life is now good for Reilly. Married to Jamie, the couple have a 17-month-old son, Jax, and he said he feels “normal’’ again.

“I feel that I’m achieving some good things in my life,’’ Reilly says.

“I still get tired occasionally, so I have to keep an eye on the triggers for that, but I’m not on any medication or anything.

“I feel fine ... and look forward to helping Adelaide try to win its next premiership.’’