Carlton star Charlie Curnow to undergo knee surgery after freak injury
A leading sports doctor has raised fears Charlie Curnow could be hampered by knee problems throughout 2020 after the Carlton star underwent surgery on his right knee.
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Charlie Curnow could be affected by his freak knee injury for the entire 2020 season, according to a leading Melbourne sports doctor.
The young Carlton star had surgery on his right knee yesterday after the club reported he had slipped on tiles while walking up stairs, fracturing his patella.
It is the same knee that has plagued the star Blue throughout this year — including dislocating the kneecap last month while playing basketball.
The latest blow is a new injury that could leave him in doubt for Round 1.
Carlton football boss Brad Lloyd said yesterday 22-year-old Curnow was facing a three to four-month recovery period that would see him miss the pre-season practice matches in late February and early March.
But specialist sports doctor Peter Larkins said there would be no indication of lingering effects until Curnow begins his recovery process.
Larkins said the injury would typically mean lengthy issues and for a normal person, a six-month recovery period would be standard.
“You don’t know until you really look at whether the cartilage behind the kneecap recovers, because when you fracture a kneecap, you don’t just fracture the bone, you damage cartilage as well,” Larkins said.
“While the bone can heal — typically over three months, and they can screw and wire bones back together — the fact that he’s already had problems with his kneecap dislocating means that it’s not a normal mechanical knee anyway.
“The likelihood of him having ongoing troubles throughout the whole of 2020 is quite high.”
Carlton said Curnow “produced a high-level contraction to his quadriceps muscle” when he slipped which had “caused a large force to go through his whole knee”.
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Larkins said given the loading on the knee, the patella typically fractured horizontally in most cases.
“Charlie is understandably very disappointed right now but our entire football club, and I’m sure our members included, will give Charlie all the support he needs to get through this frustrating period,” Lloyd said.
“He is a resilient character, and we have no doubt, knowing the competitor he is, he will be back to playing good football in the navy blue in 2020.”
The key forward, 22, injured his right knee twice this season.
Blues co-captain Patrick Cripps — who was with Curnow when he suffered the October injury — had said this week that Curnow had been in “ripping nick”.
“The best of Charlie – and we haven’t seen that yet – is going to be pretty scary when we do see it,” Cripps said.
Brownlow medallist Adam Cooney cracked his patella in the 2008 qualifying final and said the biggest hurdle was the damage he did to the knee cartilage during the recovery process.
Cooney – who played on the knee for the following fortnight – admitted he still has ongoing issues with his knee that dogged the next eight years of his playing career.
His injury forced him to have the cartilage sheared, which he said he hoped Curnow would not have to endure.
“I cracked the corner of my patella, but mine was an impact injury,” he told the Herald Sun.
“It sheared the cartilage away, which they removed.
“My kneecap is still a bit sore. But the majority of my pain came from the cartilage.
“As soon as I did it, I had no cartilage left, so I was bone on bone.
“I’m hoping for Charlie that it’s just the crack of the kneecap. He might get a little bit of pain from that after, if he gets a knock on it it’ll be pretty tender and it’ll blow up easily.
“But the real damage comes from underneath the kneecap in the cartilage.”
Cooney said it had left him unable “to get anything out of the freezer” with bending an issue.
Originally published as Carlton star Charlie Curnow to undergo knee surgery after freak injury