Port Adelaide star Hamish Hartlett reveals he wasn’t supposed to train the day he tore his ACL
WHEN Hamish Hartlett suffered a serious knee injury at training it seriously dented the Power’s premiership hopes and it was even tougher to swallow knowing he actually wasn’t even supposed to be on the training track.
Port Adelaide
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HAMISH Hartlett has opened up on the sliding doors moments that prematurely ended his season and seriously dented Port Adelaide’s premiership hopes.
Five weeks after cruelly rupturing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, Hartlett — vowing to be fit for Round 1 next year — has revealed he was not even supposed to be at training when he broke down and crashed to the Alberton Oval turf in excruciating pain.
“It’s a bit ironic how all that played out,’’ Hartlett told The Advertiser in an exclusive interview before flying to London for a three-week break designed to mentally refresh him before he gets his teeth into his long rehabilitation program.
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“I wasn’t supposed to be training because of the incident with (Geelong’s) ‘Paddy’ Dangerfield the weekend before where I hurt my head and AC joint.
“But it was the last session before our game that weekend (against North Melbourne) so I was keen to have a run around and I was feeling really good.’’
Then fate struck him — and the Power — a devastating blow.
The training drill that Port was finishing its Thursday session with was supposed to have wound up.
But Hartlett explained it was extended for “a few minutes’’ because “it didn’t run as smoothly as we would have liked’’.
“We tried to really nail the drill and it was within that 3-4 minute period that I received a handball from ‘Jakey’ Neade, landed on my left leg and then went to pivot off my right to try to dodge around Jared Polec who was coming at me and providing some frontal pressure,’’ he said.
“In that pivoting motion my foot almost got stuck in the ground and my knee kept twisting, so the force of momentum through my knee made the ACL snap.
“For that first 20 or 30 seconds I was in a lot of pain and knew something serious had happened.
“Then, which is typical of ACL injuries, the pain subsided and there was a small part of me that hoped things weren’t as bad as they seemed.
“But as soon as I got to the changerooms and the physios and doctors got their hands on it they said it wasn’t looking good.’’
Scans confirmed Hartlett’s worst fears that his season was over and that his knee would have to be rebuilt.
He underwent a traditional knee reconstruction where a tendon was cut from his hamstring and used to reconstruct the ACL.
“It’s a pretty amazing operation,’’ Hartlett said.
“They took about 25cm of one of my lesser hamstring muscle tendons from the same leg and fold it four-or-five times to form a new ligament.
“Then in she goes to the knee.’’
Hartlett has vision of the incident on his mobile phone and described the footage as “a little bit ugly’’.
“It was a torrid four or five days, not good,’’ he said.
“Obviously I came off second best in that incident with Dangerfield (he was stretchered from the field) and then I did my knee.’’
No player ever wants to miss a chunk of football but Hartlett says the timing of his horror training mishap could not have been much worse, having played some of the finest football of his 10-year career in the first five rounds.
He had been so good at halfback that coach Ken Hinkley rated him as one of Port’s best three players in the opening month of the season.
“That was the most devastating and frustrating part, that in the back half of last year and the start of this season I'd played my most consistent brand of footy in 10 years,’’ said Hartlett, who was drafted as a midfielder from SANFL club West Adelaide at pick four in 2008.
“I was finally playing well week in, week out, which is something I have always striven to do, and to have that nice run of form cut short is very frustrating.’’
Hartlett, 27, has always been a special talent with his high skill level and playmaking ability but in his early days his body let him down.
He averaged just 11 games a season in his first four years before averaging 20 in his next five.
As he built his fitness he stayed on the park more but lacked consistency of performance — 2015 was the only year he finished in the top 10 (eighth) of Port’s best and fairest award — prompting the club to controversially put him on the trade table at the end of 2016.
Hartlett, who was then vice-captain and under contract with the Power, spoke to several clubs about a move, most notably Richmond and Essendon, but decided to stay.
“And it was then that I made a decision to ask for a move to halfback,’’ he said.
“I didn’t feel that I was capable of having the impact that the club and team wanted and needed from me in the midfield, so I thought from a physical point of view I would be better off playing in the back half.
“The coaches were really supportive of that and from there it was all about learning how to play the role.
“For the first six months I played some okay, but not great, footy but it all started to happen for me towards the end of the season and I felt really comfortable back there.’’
Hartlett said playing in defence, rather than the midfield, left him with more energy to impact contests.
“Physically it suits my type of game and running capacity,’’ he said.
“As a midfielder I really struggled to get from contest to contest and be in a position where I could have a real impact when I got there because of the fatigue factor.
“At halfback I can impact the contest more because once the ball is out of the area I can regain my breath and composure and get ready to impact the next play that comes my way.’’
Teammates Robbie Gray and Dougal Howard have been a source of support for Hartlett following his knee reconstruction, with both men having undergone the same medical procedure — Gray in 2012 and Howard in 2016.
Both returned to play their best football.
“That gives me great encouragement,’’ said Hartlett, who this week progressed to stationary bike riding.
“Their form since coming back has been unreal, so I plan to do the same.’’
Hartlett will fly to London for some “down time and to freshen up the mind’’ while linking up with close friend Tim Roberts, a physiotherapist who works in London, who will ensure “ I get stuck into my rehab’’.
But he already has round one, 2019, etched in his mind.
“It seems a million miles away at this point but that’s the goal that will be driving me,’’ Hartlett said.
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