Gary Buckenara says Jaeger O’Meara worth one top-10 pick but clubs should proceed with caution

GARY Buckenara suffered the same rare and debilitating knee injury as Jaeger O’Meara – and believes the Gold Coast star is now only worth one top-10 selection.

GARY Buckenara has sounded a warning to clubs chasing Jaeger O’Meara and believes the Gold Coast star is worth only one top-10 selection.

Buckenara, the long-time Hawthorn recruiter and four-time premiership player, suffered the same rare and debilitating knee injury as O’Meara — a ruptured patella tendon — in the 1983 Grand Final.

He never fully recovered from the blow and required a knee replacement at 35.

The Herald Sun revealed this week that Essendon and Hawthorn are the early frontrunners for 2013 Rising Star winner O’Meara, but his trade value is set to hinge on medical assessments.

The 22-year-old silky ball winner has failed to play an AFL game for the past two seasons.

Gold Coast coach Rodney Eade has demanded premium compensation — two top-10 picks for the midfielder, but Buckenara urged caution for potential suitors.

“There has to be a question mark (on O’Meara),” Buckenara told the Herald Sun.

“You just can’t say he’s worth two first-round draft picks — that’s unrealistic.”

Jaeger O'Meara is worth one top-10 pick, recruiter Gary Buckenara says. Picture: Adam Head

Buckenara said it took him more than two years to regain confidence and surgery to crack his knee was required to regain the full natural bend.

But while he produced good football in his final seasons, he was never the same brilliant player.

“The last three or four years of my career were pretty good, albeit I had this restriction in my knee,” he said.

“I probably never got the full 100 per cent bend in that left knee, ever. I probably got to about 80 per cent.

“In the end it was my knee that packed up — it had had enough by the age of 32. I was done. My knee was bone on bone and arthritis had got into it from all the operations and clean-up operations I had to have on it.”

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Buckenara was 25 when he suffered the blow, which left him susceptible to other injuries — tearing his quad in his return — and said O’Meara would face similar changes.

“What happens when you miss so much footy is other parts of your body break down — I kept doing quad muscles,” Buckenara said.

“The quad in your injured leg is the part that really disappears, the strength in it and the muscle withers away … and you start doing quad (injuries), hammies or calves because there’s this imbalance in your muscle strength.

Jaeger O'Meara suffered the painful and debilitating injury in a pre-season game in 2014. Picture: Jono Searle

“Medicine and sport science has come a long way in understanding that, but it’s still going to be something that, whoever takes on Jeager, has to understand. He has missed a lot of footy with this injury and it’s not an easy injury to get over.”

Buckenara says that means it’s “buyer beware”.

“Jaeger is a ball winner. He’s got great ability to stop on a dime and turn, he has good takeaway speed and all those sorts of things are affected by the patella tendon,” he said. “It puts enormous stress through your patella tendon.

“Will he be able to do that as effectively as he used to be able to do that? Will he have that breakaway speed he always had? With that breakaway speed will other parts of his body, because they’re a bit weaker or have an imbalance, will his hammies play up, will his quads play up?

“All these things are question marks you have to take into consideration and not just look at the talent he brings.”

Originally published as Gary Buckenara says Jaeger O’Meara worth one top-10 pick but clubs should proceed with caution