AFL injury ladder reveals clubs hardest hit with run of 33 games in 20 days set to stretch lists
Half of the AFL’s clubs have lost more than 40 games to injury already this year as they prepare to navigate a glut of 33 games in 20 days. But there won’t be any rule changes from AFL HQ. See where your club sits on the injury ladder.
AFL News
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
As the most frantic period of AFL football in history looms and clubs wrestle with how and when to manage resting players, injury-struck teams will be racing the clock with availability one of the most valuable commodities in the game.
One Collingwood star says fitness staff “will earn their keep” as they attempt to navigate the next month.
But for some clubs, the hit has already been harsh to bear.
North Melbourne’s injury list is currently longer than any club, with Champion Data statistics revealing that the Roos have lost almost five times the amount of games to injury than the least-affected team after eight rounds, St Kilda.
Fremantle, Essendon, Carlton and Sydney have also been heavily affected, but less than half of the Bombers’ “games lost” have been to their best team.
While reigning premier Richmond is hoping to have skipper Trent Cotchin and his fellow premiership players Dion Prestia, David Astbury and Toby Nankervis back in coming weeks, the team has been largely unscathed as a whole with only 10 games “lost” through injury to its best side.
Kayo is your ticket to the 2020 Toyota AFL Premiership Season. Watch every match of every round Live & On-Demand. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >
But in a further blow to the Roos, 51 of the 73 games that have been lost to injury this season have been to the team’s best 22, which is calculated based on the best 22 players available.
The Roos will be without skipper Jack Ziebell for at least a month, which under the adjusted fixture could result in as many as six games, and confirmed on Wednesday youngster Tarryn Thomas will undergo season-ending ankle surgery.
Ziebell, however, was strong in his defence of the club’s medical team.
“We do strength measures and footy specific stuff as well, and people may not realise the depth that medical teams go,” Ziebell said.
“Top-end speed is one critical measure, and I hit that in the three sessions before the game.
“I feel for those guys (the medical team) as they will unfairly be lumped with a bit of pressure.”
Collingwood star Taylor Adams said teams would have to have “a squad mentality” as teams grapple with how to best manage the next month, with the Pies set to play four games within 15 days.
“(When the fixture was released) I said to Kev White who’s our head of strength and fitness that he’s going to earn his keep now,” Adams said on RSN.
“There’s going to be a high rotation of players.
“We’re going to have to have a squad mentality. We’re going to have to have guys come in, guys go out when they’re not right to play. Everyone’s going to have to buy in.”
But he still wants to try and play every game.
“The smart thing to do is work back from the finals series and plan what it’s going to look like … but I don’t think I’ll be doing that. I’ll be trying to put my hand up for every game,” he said.
“If I do end up getting a tap on the shoulder from Kevvy or the coaching staff, I won’t turn my toes up and throw my toys out of the cot.
“It’s something that players are going to have to deal with.”
AFL BACKS PLAYER SAVING RULE CHANGES
– Sam Landsberger
The AFL says there has not been a spike in injuries this season and has backed the rule changes made in March to help clubs get through four games in as little as 13 days.
Injury data comparing 2020 to 2019 was tabled at Wednesday’s Competition Committee meeting as football boss Steve Hocking declared there would be no more levers pulled to help clubs prepare for the unprecedented fixture cram.
That also means the Grand Final will be won in 16-minute quarters this year with the AFL intent on finishing the season as it started for integrity purposes.
That is a key reason why the league chose not to expand the interchange bench for its NBA-style fixture cram of 33 games in less than three weeks.
Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley and St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt have wondered whether clubs will circle one game in their compressed block to rest all of their superstars.
But Hocking wanted to embrace the rotation of players during a footy festival that he said was unlikely to ever be repeated.
“We’ve certainly seen this in the NBA, but never in our great game,” Hocking said.
“We’ll definitely see quite a bit of rotation. The other part will be recovery and then play model. We haven’t seen that at all at any stage in the AFL.
“You’ll have teams that will be living in just a recovery model and having a captain’s run and be playing. How we see the game develop in that period will be of all interest.”
With the league pouring most of its resources into staging the condensed rounds, Hocking said lingering issues such as whether to cut list sizes and the salary cap would be put on the back burner.
Stars including Nat Fyfe, Joel Selwood, Trent Cotchin, Jack Ziebell, Luke Shuey, Dan Hannebery and Lance Franklin are all currently sidelined with torn hamstrings.
But Hocking said: “We haven’t seen a rise in injuries.”
“We’ve compared data to 2019, which is hard to do in this season, and at this point in time our view is that what we’ve done is supporting the health and wellbeing of the players and the game overall.
“We’ve got clear evidence that players are recovering well from games and so the management load of players has been good with the adjustments to the game that we’ve made.”
FEARS QUICK TURNAROUNDS WILL LEAD TO INJURY CARNAGE
— Jon Ralph
The AFL will hold firm on restricting clubs to four interchange players despite being warned of injury “carnage” if players are not regularly rested in coming weeks.
North Melbourne champion David King told News Corp clubs would be forced to rest large batches of players, saying a club that ignored that wisdom could cost themselves a flag.
The spate of hamstring strains at face value seems worrying, and includes Nat Fyfe, Jack Ziebell, Trent Cotchin, Mitch Duncan, Luke Shuey, Dan Hannebery, Joel Selwood, Quinton Narkle, Josh Caddy and Zac Williams.
But the AFL’s injury data shows hamstring injuries were down 21 per cent to Round 5 before a recent rash of strains.
To Round 5 there had been seven less hamstring strains before Ziebell, Duncan, Narkle and Caddy were among players to suffer hamstring tears over Rounds 6-7.
The AFL’s most recent injury data shows hamstring strains remain the most consistent injury in football.
In the 2018 injury report released last year there were 6.35 new hamstring strains per club per season, up from 5.35 in 2017.
Players missed 25.19 games per club from hamstring strains, but there were no recurrences of hamstring strains for the entire season.
Already Fyfe and Ziebell have come back and re-injured hamstrings this year in incidents that will put them out for another three weeks.
King said some clubs might decide to rest their entire batch of stars in a single week, which while controversial might set up their flag tilt.
“You can’t have players play six games in four weeks. The decision is do you block-rest eight stars for one game. Take Richmond if you play three games in 12 days. Do you take all your stars out for the second game or say we will rest (Trent) Cotchin, (Dustin) Martin and (Jack) Riewoldt one game and then (Tom) Lynch, (Dylan) Grimes and (Nick) Vlastuin the next. You could rip the bandaid off in one go. It’s a discussion at AFL clubs right now. How do we get through this period? You can’t win a flag at Round 9 but you can lose it with three long-term injuries.”
Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge threw up a suggestion last week that would see clubs able to use a substitute for a serious injury that would mean the player subbed off unable to play the next week.
MORE AFL:
My Story: Zak Jones reveals the moment when he realised he wanted to play in the big league
AFL putting finishing touches on compressed fixture plan
It would mean clubs could not rort the substitute rule by introducing a fresh player for tactical purposes.
But the AFL is remaining steadfast that shortened quarters were brought in for the condensed fixture and more interchange numbers or extra players on the bench.
Essendon legend Matthew Lloyd said yesterday clubs must start resting their players to ward against injury in the next few weeks as the league schedules 33 games in 19 days.
He said there would be injury carnage given the spate of hamstring strains.
Lloyd said clubs like Richmond with depth would thrive in coming weeks.
“Pretty much from Wednesday week we will play off four and five days, there will be a game every night of the week. I just think that you need to rest players. You need to have the courage to do it. Even Ablett last year, they played him far too much,” he told Channel 9.
Originally published as AFL injury ladder reveals clubs hardest hit with run of 33 games in 20 days set to stretch lists