Geelong Cats skipper Joel Selwood set for delayed start to 2020 pre-season after hamstring surgery
Geelong captain Joel Selwood will have a delayed start to the pre-season following minor hamstring surgery.
Geelong
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Geelong captain Joel Selwood will have a delayed start to the pre-season following minor hamstring surgery.
Selwood, who turns 32 in May, underwent the procedure earlier this month.
The 295-game veteran was on a modified program last year and while that ultimately had little effect on his output come the start of the season, he will again be forced to train away from the bulk of the squad until at least the new year.
“My pre-season will be staggered again and I will be looking to join back in with the group in January,” Selwood said.
“I had a minor hamstring operation a couple of weeks ago so I will just make sure that I get that right and then go from there.
“So before Christmas I will be limited in what I do but I will be working behind the scenes.”
Selwood battled through a lingering knee complaint last summer but was a solid contributor in a new role on the wing, playing 23 games for the season.
While he will take a backward seat prior to the Christmas break, the majority of his teammates will hit the track together for the first time next Monday.
It follows the return of Geelong’s first-to-fourth year players last week alongside a handful of experienced teammates, and Selwood said the Cats were well aware of the need for improvement across the board after reaching a third preliminary final in four seasons in 2019.
“We know we need to improve again,” he said.
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“We improved last year, we were hungry to improve, so we have to make sure that hunger is still there to get to that next stage. We got to a stage where we were thereabouts and played some really good footy against some good sides but at the end of the day we didn’t finish up how we wanted.
“The hunger is the big one, and how we sue that energy throughout whole pre-season to make sure in the lead up to Round 1 we are ready to go again. It will be pretty similar and we thought we had a pretty solid pre-season last year so we will try to get as many numbers on the track as possible … and then from there it is just making sure we are working at getting better.”
Originally published as Geelong Cats skipper Joel Selwood set for delayed start to 2020 pre-season after hamstring surgery