Josh Corbett worked his butt off and sacrificed so much to get to the AFL, yet he made the “heartbreaking” decision to pull the pin on his AFL career at the age of 28.

Battling severe osteoarthritis, an issue that had gotten gradually worse since his junior years, the former Fremantle and Gold Coast forward was at a crossroads at the end of the 2023 season.

Undergo a full hip replacement and put his livelihood in jeopardy, or keep playing through the pain and risk a poor quality of life post-footy?

Former Essendon swingman Michael Hurley underwent a hip resurfacing procedure in 2021 after a debilitating infection and returned to play one farewell game in 2022.

UK tennis great Andy Murray completed the same surgery and got back to play elite tennis, but he was never the same player post-operation.

A full hip replacement was another step beyond even Hurley and Murray’s procedures — no AFL player had ever come back from one.

The then Dockers forward, who signed with Geelong league club South Barwon this week, decided to put his future first and undergo surgery, ending his 2024 season before it began.

“First and foremost, Fremantle the club I can’t thank them enough for all the work and time to help me with the decision making of my hip and always had my best interests at heart through all that side of things,” Corbett said.

“The way it was sort of worded to me was, ‘You can continue like this if you wanted to and just have, I suppose, a poor quality of life’.

“My thought long term was, I don’t have kids but I would like to have kids and want to be able to run around with them and pick them up. I couldn’t ride a bike, all these sort of things like that.

“While the decision was definitely athletically based, at the same time it was also life based and the long term sort of process around that.”

‘HEARTBREAKING’ CALL

Joining Gold Coast at the age of 22 after being crowned as the VFL’s best young player in 2018, the 190 centimetre goalkicker fought tooth and nail for everything in his footy career.

Corbett wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

The North Warrnambool product completed his gruelling rehab and recovery at Fremantle during 2024 and even worked full-time at the Dockers for a period.

Instead of wallowing in self-pity, Corbett set himself some other physical challenges to keep his mind busy. That included a 10 kilometre pool swim and a 100km stationary bike ride.

However, the thought of retirement was difficult to escape.

Corbett is one of the most optimistic people you will meet, but making the final call in September to hang up the boots – after just 41 AFL games, five of those with Fremantle – was gut-wrenching.

“I was always super grateful to be able to get the opportunity and I went sort of on the road less travelled. So while it was really hard to finish up, at the same time I’ve always been a pretty glass half full kind of man and I was always super grateful (that) every year that I got was one year more than we’d ever sort of planned.

“So I had a sit down with my family, wife and all that sort of stuff at the start of the replacement, we all sort of knew that this could have been a real possibility, that it could have been my last year. We sort of had that time to be able to be like, ‘This is what’s going to happen’.

“But I’m a pretty optimistic person and I always said to myself, ‘I would have kicked myself if I never tried’, so I’d prefer to try and not to succeed, rather than never try it all and wonder what could have been.

“Don’t get me wrong that is probably sugar-coating the thing, there was definitely some challenging times in the rehab process of it all, there was lots of tears and frustrations. But I’m very lucky with the support network around me the football club as a whole was just phenomenal throughout the whole process.

“I’m so grateful for the people that I’ve met along the journey and the people that have supported and followed me along it all too. I’ll be able to look back hopefully and be really proud of my journey, it’s probably just a little bit raw, I suppose, at the moment sometimes.”

ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

To get a true appreciation of what Corbett gave up, you have to know how he got there in the first place.

Corbett never played for the GWV Rebels as a junior. He always made the last cut but found himself axed at the final hurdle.

He was a handy player for North Warrnambool Eagles in the Hampden League, so much so that he caught the attention of Werribee in the VFL.

Corbett left his job at a fruit shop in Warrnambool in 2016 and moved up to Geelong to study and play with the Bees.

However, he played just two games in his first season.

“I didn’t even play VFL seniors when I first started, I was in development league. That’s no longer a thing anymore but I played a fair bit in that, which was the best thing for me at the time to really develop my craft and understand it,” Corbett said.

“As much as we all want to go and play at a top level, I know for a fact at the time I wasn’t ready. So I definitely got a good taste the whole way through to make sure that I was ready.”

A bout of glandular fever followed in 2017 but he managed to break in for nine games to finish the VFL season, and it was then that he began to catch the attention of AFL clubs.

The marking forward burst out of the blocks in the 2018 season averaging seven marks – three contested and booting 22 goals in nine games.

But he was sidelined for the remainder of the season after a stray accidentally finger poked him in the eye and rendered him blind in that eye for three weeks.

It was still enough for him to win the Fothergill-Round-Mitchell and Gold Coast picked him via the AFL’s assistance package, which gave them pre-draft access to mature-age players.

Having advanced from the Hampden, VFL development and VFL competitions, the AFL was another thing altogether.

“It’s funny, every time you sort of take a step up, every league you feel like you’re flying,” Corbett said.

“I remember the first day I went to Gold Coast, I felt like finishing at Werribee and I was the fittest I could ever be and I rocked up and I come fifth or sixth in the time trial, and I was just like, ‘What’s going on here? I thought I was super fit’.

“So every time you go up a level you realise there is some bigger fish in that pond up ahead of you which is exciting.”

Despite his long-road to the top, he still considers himself lucky. And he implores others in his position never to give up chasing their dream.

“My story was just I probably had a bit of luck and played some really good footy at a good time, but I mean you never know how far you can take it all,” Corbett said.

“I’ve always been a perfectionistic person so I mean if I’d have gone out there and played 500 games I probably would have felt I always had more to give and all that sort of stuff.

“I’d be lying to say that I wish I didn’t play more games of football, but I’m really proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in my time. I never thought my wildest dreams I would have played VFL football when I was playing at North Warrnambool Eagles, let alone being able to go all the way to play AFL football at two clubs.”

LIFE AFTER FOOTY

Not long after his AFL retirement, Corbett was given another dose of perspective after his wife, Mikayla, lost her grandmother.

It forced them to reassess their priorities, having followed his career from the Gold Coast to Western Australia away from friends and family.

In quick time they packed up and moved back to Geelong – where Corbett had met Mikayla during his uni days at Deakin.

“I’ve been very lucky. I’ve been in the AFL system for six years, which has been fantastic, and in the same breath there’s been lots of things that I feel like I probably missed out on as far as birthdays and engagements and weddings,” Corbett said.

“Because that’s what’s required at the AFL level to make those decisions, to be able to perform your best and be your best. So we sort of got to the point where once I decided to retire from the AFL system, that we were ready to come back and be closer to our friends.

“So when we made that decision the ball got rolling. It’s challenging and tragic circumstances with the death in my wife’s family, but it allowed us to sit down and re-evaluate a few of our goals and what we value in our life and it made the decision a lot clearer to be able to come back here.”

After moving back to Geelong, a connection through his sister Georgia and his brother in law Sam saw him sign with South Barwon this week as a playing assistant coach.

He is keen to help youth and adolescence outside of footy and explore the world of coaching. Corbett will experience the latter under the tutelage of former Melbourne coach and long-time assistant Mark Neeld at South Barwon.

“I have a real passion for juniors and coaching younger people as well to be able to teach them obviously good habits with the football side of things, but also just good life skills at the same time,” Corbett said.

“I sort of did a little bit of coaching towards the end of my time at Fremantle and I’m really keen to continue to develop that.

“Football is obviously going to come first for me, I’m going to try to get back to that. But if you can’t play football, the next best thing is to be involved in the coaching department.”

Corbett is back running and can kick and jump, but hasn’t put his hip to the test in high intensity football yet and his timeline remains unclear.

But expect diligent, hardworking and passionate former AFL player to stop nothing to get back out there.

“The recovery is always going to be ongoing, a tricky ones because it’s very uncommon for someone at 28 to have a total hip replacement. So we are all learning on the go with that sort of stuff at the moment,” he said.

“There’s no real cases to call up and be like, ‘Hey mate, just wanted to know what you did with your rehab?’

“So in a way that’s kind of exciting because you are paving the way a little bit, but it can also be a bit challenging because when you hit hurdles, we kind of don’t know which way to go with this because there’s no real case studies to show that this is what you should do, or this is what you shouldn’t do in this case.

“All I know is I’m a very motivated and driven person and I’m bloody keen to get out there as soon as possible.”