Patrick Dangerfield reveals why football clubs are forced to lie about the health of players
FOOTBALL fans want the best of both worlds. They want their club to win and they want to know everything about their players. But as PATRICK DANGERFIELD explains, clubs have no choice but to lie about certain things.
Patrick Dangerfield
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TRANSPARENCY or a competitive advantage?
That’s the question confronting fans of every AFL club when it comes to the reporting of injuries.
What do you want? And remember you can’t have both.
Do you want to know that your star player has broken ribs or be kept in the dark and watch him help your team win?
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If not revealing the injury increases your team’s chances of winning by two per cent or five per cent, are you happy with that as a supporter?
For example: If Joel Selwood has a hamstring complaint and isn’t going to play, we want to wait until the very last second to reveal that because our opposition is planning on coming up against one of the best players in the competition.
We want them wasting their time preparing for Joel while we’re obviously already organised which gives us a competitive advantage before the ball is even bounced.
There have been calls for an NFL-style daily release of information about the status of every player.
I know we’re obsessed with following almost everything from American sport but this is a practice that simply wouldn’t work in AFL.
In no other endeavour apart from sport is medical information made public.
Yet in footy we demand to know things that would otherwise stay between doctor and patient.
You can’t declare a player has a rib injury on the Monday because that places a large target on his head for opposition players.
I can guarantee you that in a pack situation an opposition player is going to hit those ribs as hard as they possibly can.
In my first year at Geelong, Shane Kersten played for seven weeks with broken ribs. No-one other than the coaches and his teammates knew about the injury.
Shane was a maligned player for most of his stint at the Cats but in many ways he was a hero to his teammates during this time.
We would be shown vision in our team meetings of him backing into packs.
When he was being criticised, we all would have loved to say, “Hang on, he’s playing with broken ribs” but if you come out and say that then he gets lined up the next week.
There is another side of the argument where being transparent is clearly better for the player and his mental health.
This needs the club and player to be on the same page and really it’s where the player development managers are crucial as they’re the ones who are the temperature check of the player.
They need to speak up and say while the coach or management might think not saying anything is in the best interests of the club, in this situation it’s not in the best interests of the player.
Joe Daniher is a perfect example of this.
He was getting criticised widely because his form wasn’t up to expectation and seemed to be carrying the can for Essendon’s poor start to the season.
Then the Bombers come clean, Joe does a press conference revealing he’d been carrying a groin injury which now needed rest.
Immediately, the heat of the situation disappears.
Dayne Beams stepping down as Brisbane captain is along similar lines.
What he did by coming out and saying he was struggling following the death of his father is more courageous than any act you will ever see on the football field.
He doesn’t fit the stereotype of someone who would speak openly about their feelings, someone who would let their guard down.
But he did and it sets an incredible example to every AFL player out there.
Players historically aren’t wired to put up their hands and ask for help or say we’re hurt.
It’s the way we are as a nation, in male and female sport we love those that don’t complain and just get on with it.
In saying that one of my pet hates is the cliche: “If you step foot across the white line then you’re 100 per cent fit.”
That is a load of rubbish and the saying has been around for too long and is still being used in local footy.
There is not one player in the AFL who is 100 per cent fit every game of the year.
My old coach in Adelaide had a great saying which has lived with me.
Early in my career I had a few different injuries and after this particular game in Geelong I had a back problem which was essentially stress fractures.
I missed one game but then declared myself ready to go the following week and told Neil Craig as much.
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“I know you’re right to play,” he said. “But are you right to perform?”
It’s so hard as a casual observer and fan to understand what some of our players go through just to get up and play, to represent the colours.
Should they know everything that’s going on? I say no.
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