Hawthorn and St Kilda great Peter Everitt recalls suffering similar injury to Will Day in 1997

Hawthorn and St Kilda great Peter Everitt knows all about collarbone injuries causing finals heartbreak, and Everitt has some news that could be hard to take for Hawks fans.

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – AUGUST 18: Will Day of the Hawks receives medical attention during the round 23 AFL match between Hawthorn Hawks and Richmond Tigers at Melbourne Cricket Ground, on August 18, 2024, in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Josh Chadwick/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)

Hawthorn and St Kilda great Peter Everitt has recalled the devastation of missing the 1997 grand final with the same injury which threatens to wipe-out Will Day’s season.

Everitt suffered a dislocation of his sternoclavicular in a Darryl White bump in the qualifying final win over Brisbane Lions and missed the 1997 Grand Final loss to Adelaide three weeks later.

Day, 23, is in a similar race against time to play in the Hawks’ cutthroat elimination final in three weeks after suffering the same sternoclavicular joint injury on Sunday.

Everitt’s injury was publicly described as a broken collarbone at the time, but the Herald Sun confirmed it was diagnosed as a sternoclavicular dislocation, a rare injury in the AFL.

Everitt planned to reach out to Day in the wake of Sunday’s blow and said the jet ballwinner, who is arguably Hawthorn’s best and most important player, faced an enormous battle to recover in time for Hawthorn’s first final, based on his own experience.

Day’s injury soured the Hawks’ latest win. (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)

“Unfortunately, it was four weeks (minimum rest). Even four or five weeks,” Everitt said.

“You need that because if you receive a good hip and shoulder in today’s footy, it would have just popped it.

“You would have been back to square one.

“I didn’t want to go into a grand final and let everyone down (if it was re-injured).

“So I would say he (Day) has got absolutely no hope (of playing in three weeks).

“I could still mark above my head (in the lead up), but there was no tackling and no big bumps (at training).”

Everitt, who was one of the best ruckmen in the game, said he saw the Day incident against Richmond and thought “straight away” it was the same injury as his.

He said there was also the chance the opposition could target Day and “go after it” in his return to the field in September.

“It is going to be tender,” Everitt said.

“I could feel the bones (where the collarbone meets the chest bone) rubbing against each other.”

The Everitt injury had a massive impact on the Saints’ premiership prospects in ‘97 as the club had already lost Lazar Vidovic in the final round of the season, meaning third-stringer Brett Cook was left to take on Crows’ superstar Shaun Rehn in the premiership decider.

Adelaide won by 31 points.

Peter Everitt suffered a similar injury in the 1997.

“I was quite young at the time and you think it will be sweet, this (Grand Final) will come around again the next year and the year after and the year after,” he said.

“But I played another 10 years and didn’t get close.

“So when you are young you don’t realise how hard it is to make a grand final and even harder to win one.”

The Hawks need to topple 17th-placed North Melbourne on Saturday in Launceston to guarantee a qualifying final berth and seal the club’s first September appearance since 2018.

It would be a remarkable rise for a club which only began its rebuild in 2021 when Sam Mitchell took over from Alastair Clarkson.

Day avoided surgery after seeing specialists.

Day will miss at least round 24. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)

Mitchell said the club would assess him closer to the finals if the Hawks made it.

“It is just about how quickly we can get it to settle down,” Mitchell said on AFL 360 on Fox Footy.

“He certainly won’t play this week and, unless we win that is going to be the end of our season, most likely anyway.

“If we happened to get further than that we would be hopeful he would be available, but we don’t have enough information just yet.”

Day’s brilliant form in the midfield has been a key part in Hawthorn’s remarkable rise, with Mitchell’s men winning 10 of their last 12 games.

The Hawks sit in seventh spot tied on 52 points with Western Bulldogs and Carlton.

‘NASTY, NASTY’ INJURY LEAVES HAWKS STAR A ‘SLIM’ CHANCE FOR FIRST FINAL

– Josh Barnes

Will Day’s chances of playing in an elimination final are slim but the “door is open” for the Hawthorn star, according to leading sport doctor Peter Larkins.

The Hawk will miss Saturday’s vital clash with North Melbourne after dislocating his collarbone where it connects with the sternum, known as the ‘SC joint’.

Day met with a second specialist on Tuesday, after first seeing one on Monday, and both have agreed he will not need surgery.

The Hawks will monitor his pain levels and maintain hope he will be available for an elimination final, if they get there.

Defender Jack Scrimshaw will be a test for the clash against the Roos after dislocating a pinky finger.

Day was immediately in pain. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AFL Photos

Running defender Changkuoth Jiath is unlikely to play as a grumbly calf that has ruled him out for the last two weeks continues to stick around.

Larkins described an injury to the SC joint as “a nasty, nasty injury”.

He said it was not unheard of in football and given the tricky location of it in the chest, surgery was generally unlikely.

But Day’s hopes of playing in an elimination final – should the Hawks qualify – appear slim given the time frame for the injury is usually at least three weeks.

The Hawks will lock in a finals appearance by beating the Roos on Saturday and if they lose they will require other results to go their way.

A Hawthorn elimination final would likely come 20 days after Day picked up the injury, when he smashed into teammate Jai Newcombe.

It took some time for the tough Hawk to leave the field. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

“It is about pain management and having strength in the arm,” Larkins said.

“They can settle down in 3-4 weeks if they are not high grade, I think the quickest ones settle down in 3-4 weeks. The slow ones, they just linger on for months and they have injections.”

While Larkins said the “door is open for him to return” within a month, Day would be unlikely to be able to tackle or lift any weights for weeks.

“I think he is facing a few weeks minimum before he can have contact or tackle,” the medico said.

Lin Jong famously strapped up the opposite shoulder and played with a broken collarbone in a VFL grand final in 2016, with opponents targeting his wrong side in a bid to inflict pain.

But the footy world is well across the fact Day’s injury has occurred to his right side.

Larkins said with SC joints, unlike the AC joint at the top of the shoulder, pain comes more from front-on hits instead of classical side-on bumping.

Hawks skipper James Sicily has been playing with a sore AC joint after dislocating his shoulder in May.

Lin Jong strapped the opposite shoulder and dominated a VFL grand final. Picture: Michael Klein

Hawks coach Sam Mitchell described Day as a “genuinely tough athlete” and the midfielder would be determined to push through pain if he could.

“I gets hurt more when it is the front one,” Larkins said.

“Clearly it is still going to be sore. They will strap it up if he does get back to playing but it is a lot harder to control that end of the collarbone than it is the AC end.”

Larkins said the worst SC joint injury he could recall happened to Adem Yze in his playing days, with Yze coincidentally coaching Richmond against Day’s Hawks on Sunday.

Yze injured a collarbone in a practice match in 2005 but played in round 1 that year, continuing an incredible streak of not missing a game that would eventually stretch to 244 appearances.