Jeremy Howe insists he did not lie about frisbee accident
COLLINGWOOD forward Jeremy Howe has revealed his frustration over external doubts he had broken his finger playing frisbee, saying he did not lie about the incident.
COLLINGWOOD forward Jeremy Howe has revealed his frustration over external doubts he had broken his finger playing frisbee in February, saying he would never lie about the incident.
Speaking publicly for the first time about the controversy, the 25-year-old admitted he had been grilled by the club after it had emerged he had been playing social cricket without club permission just hours before he suffered the injury while he and his girlfriend were playing catch with their dog at Elsternwick Park.
But he said once he explained the truth to Nathan Buckley, general manager of football Neil Balme and the playing group, whom he addressed, he received their total support.
“If I had had a better story to tell, I would have told it,” Howe said.
“But that’s how it happened.”
Howe was the subject of intense scrutiny after the club revealed he had broken his finger in the lead-up to the NAB Challenge series.
Immediately after Collingwood detailed its new recruit’s mishap with the frisbee, the Herald Sun and talkback radio fielded calls from many who had seen the former Demon playing in a Twenty20 semi-final with Koonung Heights against Vermont.
There were even suggestions Howe — the cousin of former Australian wicketkeeper Matthew Wade — had hurt himself while crashing into the ground after dropping a catch.
Howe acknowledged he did the wrong thing playing cricket with a few mates without informing the club, especially as he was overcoming a hot spot in his foot, but said reports he had been injured while playing were incorrect.
“It came out that I hurt my shoulder (going for a catch), but it was fine,” he said.
“I am a poor fielder, I only go out there to have a bat, but I wasn’t injured or anything like that.”
He said he and his girlfriend had taken their British bulldog pup Boris for a walk after the cricket that night and he hurt himself when his finger was pushed back into the ground as he went to catch the frisbee.
“Boris got some serious airtime after that,” Howe said of the publicity that followed.
“My misses was down there (at the park) as well. I just felt like I had jared my finger, but I was a bit worried that it didn’t feel normal.
“I spoke to the club and then I rang (Collingwood physician) Chris Bradshaw. I was lucky enough to get the surgery done straight away, which the surgeon said went really well.”
But what he hadn’t expected was how everything would go “pear-shaped” after the reports of his cricket appearance on that same night became part of the story.
“I rang Bucks before it really exploded (publicly) and explained what had happened, and after that I spoke to the playing group as well,” Howe said.
“I had some great chats with Balmey and it wasn’t the fact that I had been playing cricket, it was that the club was unaware that I was playing, and that I still had some foot issues at the time.
“They just said people are going to second guess what happened, but you just have to put your best foot forward and get on with it (the recovery).”
Howe said he didn’t even know the name of his cricket side he played for, saying they were just a bunch of mates having a hit together.
“We were just kind of a bunch of misfits, made up of amateur golfers and mates,” he said.
“I even had my old man ring me on the day that it all came out and he said to me that he just needed to know what was going on. I just set him straight and told him what had happened.”
Howe believes Collingwood can swiftly turn around their form, starting against his old side, Melbourne.
“In the NAB Challenge you could see that we were moving the ball really well,” he said.
“We were taking the game on whereas we were probably a bit gun shy in terms of moving the ball last week.
“We were a bit stagnant and we are not defending to the standard of other teams. But we’ve worked on defence this week and we going to score coming out of defence now.
“We know how we can play, we don’t need to change how we are going about it. We just need more effort and consistently sticking to what we know.”
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